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Five years ago this weekend, my husband Arthur and I got married in a beautiful museum courtyard, surrounded by people we love and whom love us. It was magical.
In the four years leading up to that storybook day, though, there was some drama! As we were dating, we were apart a lot because he and I lived in different places. Both of us were sorting through a lot of uncertainty in our careers, and we had many, many long conversations about our relationship and whether it was going to all work out.
That's what this week's episode is about, when we hit our ultimate crisis point in our courtship, and the unlikely place we got exactly the help we needed.
We first put this episode out when Death, Sex & Money was just starting, but I've really loved revisiting it this week. My life is a lot different today than when we first made it, but listening now, as a married parent with two kids trying to make our way through this global pandemic, I find it comforting to hear again how Al and Ann Simpson navigated through many difficult times, disappointments, and moments of uncertainty as a couple. I hope you enjoy it too.
—Anna and the Death, Sex & Money team
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This Week on Death, Sex & Money
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You have to give it to some elected representatives—they really will respond to the letters you send. Or at least, Alan Simpson did when my boyfriend (now husband) Arthur sent a plea for help. We were in love, but I was a reporter in New York and he studied wildlife in Wyoming. I didn’t think it could work. He did. And he thought that if a U.S. Senator intervened, our relationship could turn around.
That’s how I wound up in the kitchen of Alan and Ann Simpson, getting advice on maturity, commitment, and of course, sex. Listen back to one of our very first episodes, in your feed now.
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Your Stories: An Update From Nurse Jen
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Back in March, when we asked to hear from essential workers, we shared a voice memo that we got from a surgical nurse named Jen, in Ohio. "I'm out here walking in the woods, blowing off some steam," she told us as the frogs peeped behind her. She talked about her fears as she continued to go into work, and about her desire for people to come together during the pandemic. "I'm praying for everybody....If I could wrap my arms around you I would," she said. "I'm a big hugger, and this is really putting the kibosh on my hugging."
We recently reached out to Jen, and got this update from her.
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"Things are ever-changing here at the hospital depending on the newest information. I look to my experience regarding how to handle this new landscape of hospital, home and daily living. I have always worn PPE. Always! (I have worked through many life-threatening viruses like HIV, SARS-CoV & CoV-2, Ebola, H1N1, H2N2, HPS, Rotavirus, MERS & TB to name a few.) I can remember not too long ago getting reprimanded for wearing my mask and a clean pair of gloves transporting a patient directly to the ICU after a long surgery. My defense was and still is that I protect myself and my patients.
On the home front, my elderly father-in-law lives with us, so we encourage, as we always have, good hand hygiene, covering your coughs and wearing a N95 mask in public. Our children are in in different stages of school and different requirements with both social distant learning and online courses. They miss their compadres and their freedom. And phone/computer use is probably the highest it’s ever been in our family. We are perhaps too strict at times but do NOT allow electronic devices at the dinner table and and promote regular device breaks, and insist on walks after dinner together.
Financially it’s been an incredible, incredible hardship. I am a nurse and was fortunate to work but my hours were seriously cut. My husband didn’t work at all and still had to pay his employees in order to keep them. So we blew through our entire savings. He gets down and it’s hard to watch someone who has worked so hard and feels the pressure of possibly losing our livelihood, and if this continues our home and farm.
I carve out time to walk. It is my favorite thing to just let go of the world for a minute or two. I have always been an optimist. Steeped in optimism from my father, born in 1933. He is one of 10 children and grew up living in northwest Ohio in an army tent through three winters while they built their two bedroom home from cinderblocks. No indoor plumbing! He never said it was easy growing up like that, but he always found a reason to have an attitude of gratitude.
So I will continue praying and being grateful for our health and the new things we are learning. I will continue to have common sense and healthy laughter. I will continue to be the best I can and remain positive. And when I need a break from the world and some desperate rejuvenation you’ll find me walking in the woods under dappled sunlight."
—Jen
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Listen to This: Audio We Love
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When reporter Chana Joffe-Walt was trying to figure out where to send her kids to school, she knew that public schools in this country are deeply segregated and unequal—and she had a hunch that white parents like herself were a big part of the problem. So she started reporting. A new five-part series from The New York Times and Serial Productions shares what she learned by digging into the history of a single public school in Brooklyn, and showing how the influence of “nice white parents” can change the trajectory of a school—whether they choose to send their kids there or not.
And it might seem like...forever...ago, but it was less than a year back that the fast fashion mega-chain Forever 21 declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In the latest episode of the podcast Spectacular Failures, host Lauren Ober traces the store's rise from an '80s Los Angeles clothing store opened by a couple who emigrated from Korea—to a multibillion dollar, family-run global brand that spread themselves too thin.
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"This podcast has been such a powerful resource, a window, and a comfort. I never miss an episode."
—Erin, Connecticut
Join Erin in supporting our work at Death, Sex & Money!
Donate now at deathsexmoney.org/donate.
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Are you worried about paying for housing right now?
Tell us how you're managing in an email or a voice memo.
Send it to deathsexmoney@wnyc.org.
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