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Monday May 22, 2000
"The only real argument for marriage is that it remains the best method for getting acquainted." Heywood Broun, quoted in Wits End, ed. R. Drennan, 1968
tune in red and green
wedding in the backyard |
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anniversary I've been married about two thirds of my adult life. I've been married for all of my real adulthood, in a way, as I think I was slow to mature emotionally and physically and every other way. (I'm hoping this promises a slowness in growing old, too.) Our anniversary is a work day, though. So it begins like most others. Out of bed, make the bed. Forrest brings me coffee while I'm doing the shower, blow dry hair, etc. routine. He reads the paper and points out an article about the old airport and a friend's company. It's a good way to begin, though. A normal day in our happy home. We get along amazingly well. Sure, there is compromise on both sides. A willingness to give. We can be happy just the two of us, alone. For hours on end. Talking or not. We agree on so many things. Where we don't agree we give. Having no kids and enough money and agreement about money makes it a snap, I guess. But still, people struggle. People luckier than us. With more resources. So I'm thankful today for happiness and all the good things I have. Work depresses me. I can't get as stuck into all the things I need to do as I need to be. It's always hard coming back to work even if you were away, working. A discussion with a manager who needs advice is also a little depressing. I used to think I had all the answers. Now other people do. It was never true. I stay calmer in the face of life's confusion now. That's the only good part. I leave work exactly on time. I'm really ready to escape all the things I haven't done or haven't done as well as I would have liked. But it's our anniversary! So I turn off thoughts of work (I can do that now). Two years ago this month (May 2) our friends Deb and Sam got married in our back yard. We said we should celebrate every May. This year we did. Forrest got some takeout from Peony. The staples: mushu pork, Buddha's delight, General Tsao's chicken. I iced some champagne and we picked out a Burgundy. Deb bought an Italian Cream Cake. (Twenty four years ago, our friend Leslie made an Italian Cream Cake for us.) We dine and toast. The champagne (actually a California Roderer) is the one I served at their wedding. (The wine was my gift to them.) We tour the backyard a bit. It is nostalgic for them but the mosquitoes are biting. (On their wedding night we held them at bay with a large dose of YardGuard.) To please Forrest, we watch 'Ally McBeal.' I'm not a fan but he is so I kind of remember the characters. Deb says she watches 'Star Trek' with Sam. Those are the easy compromises of marriage. And our twenty-fifth year begins.
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