“You are so nice!”

In the first weeks we were at ARI, we were sitting on the deck waiting for Morning Gathering when Jeremiyah, from India, came up and said “You are so nice!” Which each of us took as a compliment, of course, but what he really meant was that we were so nice to each other.

In some ways we were an anomaly at ARI. First, we both were older long-term volunteers who did the full course of farm labor. Shoveling and bagging compost? Check. Harvesting rice? Sure. Feeding and weighing pigs? Oink. Weeding soybean fields? Yup. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. There were a few other volunteers who were about our age, but they only worked in the kitchen or the office.

But what stood out for most people was that we were a married couple. And a happily married couple at that. We always sat together at Morning Gathering and at meals. There is a mealtime routine where someone is selected to say a prayer (or have a moment of silence) before each meal. When one of us was selected, we would hold hands and say our usual mealtime prayer (which we do at home). People loved that.

We would get comments about how “sweet” we were to each other and questions about how we stayed married for thirty-five years (and counting). Someone even asked if we were newlyweds!

We say all this not to pat ourselves on the back, but because it made us realize two things. First, we were role models for many of the younger people in the community. We had been told this would be the case, but we did not realize how significant it would be. Second, and more importantly, we realized, “good on us.” It was truly lovely to get that response from the community and be reminded what we had together.

Gratitude.