I moved to the East Coast to be nearer my children. I moved back to Chicago to be closer to me.

I moved to the East Coast to be nearer my children. I moved back to Chicago to be closer to me.

If you took bets on how long I would last in PTOWN, and selected one month, you win! Mazel Tov!

But if you’re envisioning a contrite 85-year-old, and two offspring shedding tears, you’d be way off.

The three of us had a marvelous time engaging in heartfelt talks, admitting our foibles, and sharing hugs that will keep us entwined and besotted no matter where we live.

First, the positives of life in an LGBTGQ-friendly artists’ colony on Cape Cod: the sunrises are gorgeous! The population the friendliest I’ve ever encountered. And the beach kissing an ocean is a most marvelous romp for my dog Doris and her visiting canines, Sheldon and Moose.

The difficulties, which I won’t paint as negative because the effects are particular to me: my age, and my anxiety level. But if you don’t have my conditions, you would think you had died and gone to paradise. Especially if you are a member of the six initials noted above.

Where other towns and cities may turn their backs on those who do not fit the gender norm they worshipped since Sunday school, PTOWN adores and celebrates the lifestyle. Same sex couples walking together along the commercial strip of town don’t win a second glance. Nonbinary and Transgender folks stroll happily confident of their pride and safety. Perhaps me, with nary an elderly gal at my side, draws more queries and looks. But again, the folks here are so very nice!

One primary challenge is the need for a car to get around. I relinquished my drivers license some 14 years back and never regrated. That wise Elaine, not the blunder who stirred the pot until the stew boiled over, had wisely rented an apartment a few feet from public transportation.

While taxis and Uber are readily available in PTOWN, and Doris and I never had a problem calling for one, a $26 round-trip to a hardware store warned me of budgetary trouble ahead.

My second trial was facing PTOWN’s ferocious ocean waves. As if payment for the stunning sunrises, the ocean occasionally became jealous. angry. Facing the possibility of blackouts and slippery walks added to my accustomed anxiety.

Doris, my 6-year-old rescue, had mixed feelings about this new scene. She was in rapture on the beach outside our dwelling, where she chased and was chased by other PTOWN dogs. But walking along the narrow sidewalks, where one exposes fur and flesh to passing cars, was terrifying for both pet and person. When she balked, pressing her 35 pounds to the cobbled walk, and remained as immovable as a statue, I had to surrender and turn back.

Once I made the decision to return to Chicago, I have had to face guilt and embarrassment. My children have attempted to wipe away my remorse. They are as supportive as a boxing match’s corner man. “You did nothing wrong,” they insist. They hug me. Applaud my courage for attempting my moon shot. Promise to visit more in Chicago. Think I’m amazing.

 Yet part of me believes they are stifling another reaction: relief. Joey had assigned two people to watch over me when she was out of town. Both have become dear friends who will remain so from afar. Faith watched my every step during their visit to PTOWN. “How I’ve lived this long without your surveillance is a miracle,” I would say, a bit cheeky.

To find refuge and familiarity, I am returning to the high-rise I left in Chicago’s River North neighborhood. Not the one-bedroom I departed as casually as a gourmand moving a plain bagel from her plate, but to a more affordable studio apartment.

Along with embarrassment, I must eat my words. And it is a meal packed with stomach-turning ingredients. To bolster my reason for my cross-country move, I disparaged my former neighborhood. Busy streets make crossing with tail-tucked dog a challenge, I tossed.

And I protested young neighbors who, upon entering the elevator, dodged a Good Morning and instead buried brows in palm-nested iPhones.

Further, to justify my relocation to a scenic village, I complained about daredevil pilots of electric scooters and bicycles. I will nosh on those complaints, too.

To balance my contrite and restore my once-healthy body, I’ll renew membership in my nearby health club. I prize its indoor swimming pool that enabled my thrice-weekly practice of the hard-won exercise learned at age 80.

And if you’re wondering what became of my deceased husband’s ashes, that I had contemplated scattering in the ocean, they’re back home with me. Untouched.

My late husband will be joining me on my move to Provincetown, MA.

My late husband will be joining me on my move to Provincetown, MA.

Michael is 6’ 2”, young and agile, so he didn’t have to use the stepstool I offered to reach the top shelf in the bedroom of my apartment. “Got it,” he said as he cradled the box, tender as if rescuing a cat from the limbs of a tall tree.

“Careful,” I said. “I’m not sure the box is well sealed.”

I had asked my friend Michael for help because I was organizing the contents of my Chicago apartment for a move to Provincetown, MA. Both of my children live in the state and asked me – at my age of 85 -- to consider moving their way. PTOWN lured because it’s a diverse artist’s colony, and I imagined myself hobnobbing with writers, painters, and creative types like my own nonbinary offspring. And since one of them had a home there, with an extra bedroom and ocean view, it upstaged Boston.

My second husband’s ashes have rested in the UPS box in six different places I have lived since his death in 2012. These were the remains of his remains. His golfing buddies took a cupful and scattered them at Chicago’s Jackson Park club.

And without revealing to the owners who purchased our home after Tommy died in hospice, I sprinkled another cupful in the backyard.

Michael walked slowly to the kitchen, then placed it on the kitchen counter. Now that I replay that scene in my head, I wish we could have added music. Perhaps Johnny Hartman singing In This World of Ordinary People, I’m Glad There is You. That was the song a tape recorder played January 13, 1998, as my children walked Tommy down the aisle.in the wedding chapel of Treasure Island at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas

Fortunately, the box had survived its various travels, but alas, the contents had not. Upon unsealing, we discovered a layer of grey dust covering the floral cardboard box, as well as all the other packed mementos.

Along with Tommy’s ashes, I had stowed his wallet, which on its own, opened to our wedding photo. Although hazy with its covering, there was no mistaking our happiness. Me, age 60, Tommy 63, a second marriage for both, we had won the lottery.

His headphones, that he wore regularly on his runs along the lakeshore’s park, and his watch halted after being admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, were grey now, mourning their absent owner.

While I can’t remember placing these items there, I was pleased to see them again, but dismayed at their somber condition.

“Hand me a paper towel,” Michael said. He was a physician preparing to conduct major surgery. “No worries, I had to do this with my mother’s ashes,” he said.

As he lifted each item, I provided their biographies. “I tried to get Tommy to replace his wallet,” I said. “But Tommy had owned it for 20 years and didn’t see any reason to abandon it.”

But it wasn’t only sentiment that prevented Tommy from upgrading the wallet. Before we met and married, he had been living a simple life, and never saw a need to match his wealthier new wife’s stuff.

After Michael had finished wiping each item in the box, I stopped him from resealing. “I want to add these,” I said.

As if I were placing it around the neck of a winner, I nestled a ribbon Tommy had won in a marathon. His wedding ring joined in, too. These newcomers told stories about their owner.

Although diagnosed with Frontal Temporal Degeneration three years before he died, Tommy continued to work out at our neighborhood YMCA. Three times a week, he lifted weights, and jogged on a treadmill. There were no longer marathons, but he needed to be a strongman until his last breath. The ribbon confirmed that.

His gold wedding ring, which matched mine, that we had brought for $25 each at Service Merchandise, now rested on a gold chain. It had been too large for my finger, so the chain caring for it sufficed until both slipped off my neck in a swimming pool. Now it would be reunited with the groom.

“Do you think I should scatter Tommy’s ashes in the Atlantic?” I asked Michael. Although swimming wasn’t one of my spouse’s regular activities, I thought he might appreciate the grandeur of the scene.

“Why don’t you wait until you get to PTOWN,” Michael said. “Maybe you’ll decide to let it rest in peace with all his belongs? Maybe you’ll find another tall shelf where Tommy will be undisturbed.”

I thought about that. What would Tommy want?

 “Good idea,” I said. “I could think of him still watching over me. But now he’s spiffy, cleaned up, refreshed for our new experience. With his remains still here, instead of scattered in the ocean, I can imagine him running along the shoreline, waving to me. Happy we’re still together.”

After Michael left, I sat down in my armchair, rested my legs on the ottoman, and closed my eyes. Then, conjuring up once again our Las Vegas wedding, I recited aloud: I take thee Tommy as my lawful wedded spouse, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, in sickness and health, to love and cherish until death do us part”. 

In my mind’s eye, though, I drew a strike line through the last four words, and replaced them with “forever.”

Wc: 916