Keeping Marriage From Losing Its Luster

As the jeweler passed my engagement and wedding ring back in a small plastic bag, I could not stop staring at the brilliance of the gems that had been filmed with neglect and time.  

I had not always taken them for granted.

The moonlit night after Randy knelt on the rocky shores of Dale Hollow Lake and asked me to become his wife, I could not sleep. Instead, I kept staring down at the diamond gleaming on my white pillowcase and twirling the loose band around my finger—excited and fearful all at the same time.

After I returned to college – leaving that world of firelight and promise behind -- I took the diamond off to wash my hands; I took it off to play ultimate Frisbee or stunt during practice; I paused while typing English essays and watched the diamonds gleam in the fading light streaming in through my dorm’s oblong window, thinking of him and all that the two of us would become, and then breathed hard on the stones and polished them on my jeans.

As years passed, however, I was not so careful. I kept my rings on to wash the supper dishes and to shower, body wash caking beneath the diamonds, dulling the shine. I kept the diamonds on as I stocked shelves in our store, as I scrubbed toilets, as I mashed ground turkey with spinach and Italian breadcrumbs.

Life came in and dulled the shine until the gems were not something to be admired but just an extension of who I was.

Then the woman passed the rings back to me as lustrous as the day I first received them, and as I admired their brilliance anew, I was struck with the thought that I had allowed the brilliance of my marriage to also become filmed with neglect.

Over time, life had come in and dulled the shine of our union until it was not something I admired but just an extension of who I was. I had begun to take our marriage for granted. I had begun to take him for granted. Not in large, meaningful ways, but I had stopped doing the little things – when he was off building our house I would write a note on a paper napkin and tuck it in with his lunch; now I barely even packed his lunch -- while expecting the little things in return.

And then just the two of us packed one overnight bag with hiking boots and books and a bottle of peach wine. We took our time exploring the grounds of the farmhouse inn tucked between mountain and lake and found ourselves flirting, laughing, until our lungs stitched to our sides; we took pictures and savored meals cooked by other hands while looking in each other’s eyes and toasting to us.

The next afternoon as we drove out the mist-laden road, I felt rested in a way that went beyond just sleep, for I knew that whenever life’s obligations threatened to dull our marriage’s brilliance again, all we had to do was stop and take a moment to stare down at the facets that had brought us together, breathe hard, and polish the gems so that they could renew their shine.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

How do you keep your closest relationships from losing their luster?

Image Source: http://www.joshgruetzmacher.com/blog/lauren-and-jake-santa-cruz-engagement-photos/

Publishing Wisdom From a Whippersnapper

(Celebrating my birthday at a B&B with my husband, so I uploaded this vlog instead.)

The Hourglass of Time

One o’clock in the morning and even in sleep my daughter hiccupped from the magnitude of her eleven o’clock cries. I nestled her closer – her feet pressing into my stomach like tiny hot stones, her dimpled hands clutching the straps of my nightgown – and repositioned my elbow to accommodate her sweat-soaked head. By the TV-like glow of the baby monitor on the nightstand, I glanced across the bed to my husband and saw that he was watching her, watching us. My eyes filled with tears as he smiled with the relief that I felt, and as I leaned down to softly kiss our daughter, I again wished that for but a moment I could cup the sand slipping through the hourglass of time.

I suppose it is part of my poetic nature to yearn to capture the ephemeral in tangible form, so that when my daughter is grown and gone I can look back and recall the anchor of her head on my collarbone as she turned and huffed sleepy breath against my cheek; her widened hazel eyes as she toppled from her belly to her back for the first time; the aria of her soprano laughter as her father zoomed her around the kitchen, an overgrown hummingbird with a delighted grin and grasping hands.

But even before Adelaide’s birth, I have been mildly obsessed with the hourglass of time. That was why I kept diaries with gold-tipped pages and elfin locks and daily entries with numerical codes that I soon forgot how to crack, and then fat journals with spiral bindings that I filled with true stories that one day I hoped to turn – just like my role model Anne with an ‘e’ -- into a book called Jolina of Coldstream; why I climbed onto the roof outside my lavender bedroom and wrote bad poetry in the rain because it just felt right. It is why I pounded the podium in front of my high school and said, “We must make memories!”

Now my journal has become this digital notebook where I reveal my life on the bounds of an HTML page, and throughout the week I try to capture the moments that I loved best: walking down our lane with the rays of the setting sun like a warm hand on my back; my skirt casting swishing shadows across the piebald lane; the straight white trunks of the birch against the backdrop of the summer washed green; the caw of the crows that dive bomb a screeching hawk that spreads its wings and hovers on a current of air so high I will never be able to breathe or touch.

I imagine when I am eighty I will still yearn to capture how light flits through a windowpane and covers my knotted, parchment-skinned hands in gentle watercolor light, and then – then I hope that I will use those hands to pick up a pen or shakily strike keys, so that when I am gone, someone will be able to see the beauty in this world that for but a moment I held before the grains slipped through my arthritic fingers and I too left the hourglass of life behind.

How do you also strive to capture the ephemeral in tangible form?

Stopping Laundry Folding on a Rainy Afternoon (parody of Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)

Whose sock this is I think I know.
Its mate has a hole worn through the toe;
He will not see me stop folding here
To carry his sock to trashbin and throw.

My little girl must think it strange
To stop without a pile arranged.
Between the t-shirts and underwear
The rainiest afternoon of the year.

She gives her teething rattle a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of dryer cycle and Downy sheet.

The laundry is warm, white and deep,
But I have multitasks to keep,
And socks to fold before I sleep,
And socks to fold before I sleep.


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.