The Marriage Box

This one is for you, my husband of eleven years, my friend of over twenty.  We spoke last night over tea and coffee, then strolled as we often do.  There's an ease with which we date and interact, now married for over a decade.  There's comfort in our nightly routine, a security in where we stand.

But in the midst of this tropical storm that is fellowship and Florida we are tempted to forget that the routine will return.  That someday we will meet each other again amongst the everyday family togetherness that characterizes Saturdays at home. In the backyard sodding new grass.  In Whole Foods choosing crisp, fresh ingredients for our evening meal.  In the park on a blanket, our kids running crazy all around.  I will meet you again in the mundane that makes a family.

In the mean-time here's a little reminder of the weekend that was anything but ordinary.  This weekend filled The Marriage Box and I've been drawing from the memories ever since.  Remember the words of the pastor on our wedding day?

Marriage is not a well from which you can draw endless joy and satisfaction.  Marriage is more like a box.  A box you must fill with happy memories when things are going well.  If you have filled your marriage box with loving words and happy memories then it will sustain you when life gets tough. 

 

Life feels strained now with 12 hour surgeries and book chapters and research articles and dictations and hours and days away from home.  But we have completed 3 months, only 9 months to go.  Upon completion of this fellowship it will be time to fill The Marriage Box again.  With Disney and RVing and picnics and parks.  With silly children and fancy dinners.  In the mean-time here are pictures from The Marriage Box.  They are the sustenance that will carry us through the coming months.

 

{Breakfast at Niki's West.  Remember the circle of life we saw there?  The older gentleman eating alone?}

 

{Walking slowly.}

 

 {Cheese and salad plates.  Warm sunshine with no agenda.}

 



 

 {On the balcony reading short stories aloud.  Bagpipes and weddings.}

{A delicious breakfast you prepared.  Only a few more hours together.}

 

{Returning home with The Marriage Box overflowing with memories.}

 

 In our eleven years together we have worked at filling The Marriage Box with weekends away as a couple and weekends away as a family.  The Marriage Box is of utmost importance but I would propose a sister view to The Marriage Box - The Marriage Tree. 

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. (St. Augustine)



 

The Marriage Box is filled during times of peace and ease.  The Marriage Tree is cultivated during times of difficulty and busyness.  Florida is the time of The Marriage Tree.  The pretty blossoms are falling from our tree and what is left is toil amongst the everyday.  But we will find, at the end of this year, the year of The Marriage Tree, that "we are one tree and not two," because while we were distracted by work and life our "roots grew towards each other underground."

 

Here's to the year of The Marriage Tree, my love.  Fitting that our backyard contains this magnificent Oak.  As we swing our children underneath its branches, let's remember the roots growing underground, ever intertwining.