nearly 20 years ago, sir os and i went to one of those semi-required church-institution picnics where people tend to be concerned with coming across well and so things feel just a tad stuffy even in the open air. i wandered off to get some more food and eventually came back to our table.
something had clearly happened in those few moments; sir os was his usual laid-back deadpan self but the rest of the group were a spectrum of unusual cheek colors and some were hiding their faces and gasping into their sodas with either shock or mirth.
what happened? i demanded but no one would quite look me in the eye, even our friends; they just continued to choke and splutter.
after a bit, sir os reached forward and pushed a plastic cup on the picnic table towards me. a kid had apparently taken a bite out of a huge grilled sausage, not liked it and disposed of it in the cup.
the effect was startling.
sir os said with his giveaway glint, ‘i just commented that it looks like someone needed a good stiff drink.’
i didn’t share the inhibitions of the rest of the table; i howled with laughter, a regular occurrence in my life with this man. he keeps me in stitches.
so, today:
this morning we slept until nearly 9:00 after a wonderful but exhausting weekend.
after a few groggy moments trying to mobilize my waking wits, i said, ‘well, let’s get up and go get a stiff drink…’ exactly as sir os flung off the quilt to share, well, hope this isn't too crass, a stiff drink. i howled, like i did all those years ago, laughing till limp and breathless.
his sense of timing is still impeccable. today, the 1st of June, is the 38th anniversary of the day that he came to pick me up at lunchtime.
he was building a house with a contractor friend; i was a setup mechanic in a motorcycle shop. neither of us smelled particularly good as it was hot and humid in our southern state and we’d already put in most of our hours for the day. i was definitely the dirtier; clothes streaked with grease and with hands that couldn’t be washed clean and had permanent dark crescents under the nails.
we ate a peanut butter sandwich in the car as we drove into the county seat and parked at the county courthouse. we went up the creaking old stairs to the county clerk’s office and asked for a marriage license. she handed the document to us, assuming we wanted to take it to the clergy person officiating at our wedding.
we shook our heads; no, we want to be legally married now.
as unlikely a pair as we must have looked, still, there was nothing but courtesy extended to us. folks doing research in the documents room were politely herded out while the clerk took us in for the ‘ceremony.’ they stood beaming at the door and applauded and congratulated us as we emerged a few minutes later. we thanked them, and went back to our jobs, not saying a word to our coworkers about our lunch break.
from our perspective, this was just the next step to get the process going on my green card and our real wedding was scheduled for several months down the road. we didn’t live together or consider ourselves really married yet; only our respective housemates knew about it.
and yet, there was a very sweet change in the air between us. this was now the countdown for the launch of our lives and all that we hoped for in our partnership. we carefully crafted vows that resonated for us (they still do). we planned our wedding ceremony to make it reflect our commitment to simplicity and working to make the world around us a more peaceful and just place.
so, this all makes me ponder a bit today. i think about the phrases that still crop up now and then, echoes from our shared past of laughter and love, reminders of our how our lives have been stitched so effectively together.
and how is it that our marriage has made it and so many of our friends and family have had their hopes crash and burn? i honestly don’t think we had any better idea of how to make a relationship work or preexisting skills than they had.
both of us carried massive liabilities; i had ptsd from early childhood abuse and neither of us had seen marriages up close that modeled what we wanted for ourselves. we are both opinionated, stubborn, determined to live by our values and commitment to service even when we disagree on what that looks like. we came from very different backgrounds, geographically, socially, educationally, religiously. neither set of parents was particularly made happy by their child’s choice.
we are so lucky. it’s worked well, for nearly four decades! can’t believe how old we suddenly are! i still love waking up with this guy. i feel myself light up when he walks into the room.
the majority of our years together we’ve lived in communities where we’ve been in the minority including 5 1/2 years in africa; this has enriched us beyond imagining (we’re both anglo and grew up in nearly totally white areas). we’ve lived in at least 7 states, red, blue and purple. we’ve supported each other in good jobs, bad jobs and done as much volunteer work as we could. we’ve lived through 6 miscarriages and finally after 10 years of bleak disappointment had two children. sadly, both have inherited my baffling genetic disease which was finally diagnosed last year. three years ago sir os was one of the 400 lucky americans a year that has a pheochromocytoma. we discovered it as it came online, just beginning to pump out the wildly excess adrenal hormones that makes a pheo frequently diagnosed in an autopsy. he probably didn’t have more than a couple of weeks left at the most. whew.
somehow, we’ve managed to avoid the traps of blame, growing contempt and disrespect that have sunk marriages around us; we’ve been in some really tough spots but have never entirely given in to mistrust—or quit covering each other’s back. when i discovered john gottman’s marriage research i was astonished at how much we’d managed to navigate by his lights of kindness and respect without conscious awareness of what we were doing. dumb luck and stubbornness.
our tiny fairy-child youngest had just turned three when we made one of our many moves. during that transition she decided she was entirely too old to use a high chair anymore but we couldn’t immediately find her older sib’s booster seat in the sea of boxes. she insisted on sitting on a full-size chair which meant that her chin was on a level with the edge of the table…and that meant that she began to stand up on the chair, point at what she wanted and demand it.
i found this entirely unacceptable. after a couple of these interruptions at dinner i said severely, ‘honey, you know that you won’t get anything you ask for while you are standing on your chair!’
she looked at me with those inscrutably dark elfin eyes and said, ‘not even love and respect?’
Yes, that is another one of the phrases we repeat with love, humor, and enjoyment…such good strong stitches keeping the quilt of our unlikely patchwork lives together.