FORTY YEARS

If I were to draw forty years, it would not be a straight line. Imagining doing so, my pencil falls off the page and wanders to the edges of a dark wilderness with tiny embers of glimmering light shining through and between thick branches that are beautiful to look at but often prickly to the touch.

 At first, my page is empty with possibilities like a womb or a room in another home we have moved to, now twenty-three times. And then, like babies and side tables the words begin moving in and finding their place nesting into white space and blank canvas. 

Words like DESTINY, and FOREVER come easy and pure. And then words like DISAPPOINTMENT, and FRUSTRATION hide themselves in the tiniest point size possible even though the feelings are as large as boulders crushing the pen.

 If I calculate correctly there are twenty-one million minutes held between the span of “I Do” and this Sunday. I close my eyes and lie very still as the lake waters endlessly move about and try as I might to read the pages, the chapters, the volumes of  my life, my mind darts from one incomplete image to another, my memory playing hide and seek.

But then my heart remembers.

What my heart remembers cannot be pressed into letters but bursts like colors of summer, ice cream, grass, fireflies.

What my heart remembers is fluid like liquid and as refreshing as a drink of water.

Twenty-one million minutes to get it right and in so many ways I have failed us. 

“I am sorry, Husband, that the depth of what I feel when the earth is weeping makes me sad even during great moments of happiness.” There are, too often, distractions that seem so important yet hold meaning as fleeting as sparrows.

This is how life works. I am challenged enough to be present for myself let alone completely attentive to another—timing is sometimes an awkward tango, the beautiful notes played between stepping on each other’s feet. And here is the set-up, the irony of shared spaces and lives—when I am away from his touch I long to go back, reverse what has been missed, left behind, undervalued.

The disappointments wedged between “Good Morning, Darling,” and turning out the light are of our own making and yet, as hard as we try, our imperfection could never eclipse, could never malign the faultless framework of an obvious, undeniable destiny.

To be certain of a life’s plan, scripted by the Writer of all stories, brings the kind of peace that I find when I am brave enough, open enough to look straight into those infinite blue eyes. No matter the test, the hardship, the regression, there is an otherworldly confidence born of a lifelong willingness to say, “I Do,” again and again.

Twenty-one million minutes. I hold up my arms and allow the invisible molecules of all that surrounds me to dance on my hands.

Love is a cyclone of pieces and particles…laughter echoing, anger releasing, children calling, adventures beckoning, time fleeting. And I am swept up in it like worship.

A FEW INSIGHTS ON MARRIAGE FROM RON: I asked. Here are his unedited answers. 

Why do you think we have lasted forty years? 
Breadcrumbs. I think we fell so deeply in love that there is this  overarching belief that we can always find our way back.
 
What’s your favorite memory of us? 
You were  standing in the doorway. We were getting ready to go to the beach and you had beach towels piled up in your arms with this giant smile on your face. A joyful snapshot of forty years of our lives.
 
Love is?
The perfection of Islandia, the adventure of Dune, the tragedy of The Winter of Our Discontent, the possibility of The Discoverers. 

What do you find to be the most challenging thing about our relationship?
My inability to convey my feelings.

What is the most exasperating thing about me?
Your misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what I say or do. I always say, “Hear my heart."

What do you love about us?
Oh, so much. So  many things. I think about our life in seasons: Our first season of love and romance and total abandonment of the world while we relied solely on each other. The second, the three stages of pregnancy…getting  you pregnant, watching you pregnant, discovering ourselves as parents. The third, seeing our marriage as a spiritual journey in relationship to  others who sought to experience Christianity through fellowship with  those who hungered for something more.

What do you hope the future brings?
That we go back to the first season [see above] and use it, like then, to make us fearless about the adventure ahead.