Here Be Marriage |
A place to think about marriage. The personal essays here relate to the specific experience of the author, and are not meant to suggest, in any way, that there is a "right" or "wrong" way to get married, or that you even should get married. They are merely approaching marriage from the perspective of if you're going to do it, what questions need to be asked and answered? Why "Here Be Marriage?" It's a riff on the old "Here Be Dragons" map tag, and, in a way, marriage is the same sort of mythical thing. |
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"Marriage is the hopeful act of trying not to take someone who, by definition, has pledged to always be there and always love you, for granted."
Me.
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via www.newyorksocialdiary.com
John Updike and his wife, Martha.
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In a few minutes, Rachel and Bob are going to be pronounced husband and wife. These are excellent words, husband and wife—they lean toward each other, they exist in reference to each other, they link arms. “Wife” especially seems druidic and traditional: like “life” but with the addition of the womanly W. “Husband,” despite its traces of Saxon farming methods, makes me think most of “hatband”—and this seems right, if you imagine a conventional movie image of a man in a 1955 hat, with a nice gray hatband. Not a mobster hat, jus the hat of a good man—a husband. Boyfriends don’t wear hats.
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So I am very happy that Bob and Rachel are getting married. Bob will be a good husband, and Rachel a good wife. They are proud of each other, and this mutual pride is one of the nicest things you can sense about a couple.
"From “Wedding” by Nicholson Baker, from his collected essays The Size of Thoughts.
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Litany by Billy Collins
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.[Watch it being recited by a three year-old.]
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Notes
via www.oncewed.com
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Notes"A man should hear his woman’s complaints like warning bells, and then do his best to align his life with his truth and purpose. However, if he believes in the literal content of her complaint, he will immediately go off course, for the content reflects her present mood more than a careful observation of his tendencies over time. Her complaint should be valued as a reminder to ‘get it together,’ and perhaps as an indiciation as to how. But more often than not, the specifics of her complaint do not describe the real, underlying action or tendency that needs to be changed."David Deida
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Notes An early thought on being married.
25 days in and I don’t know if I’ve had any grand realizations or epiphanies. People are still asking me, some joking and some serious, how it’s going. What’s it like, they say, nudge nudge, wink wink. Usually I just say, it feels remarkably like not being married, and this is true to an extent in the sense that we were already well and truly married before we were married, and now we’re still just as goofy as before.
But the real answer is now I do feel something different, or I feel a same feeling with more clarity. I feel lucky. Truly lucky. Lucky because I’ve found someone who really, in every meaningful way, compliments me. It may be she compliments me in totally meaningless ways too. And I don’t think this is a requirement for either love or marriage, and I don’t think it’s something you can necessarily work towards, although if you want to have a complimentary relationship with someone you can certainly work towards it. But for all our effort and love, this is something that just sort of happened. It was an accident, a chance, a bustling of chemicals, and because that is true it means that we got very lucky.
So what does marriage feel like? It feels lucky. And that has put a stupid grin on my face all the way until now.
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via ruffledblog.com
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Notes The Wedding - First Look
When I started to break down.
Wedding certificate by my sister.
Thumprint tree by Madoka.
Cake by Little Nest.
What I lacked in talent, I made up for with sincerity.
The return of the Take That pop-up show.
First dance.
The Wong family singers.
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NotesWedding Songs that Don’t Suck #4: Book of Love - Magnetic Fields
This is a cover version by Nataly Dawn, also of Pomplamoose.
