Happy Anniversary, Honey 13 comments

11 Jul 2004 @ 02:08, by Richard Carlson What does the spring wind have in mind, coming day and night to these groves and gardens? It never asks who owns the peach and damson trees but blows away their crimson without a word. ---Ch'i-Chi To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, I gave a moral life. ---William Wordsworth If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without. ---Henry Miller Our wedding day, July 11, 1982. Left to right, Dana, Richard and his parents, J. Ralph and Rhea Carlson. Twenty-two years today I believe it is. Strange day for a wedding, but a master astrologer charted July 11th as just about the only window such a peculiar combination as Dana and I were---and probably still are---were given to do it. The people who introduced us weren't sure now whether or not they'd created a monster. From what I understand, most folks who knew us both harbored doubts it would work. Some spoke their concerns aloud. Our chemistry told us differently, and we shared powerful common interests and goals. So for better or worse... Now who wants to read anything about someone else's marriage? Or marriage at all? It seems to be the stuff of novels, not essays. Does any writer really get down into the depths and details of such an intimacy? If it's written by one or the other, you have to doubt the veracity. It's either one-sided or else varnished with platitudes. If I don't write something positively miraculous about Dana here on the Internet, I may as well stop writing right now and go pack my bags. And my God, do I even want her talking to her mother about me, much less writing an essay? Especially her mother! Does she share our problems on some message board at About.com? I guess I'd rather not know. If you Google it up, don't tell me. If both people write it together, and offer advice---yuck---then good for them, but who wants to read about some perfect relationship? There's tons of stuff out there about breaking up, surviving divorce, and---yippee---shopping for the perfect soul mate. But about the intricacies of the deep cave exploration that is long-term marriage, I think a couple is pretty much on our own. We've had some rough patches during which we sought professional counsel---and spent bundles in the process (if you can call the sessions a process)---but I don't think either of us would advertise that approach as helpful to our family. Not as helpful anyway as the long time spent together, the gradual learning, the dedication and/or stubbornness. I gather marriage is a crumbling, fading institution. I know a guy who's been living with a lady for a few years, and he would marry her but she's against it. He tells me both her parents had one disaster after another in their series of marriages, and she was driven crazy by it all. She prefers the ongoing of day-to-day, and he has come to accept that as better than nothing. At our own wedding, we had Dana's father, an ordained Lutheran minister at the time, give the sermon or whatever it is---and he preached of the doubtful substance of the institution of marriage. Most of what I read about marriage gives statistics on how more and more people---of all sexual and living-together persuasions---prefer not to bother with it...as long as insurance and retirement benefits are starting to kick in here in the States. What does that say about commitment and promise? I'm not going to preach, I'm just wondering. Are there no guarantees in life? There's a movie out currently called "The Notebook." Almost anything I would say about it in this context might ruin it for you, so I'll be very careful. I suppose it's a tear-jerker, and certainly the people around me were sobbing audibly---and all of us laughing together when the lights came up interestingly. It had been good to cry and we smiled with the relief. The film is very popular, and the word-of-mouth while we were doing our play for 3 weeks was stronger about "The Notebook" than any of the other summer flicks doing so well right now. The movie is about love and dedication and faithfulness to another person at, as the story goes along, increasingly impossible odds. It's an old-time 1930s and '40s love story---and people are really interested in it. It's about getting married---and staying that way. An anniversary is about marriage vows and a chance to review and maybe celebrate how we're doing. In the light of that promise, it's an opportunity for Dana to bake me an ecstatically delicious peach/rhubarb pie, or for me to find her a piece of artwork at Starbrick Gallery. Do those vows of love guarantee I will stay by my wife until I turn to dust? I think they do and I believe the realization of 22 years means something important to Dana and me. It's a guarantee, and a chance for us to imitate true love---or better, live out our faith that God's love too is forever and abiding.

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