This is a story of a marriage -- of love and loss, and the afterwards. It’s also about what you can learn when you stop to talk with someone. In my case, I kept seeing Carolyn Bryant-Sarles again and again at different events -- and finally we sat down and talked. Carolyn Bryant-Sarles was both an early computer programmer (she worked on GPS!) and a musicologist. She grew up and has lived most of her life in the D.C. area, save for four years at Dickinson College in PA, and another two or so years at New York University, for a Masters -- that was a break she gave to herself after working for a computer company. She she did not want her life to be solely computers and mathematics. And this is where we begin her story:
I was in New York studying for my master’s in musicology, when I decided to join a musical group, the Columbia University’s Collegium Musicum. It was fascinating because the director was working with music manuscripts written in Medieval notation that you couldn’t read. But he’d transcribe them, and we would sing them. And he would say, “Oh, so that’s how it sounds!”
After I finished my degree, I returned to the DC area for work in computer programming which I had done before I’d left for New York. Work was easy to find in that time, and I found a job at a Naval research center. And I loved it.
I also joined a singing group. This one was with the Colonial Singers and Players. And we were going to sing at the Bicentennial, and it was to be music of that period. The director had found music of the Colonial period, and this was something new. In those years, nobody at that time was doing American music. Everything was Euro-centric or classified as folk.
Well, that’s where I met Don, and I’ll tell you the story: we were a small group – there were only three sopranos, and I was one – and we were about to perform one of our first concerts. But at the last minute a soprano called in sick. In rehearsal, however, the director was getting more and more frustrated because she was not hearing enough from the sopranos. Suddenly, from behind me, I heard Don say, “I can sing soprano.”
And he did. He normally sang tenor, but he had a phenomenal range, even up to a high G. So, the two of us sopranos sang, and he sang softly behind us. He could have blasted us out, but he didn’t. He supported us. And so, I noticed him.
We got married in 1981, and we honeymooned in Round Pond. But Don loved it so much, that Maine became the only place we vacationed. We bought our cottage here in 1994. And we retired in 1999.
With Don here, I never felt alone. We were really compatible. We took care of each other. We didn’t impinge on each other. And our basic views were very similar, and where we differed, we learned from each other.
He was an electrical engineer, like my dad, and so he would go through a very methodical reasoning process to arrive at what he thought was the right thing to do. I think that’s why he liked to take charge. He was very organized, and I was not very organized. But sometimes my way got results first, and he’d say, “It’s not fair that you came up with the right answer and didn’t go through the process.”
I thought at the time when we bought this cottage that I could never live here by myself because it’s an old house with lots of needs. But Don absolutely loved the idea. He knew how to fix things when anything went wrong. He took on re-pointing our chimney. He removed and numbered each stone and then replaced it with fresh cement.
But he also knew when we needed to call someone.
Don died very suddenly, about three years ago. For a long time after, I thought, “But I never got to say goodbye.” We had been together 41 years.
There was a five-year difference between us. When we met, he was in his forties, and I was nearing forty. Neither one of us had ever had a roommate. We had lived by ourselves independently and each of us, for quite a long time. And for each of us, it was a first marriage. We never had children, and we were fine with that.
I always thought of the two of us together as more than the sum of each of us. When he died, I didn’t realize what a shock it was to be without him. His being here and with me was just huge.
It’s a little bit of a blur after he passed. I do know that the first year or two after, nothing broke in the cottage. It’s only now that I’m needing to take care of some stuff like the squirrels that get inside. It helps that I’ve built up a list of people I can call. And I have a neighbor who worked with Don on mutual repairs like our road which is private. He’s smart and I can ask to if I’m wondering if I should call someone. I’m grateful for him.
The thing I worry most about is a power outage. Our cottage isn’t insulated, and Don was so good at figuring how to cope.
For the colder seasons, I head down to Brunswick where back in 2010, Don and I bought into a cooperative. By being in Brunswick, we were close to Waldoboro. So, I’m there for late October through most of the spring. And there are lots of people and activities there.
In Waldoboro, I’ve been managing pretty well, too. I’m proud that I’m cooking for myself. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. And it’s satisfying.
Before, Don was mostly the cook. One summer, he cooked all our meals because I was busy working on “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” a compendium that I’d worked on for years, and that dates back to the 1800s. It’s up to thirty volumes now, the premiere English language dictionary of music and musicology. I was working on the entries. I proposed a lot, too, like the Sousaphone.
Anyway, as a cook, Don had his ideas, and so he did most of the cooking. I could be too scatterbrained to meet his specifications.
But we did cook together. Sometimes we’d cook a big vat of a soup or stew and put it in the freezer. I lived off the freezer for a long time after he passed.
People say, “Why don’t you get a cat?” and I keep thinking, “It will never be as wonderful as the cat I grew up with.” Our cat liked to be in the room if our family was in the room. It liked company, but it did not want to sit in anybody’s lap. I understood that.
I am okay being alone. Still, I am working at doing things with other people, like going to activities in town, and going to all the meetings at the Dutch Neck Community Club in which I’ve been involved for years. I also go to all the potluck suppers we hold monthly. And right now, I’m the Club’s secretary.
And, I feel connected to The Waldo and Broad Bay Community Church. I go to the plays and concerts, plus all the concerts in Dutch Neck at St. Paul’s Union Chapel.
Plus, friends come to visit me. And when I go out and around town, I always see somebody I know.
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