Winter Wedding

We wanted to get married right away.

Nearly eleven years ago, I was proposed to in a not-so-conventional way and I, of course, said yes. That was Labor Day weekend, or thereabouts, and our joy the next day was somewhat circumvented by the tragic news of Princess Diana's death.

We were young, we were hormonal, we were invincible, and we wanted to get married very soon. I knew that we couldn't afford a decent wedding, and I never thought my parents would pay for one, so we planned to elope on Sweetest Day of 1997.

Fast forward to November of 1997, and we were still not married. Our humble elopement plans had been cut short by my dad, and a 'real' wedding was being planned. My dad had astounded me by offering to pay for the event, and I actually thought that I would have some say in what went on for it. Ha.

Since the wedding was intended for family to see us off, see us married in a proper manner, we figured that it would be nice to wait until June or July, get married outside under a canopy. Rent a dance floor, have a barbeque, light some candles- oh, never mind. Dad suddenly got the idea in his head that Michael and I should get married very soon and run down to Florida for a 'working honeymoon'. There was a little startup Renaissance Faire, you see, just north of Miami, and we could operate it on the weekends and honeymoon during the week. In a tent. That was just so utterly brilliant.

I really don't know why I fell for his plans so often, but I did, once again. Michael is the most laid-back guy I've ever known, and he went along with it. My church, the one that I had served at in various capacities for several years, refused to marry us. Somehow we wound up having the nuptials and the reception in the ultra-classy Wexford County Civic Center. Some dear soul pinned a backdrop up on the bleachers so that we could have nice photos. My almost-mother-in-law cooked, sewed, decorated, and planned frantically to meet the late January deadline. Trying to make the best of the situation, as always, I asked my photographer if he would take a photo of me, in my white dress, outisde in the white snow. He said sure but never did.

So we got married in the dead of winter. On a multi-use basketball court. In the same room where I had ogled first-place ribbons on 'Agriculture Entries' for the better part of my childhood. We got married in a place that my daughter recognized as the 'Circus Place(!)' from our wedding photos. Because of my dad's business 'need'. The Ren Faire turned out to be a flop, we earned a fraction of what we were promised, and we returned to Cadillac jaded, resentful, and in debt. Somewhere along the line, I picked up pneumonia again, as well. It may have had something to do with sleeping in a tent during tornado season, I'm not sure.

We've stuck it out for over ten years. Our beginnings- if anything,- strengthened us, unified us. Every year, when our anniversary rolls around in an ugly and frigid month, and I'm too poor to holiday on a beach somewhere far away, I resent the forced winter date just a tiny bit. But then I look up at the sky and I see pure white crystals falling softly and gently to the earth- ever so quiet. They sparkle like the beads on my dress, like my eyes did when I marched so resolutely down that aisle. There is a cleanliness and purity about the snow in that dead of winter that somehow relates now to that beginning- two innocent kids so sure of themselves and so in love.

Its bridal season now, and we've been busy at work making wedding bands and sizing rings bought elsewhere. All of these fresh faces will have their summer wedding to revel in, their anniversary always in pleasant weather (unless they move to New Zealand) their fresh flowers actually in season. I no longer envy them. My wedding was as oddball and out-of-place as Michael and I are, and it really was perfect.

And they all lived happily ever after.

To Test Drive- Or Not!

"Waiting for marriage!" People snort derisively, "Wouldn't buy a car without test driving it first, would ya?!?"

I have heard this often over the years, and never really had an answer ready. I would merely shrug, happy in my own choices and standards.

I waited until marriage, and so did my husband, Michael. We are the blessed in the fact that we have a wonderful marriage, love life, and ongoing relationship. We didn't have a 'test drive' first in the sense of sleeping together- a few kisses were enough to let us know that we were passionately compatible!

And this morning, after ten and one half glorious years of marriage, the answer came to me in the shadows of pre-dawn- we didn't even need a test drive.

Sure, if you're going to the car lot to buy a used Saturn station wagon you may want to find out what you are getting. But if you have a Father, a really cool dad for whom money is not an object, you may have a different situation.

Imagine waking up one morning and looking out your bedroom window. Sitting in the driveway is a neon blue Ferrari Tessarosa. With your name on it. All yours, free and clear.

Are you going to whine about a test drive?? No! You're going to run out the door, barely remembering to thank your Dad, grab the keys, and start that baby up! It's been lovingly custom made, months of work and engineering and painting and tiny details, all for you. It's been handpicked by Someone who knows you the best, and although it will require maintenance, it is free. And yours. Forever.

When I bought my first car, I saved and worked and saved and worked. I walked into Weidner Motors one cloudy afternoon and plunked down $3,500 of my own sweat-stained money for a Ford Taurus station wagon. It was a great car, but within a few years I had outgrown my need for it. I sold it to a lovely Mexican lady in Tucson, and moments later had to chase her through the mall parking lot when I remembered my U2 tape was still in the deck! I have a few photos of that car, and some fond memories, but it was just a phase in my life.

When Michael entered my life, it was like finding that perfect match. His ragged edges fit my ragged edges and we completed each other. We didn't need to experiment to know that we were right for each other- we knew that we had been hand-picked by Someone who loved and knew us more than we ourselves knew us!

Our marriage has required maintenance- regular fill-ups of encouragement, costly date nights, inexpensive date nights, teary 'discussions' about everything from finances to why he can't seem to remember that I hate yellow roses, and the occasional spontaneous burst of love in a letter or song.

Unlike that Taurus wagon, I haven't outgrown my need for Michael. I still curl to his back at night, until my body heat spikes and the comforter becomes a raging inferno (anybody else have this problem? I need an ice-pack nightgown). Somehow, in the early morning gloaming, when the house is cooler and the blankets have made their way almost to the bathroom, our hands find each others and, mid-sleep, we once again snuggle together as tightly as we can fit. I have my heavenly Father to thank for the perfect match, the ultimate, custom-made mate that I will never need to upgrade or replace.

And I don't think he'll depreciate, either.

Decade

The dress I married in rests in a cedar chest at the foot of our bed. It is there as a reminder of our beginnings, but we seldom think about it as go about our daily lives.

Ten years ago. Well, ten years and a few months now, as I meant to do this post sooner.

We were young, so very young. People told us we had no idea what we were getting into- and really, we didn't. But we knew that we loved each other, and we knew that we could make it work.

And we always have.

Of course there have been bumps in the road- I would be dishonest to say it's all been delightful! But constant smooth sailing would be boring now, wouldn't it?

Three children, a dozen moves, and a mountain of debt later and here we are, still in love, and still fairly young! By the time we are 40, we will have 20 years of marriage under our belts and our kids will be able to fend for themselves. We can take that trip to Scotland that we always dreamed of, travel and explore and have some more adventures.

I don't know when we'll ever get to build our dream house together, the off-the-grid straw bale house with gardens on the roof that we've dreamed of for years. But somehow I feel that because we both hold the dream so dear that it will happen- even if its not until we're older. And then we'll have the garden and the observatory and the pair of mastiffs to walk with and the cat curled up in the window seat and an endless supply of tea and beer.

But until then we have daily adventures. I cook and he puts the leftovers away. I do laundry and he takes out the trash. I do all the grocery shopping and he deals with anything stinky or eight-legged. I pay bills and he structures a budget. I fall asleep early from sheer exhaustion and he tucks the children in and reads another chapter of Narnia to them.

We have a working relationship, we have a loving relationship, and we have a passionate relationship. He is the first one that I turn to in any trial or triumph. He is my rock, my stabilizer, my inspiration. He protects me from myself and the world, and I defend him to the death.

In our children I see us, mirrored yet made more perfect- my eyes, his eyelashes. My sharp cheekbones, his full lips. My funky feet, his unruly hair. They are so beautiful, a blend of all of our good features and none of the bad. Would to God that their personalities will follow suit.

He sleeps beside me now as I write this, peaceful as long as he is in contact with me. If I get up, moving away from him, and sit in my green chair by the window, he becomes restless and whimpers in his sleep. It is a vulnerable side of him that people do not often see.
He needs me.
I need him.
He has me.
I have him.
For another decade, for a lifetime.

Thanks for one great decade, Michael, and here's to another five.
I love you.

Worn Out.

I put my foot through my bottom sheet the other day. I wasn't even doing anything really physical, just stretching! There was this soft scritchy sound and I realized my rough heels were snagging the pillowtop.
Peeling the covers away (I needed to get up anyhow~!) I saw that there were several completely threadbare spots on my sheet. It wasn't even that long ago that I purchased them- 400 thread count queen size sheets from T.J. Maxx. You see, I was pushing Kid #2 in her baby seat... oh. Kid #2 will be seven in a few days. I guess that was a while ago...

Just now, I dried my face off on a towel and my finger went through it. Most of the towel is still pretty fluffy, but there are holes here and there, and ominous dangly strings. I sighed, remembering when I bought those. That awful shade of lavender was my favorite back then- eight years ago. I'm almost glad they're wearing out!

We drove our car off the lot- gleaming, purring, and brand spanking new. After two round trips to New York, several more to Columbus, and infinite running-around, it is starting to show its age. Things creak and groan when we drive, and there is an infernal rattle somewhere near, but not in, the glove compartment.

Things that I own are wearing out.

It happens.

When I look in the mirror, even at the tender young age of thirty, I see lines, pockmarks, puffy eyes. For the first time in my life, the skin under my chin does not spring back when I push on it. It just kind of- droops. My teeth are a mess, mostly from grinding them at night for the past twenty-five years. After three lengthy and weighty pregnancies and one car mishap, my right hip is in constant pain and my carpal tunnel is acting up again.

I am wearing out.

It happens.

Years of wear made my sheets threadbare- washing, bleaching, tossing & turning, kids jumping, wrapping around paintings while moving too often... they've seen snuggles and throw-up and passion and arguments and two children being nursed in the few moments of sleep available to a young mother. They've served their ignoble purpose, and soon they will be commissioned to my ragbag, to be replaced by something fresher and newer and probably scratchier and hopefully better fitting on my mattress (remember: T.J. Maxx)

Years of wear is making me just a little threadbare. I've also seen snuggles and throw-up and passion and arguments and nursed three children in between the few moments of sleep available to a young mother. This body has carried me across the United States a good few times, through more Renaissance Festivals than I care to remember, up a white-decked aisle, around in thousands of circles on the skating rink floor, across the Atlantic and back again, into three different maternity wards, and past countless other bodies on the face of this earth. Like my sheets, it is a bit bigger than I actually wanted, but nicer than I really thought at first. Unlike my sheets, however, it isn't going to wind up in the ragbag anytime soon. I need it for another thirty or forty years.

I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago. It was for a dear friend of many years- Carl Vincent. He was the man that you see always in the front of church: hugging, singing, loving, comforting, teaching, encouraging. He and his dear wife operated a girl's home for nearly two decades where they served as surrogate parents to many troubled young women. When they came to the Cadillac area in the nineties, my sisters and I were confused and vulnerable young girls just beginning to enter adolescence. Carl took hold of us and adopted us as his own grandchildren. We'd only had one grandpa growing up, and his broken English and alcoholism made it hard to get to know him, much less love him.
Carl became the grandpa that we had only known in stories. He and his wife lavished affection and encouragement on us, and patiently bore our teenage phases without judgment of any kind. Plenty of other kids in and around our area were their surrogate grandchildren as well, but there was always enough love to go around.
One of my sharpest memories is of him and Bertha (his wife) telling people, over and over, "We pray for you every day." I heard that so often for myself, and many others, that it almost lost meaning. Surely no one can pray for that many people, every day! People just say that, a platitude almost: "I'm praying for you."
But then one day I was invited to their humble apartment for lunch. Bertha kindly fixed a meal according to the odd dietary requirements I had at the time, and we sat and munched and chatted amiably. They took me on a tour of the apartment- tiny as it was- and I saw something that I will never forget,
"Here's our prayer list, Sarah," Carl said, pointing at a mess on the wall near their bed, "we kneel here every morning and pray over this list." I stepped closer and saw pieces of paper taped to the wall, piece on top of piece on top of piece, all taped down with that shiny clear cellophane that yellows over time. I could see the age of some of the papers from the yellow in the tape, while others were obviously newer.
Name after name was written in crabbed handwriting on those papers. I recognized many names of people that we went to church with, but many, many more were unknown to me.
"There you are!" Bertha pointed to one of the papers, her face creasing with a smile. "So now you know it's real, we really do pray for you every day!"

Carl loved unconditionally. When he sang in church, his voice cracking with genuine emotion, everyone sat up a little straighter and listened a little harder. He would hug you without abandon, in a church of otherwise rather stiff menfolk. He could speak of his love for Jesus and allow people to see the tears in his eyes, and he could hear of some stupid thing you'd done and not like you any less for it.
When he finally died this month, at age 79, he was worn out. He was eagerly awaiting his meeting with Jesus, and not afraid of death at all. Had he been given a few more years on this earth, I am positive that he would have found extra love for more stray children.
Carl gave everything that he had. While people, including me, were snug and warm in their beds every morning, he and Bertha would crawl out- dark still permeating the landscape- and bend their aging knees and pray over dozens of names. When the list grew longer, well, they just got up earlier!

That's the kind of worn out that I want to be.

Threadbare from love.

Dating Translations

Mike and I celebrated our tenth anniversary this past week. I was thinking back on all of the attributes that attracted us to each other, and how some of this personality traits now tend to be ever so grating.

For those of you who are in the process of falling in love, or may someday be, here's a handy conversion chart:
[remember, its tongue-in-cheek, a good relationship only gets better with age :)]

Guess I might have been called honest and sincere and one point...