Posts Tagged ‘anniversary’
shower spray love
As the scent of ylang-ylang dissipated in our bathroom this morning, I set the shower spray back in its place and laughed. I was remembering Jason’s and my first fight not a few weeks into our marriage.
“I just think you’re using too much,” I told him one morning as he set down the bottle of ylang-ylang shower spray.
“Babe, seriously, how expensive is this stuff?”
“That’s not the point. I just think you’re spraying too much. It’s wasteful.”
“I just don’t think it’s that big a deal.”
We went round and round about the shower spray until silence overtook our weary argument.
And now, three years later, three years into this marriage thing, I can’t help thinking about all the love we’ve laid as our foundation since then. All the times we’ve laughed together, danced alone, cried with each other, and dreamed one another’s dreams. At the same time, I also can’t help seeing all the petty fights and hearing all the words I wish I’d never said. But I suppose when it all comes down, so many of Jason’s and my disagreements are about something deeper than whatever surfacy thing gets our blood hot. It’s about our need for compromise. For communication. For humility. For love. Words we keep learning and steeping ourselves in.
Tiffs are gonna happen. We’re both gonna keep saying stupid things that frustrate one another. And as rookies at this covenant stuff, we still have decades of unfinished business where love is concerned. Because we are unfinished.
But then there’s the hour-long conversation over dirty dishes and cold chicken. There’s our out-loud laughter in the quiet library. There’s a sweet baby boy on the way, the evidence of our overflowing love. And I just can’t imagine that there’s anyone else in the world with whom I’d rather grow and learn. No one else with whom I’d rather journey and fall down and get up again. No one else with whom I’d rather fight over shower spray.
(And, for what it’s worth, Jason was right about the shower spray all along.)
Happy Anniversary, my most beloved.
1 Commentordinary day (making much)
It was an ordinary day, a Tuesday. I was working. Jason was working. And it was also the day marking our second year of marriage. Normally, I make much of these occasions. I plot out gift purchases months in advance. I craft brilliant poems, homemade cards and sweet vignettes. I buy new outfits, cook the perfect dinner, bring out the good China.
But this year, this sacred occasion slipped up on me somehow. Not that I could ever forget April 8. It’s engraved on my wedding band and on my heart. It’s my most unforgettable day, when I joined forever my every molecule of breath & spirit with my soul’s mate. It’s just that so many pressing matters, really urgent and important things, have filled up my moments (and his moments, too), and I didn’t have time for my typical above-and-beyond-ness.
And I felt guilty. Ashamed. Like I had failed at all the unwritten rules of wife-dom. (At least the rules I’d conjured up.) I felt guilty for not making much.
But then, not long after Jason surprised me with a dozen roses at the office where I spent the afternoon working, I realized that we, Jason and I, make much everyday. We give flowers – verbal flowers, emotional flowers, hug-and-kiss flowers – to each other on quiet Mondays, rainy Saturdays, and weary Wednesdays. Not just one-day-a-year flowers. We surprise each other with the gifts of presence, laughter, singing, kindness, dancing, listening, hoping, believing, dreaming, loving. And we give these gifts consistently, passionately, selflessly.
Of course, we’ll keep marking April 8, our favorite day. But even if life catches up with us and we’re pulling a last minute Hallmark stop on the way to dinner at Zola’s, it’s okay. Because there are plenty of other days when a love note gets tucked in a pocket, when a favorite chocolate bar ends up in a backpack, when a deep soul cavern is excavated and understood. Plenty of days when some flower is left on a windshield and, with it, a card with a word only the two of us know.
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