BRAIN POWER

"I think, therefore I'm single." Liz Winton's quotation had me laughing at the possibilities that abound with the accuracy of her five words. It isn't funny really; not when it happens to you.

She said more in those five words than mountains of books have said. She hit the nail squarely on the head.

It is the rare and wonderful man who doesn't feel threatened in some way by a woman and her intelligence. If she uses a few words too long for him, he backs off, and I speak from experience

Once I met a man who knew everything, or so I thought. Why, this burly guy could push a rotary lawn mower with ease; he could lay a concrete patio alone in one afternoon; he could repair any kind of car; he could answer all kinds of questions; he read books, magazine, and myriad newspapers. I thought he knew meanings of new words he read.

When the cat was dried in the clothes dryer, he gently covered her and took her out and buried her; this demi-god did it all I thought.

As the newly married months turned into years, my mind began growing. He was still carrying his cigarettes in the fold of his white t-shirt sleeve. He still turned under his new Levi's and wore white socks with his loafers. He still flirted with all of the women "an innocent little aside", he said.

With babies come messy diapers, none of which he ever changed. He could not figure out how the safety pin could catch the front and back of the flannel diapers and not stick the baby he claimed. The fact of the matter was: he didn't think diaper changing was a "man's job." Yet, he helped make our babies.

When I was ill he was not attentive; I still had to change diapers, cook and clean.

Moans throughout the neighborhood could be heard when he felt sick with what he said was, "I think I'm getting something." He stayed in bed for a few days eating only soup and asking for 7-Up, the cure-all of his childhood. At those times I had babies to care for.

Time went by and I began writing. He seemed not to mind, although he would never read a thing I wrote.

I began extensive research for books I wanted to write; he wasn't interested.

I was a thinking wife; smart "cookie," as his envious told him friends. I wrote songs, designed clothing, sewed to my heart's content, painted windows, invented, wrote articles, drew children's books with my children, and became editor of a newspaper and a magazine.

He was still putting cigarette packs in the turned up T-shirt sleeve.

He was, last time I saw him, still with his rotary lawn mower and said, "I'll mow the lawn when and if I feel like it." He would build a patio "one of these days when I feel like it." He read only one newspaper and a trashy rag found at every supermarket counter.

He planted his butt in a recliner and watched the "Jerry Springer" ilk of television.

Liz Winston's crack, "I think. Therefore I'm single," applied to me when I was married.

I thought about all of what happened during marriage and the things I did tolerate, and should not have tolerated, and finally left.

Therefore I am single. Ten years of single.

Do I like it? I like most of it; not all. I would love to have a partner. One cannot pluck them off trees though.

Learn more about this author, Marian Huyck Grossi.
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