(8 years)

today marks eight years of marriage for matt & i. there is so much i could write about marriage, about love, about life with another person. i will leave it to someone far better with words... to a writer that makes me think of matt. wendell berry wrote the following poem for & about his wife. i include it today for my husband, who loves me despite the fact that i am a handful.

"the wild rose" wendell berry

Sometimes hidden from me
in daily custom and in trust,
so that I live by you unaware
as by the beating of my heart,

Suddenly you flare in my sight,
a wild rose blooming at the edge
of thicket, grace and light
where yesterday was only shade,

and one again I am blessed, choosing
again what I chose before.

♥

i love this picture, even though it is so blurry and out of focus. 

this is me, with my most favorite person in the world.

(little m is my second most favorite person)

i love it because at the moment this photo was taken we were sitting with good friends, 

talking & laughing about who knows what, maybe even disagreeing, but completely at ease with each other.

today, october 12th, is our anniversary. 7 years ago we made vows to each other to love each other in the good and the hard and the in-between. so many friends and family surrounded us and promised to be a part of our community as we entered into marriage. it was a pretty amazing beginning.

this photo reminds me of the moments that i most cherish with my husband, sharing this journey of life together. our story is much longer than the past 7 years that we have been married, but i can't really remember anymore what it is like not to spend my days with him. 

i can be quite a handful, and for all of my quirks, he loves me. at the end of the day i know that my heart is his completely. (also, he is quite a handful himself, and i think most days i make him a much better person, so we are a good match.)

this has been the hardest year of my life, and yet as i think back over the year, i think our marriage has grown in depth & richness & love. 

i can't wait for another year.

i can't wait for another 40 years, until we are white-haired and wrinkly and worn, sitting next to each other, laughing.

gifted

well, it is no news flash for those of you that keep up with this blog that my life has been lame lately. i have decided that somehow i mistakenly became a resident of sucksville, and i want a passport to somewhere a little more mellow. statusquoville would be just fine with me about now.  even so, i think it is important to celebrate the good with the bad.

and one piece of good in my life is...matt. he is pretty much amazing to me, and he is a fantastic dad to little m. ah, i remember the infamous moment that in the pre-dating matt era, my friend nancy was predicting that we would end up together. in very dramatic (but i thought sincere) fashion, i replied, "matt just doesn't know how to love me." how far i was from the truth. we may be very different in a hundred ways, but often matt knows what i need more than i can articulate myself.

one example of amazing: so, not much cheers me up lately. but my husband knows that i sort of love presents. i love opening things- i swear it could be a pack of gum, but wrap it up in paper, and you've won about a million points with me. it's not really that i just like stuff, but for whatever reason i kind of love gifts. so the other day i walk into our room and on our desk there is a pile of presents. all for me. little presents all wrapped up in paper, stacked there, waiting for me to open them. in the past, in my younger, and oh so immature days (let's not get too specific on how far in the past this lack of maturity was), i probably (ok, i would have) torn through every single present in one fell swoop. actually, matt said i could if i wanted, but i am spreading them out and opening one when i am feeling bummed out or sad. the idea is to think of what hope for the future each gift represents as i open it, so i get to dream as well as consume!

all i have to say is, can you really get more fun than walking in and seeing a bunch of presents hanging out waiting for you every time you go in your bedroom? it's pretty much the best thing ever. all this talk about presents is making me think i need to open one. right now. 

october 12, 2002

"To Be One With Each Other" by George Eliot

What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen
each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
to share with each other in all gladness,
to be one with each other in the
silent unspoken memories?