Giggity Gig
One of the oldest nursery rhymes is To Market, To Market, which first appeared in print in 1805, but can trace its origins back to the “Old Countries” of Europe (in this case Italy and England), where it was heard repeated as early as 1611 and was partially recorded in 1598. Like all nursery rhymes, they are meant as songs to soothe children, so they are simple ditties that describe everyday events, in this case the rural villager heading off to market to buy a pig, a hog or a plum bun. Strangely enough, one of the other very well-known nursery rhymes (and finger/toes play song) is This Little Piggy Went to Market. It seems that taking and buying pigs at market was a very consuming (pun intended) concept in the England of several hundred years ago. This Little Piggy first appears in print in 1728, so its not quite as old, but three hundred years is not unimpressive either. And then there is The Three Little Pigs fable that made it into print in 1840, but is generally known to have been told for many years before then. It seems that pigs were a very central theme to medieval life and that parents felt that they were cute little animals that could be the subject of many nursery songs and children’s fables.
The line that has always jumped out to me and Kim in To Market, To Market is the one that goes, “home again, home again, giggity gig!” Granted, we are not children and we are not rural villagers, but we go out to market and elsewhere just like they did 425 years ago when they started singing this, and we like going home again afterwards just like they apparently did. This may seem like an inane or obvious topic for some, but we are coming to the strong realization that we like being at home more and more, despite not having any pigs here or at the local markets, unless you count cold cut ham, bacon or the occasional loin of pork. It feels very right to us to express the happy sentiment that we are home again, home again, giggity gig whenever we come home from a trip.
We cancelled our big foreign trips for this fall, first to Spain and Morocco by motorcycle and then to England, Scotland and Wales with a gaggle of friends (all of whom had various competing schedule needs that were ultimately a bit too much to manage). While I doubt little piggies would have figured into Morocco, we would have been in the home seat of the piglet nursery rhymes world had we taken that trip through Wales and other spots on those isles. Working backwards from yearend, we still have our regular December trip to NYC to celebrate the holidays with the kids (that will be four nights at the Cornell Club in Manhattan) and a roadtrip to visit our friends in Sonoma in a few weeks where we will spend two days driving up along the coast (lunching with Kim’s sister Sharon and Woo on the way), two days on the cliffs of Mendocino and two days driving back through the Central Valley back home again, home again giggity gig. We just got back from a four night sojourn to the Hudson Valley of New York to celebrate my son Tom’s wedding and despite having a wonderful time and finding the accommodations very comfortable and the family and friends great fun, both Kim and I sighed with relief upon getting back home and slipping into our own bed. There is simply no denying it, we have become homebodies.
For the better part of fifty years, we each were far more mobile both in terms of regular travel (for both business and leisure) and more mobile in terms of willingness to call home wherever we were at the moment. In my case, I had no fewer than two or three homes where I would spend time. In Kim’s case, she might take a gig with a touring company and spend eight weeks traipsing around the U.S. or elsewhere. Willie Nelson regaled being On the Road Again, and maybe that bus was his home, but I’m not sure that either Kim or I ever got to that point of wanderlust, but we were certainly not pining away for home every minute either. But things have changed for us now as we have aged. Travel has ceased to be a positive differentiator for us. We still like hearing about others’ travels, but feel little need to compete for the “where have you been lately” awards. Both Kim and I are very well-travelled. There are few places that we haven’t been and even fewer that we have a driving need to go and see or see again. We have a comfortable home and have made it even more comfortable for ourselves. We have a regular flow of visitors and our guest rooms are pretty well used. We also have lots of very nice neighbors who we have come to count as good friends. We don’t know how long we will live here and we are very realistic that we doubt (should that be hope?) that we will not die in this house since we suspect that there will come a time when we want less maintenance in our daily lives. When that happens, we think there is a condo or patio home development somewhere in San Diego County that will entice us to go down the low-maintenance, high-amenity alternative road where access to green space and things like a pool and/or a gym and clubhouse will be what we want the most.
Like many people in my generation, I tend to grimace at things like 55+ communities or assisted living and designated retirement villages that offer continuing care retirement communities (CCRC) or what gets called “life plan communities”. That all seems very logical in concept, but I doubt either Kim or I want to plan ourselves into the grave like that. I guess we are not the highest-focused planners that exist even though we like to think of ourselves that way. I don’t want to get caught flat-footed or cling to an unsustainable lifestyle like a cat to a curtain, but it just doesn’t feel very enticing to enter into what is effectively a long-term hospice process. I suppose it makes more sense if one part of a couple needs active medical attention. That way, they can stay close and still accommodate the different lifestyle capabilities each partner has or needs. The one couple I know who said they wanted that approach (one of the two has had serious medical needs in the recent past), backed away at the moment of truth, so it is not exactly an easy step for anyone to commit to that approach, it seems.
When I was younger, I encountered a man who would not travel overnight anywhere that required him to sleep anywhere other than his own bed. He was about my age now (70) at the time. He had never travelled as much as I have travelled over my life, but he had certainly taken some trips away from home along the way. I recall one time when he had to go to a city for a friend’s child’s wedding that was four hours away from where he lived. Rather than get a hotel, he chose to drive home well into the night rather than sleep anywhere other than his own bed. He was soon thereafter diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease and went from bad to worse. He died a few years later and was mostly not compos mentis until his death. I don’t think either Kim or I have Alzheimer’s, and yet, here we are, feeling less and less like traveling. But then, that’s not entirely correct. We are still willing to travel to see family and friends, but we are more and more anxious to just be at home as soon as we can. I have no idea where this all comes from, but I do know that for centuries, man has thought to dance a giggity gig when thinking about heading home.