November 20: On A Marriage

It was a love grounded in arrivals and departures and then arrivals again.
It was a relationship of discovery and great dormancy,
Of periods of joy and bleak despair, of slow growth and wild stagnation.
It would skew off course, out of kilter into such unnerving loneliness
For what seemed like centuries to both of them.
Except for their need to hold each other on occasion in a gentle embrace,
They would have been done for; finished, ended without hope of remaining together.
But it was the soft warmth of each other's bodies that helped them
Find their way back to each other time after time.

It was not natural at all. It could not be studied or replicated.
There was no name for it, nor could it be cataloged.
In many ways, it was contrary to the idealized vision
Of what a “good” marriage was, but, they found,
It was all that they had going into the new millennium
With growing children moving off and soon away to leave
Them alone to fend for themselves. It was a fearful time.
They learned that unbeknownst to either of them, they
Had grown so hopelessly intertwined, like strong knotted root,
Like the tight weaves on a complex pattern of a loom.

All of their common causes, sick children, trips to the hospital,
The onslaught of bills and job losses, all their set backs,
In their common language of sacrifice and amid all
Their fearful heartaches, it was the loss
And the endurance, and perseverance, it all acted like
Some powerful acid that melted away their superficial shells
Leaving only their sad, wounded cores remaining,
Still and at peace in the presence of one another.

They exacted politeness when speaking to each other,
And moved with reverent gestures,
Even when arguing - especially when fighting.
It is not that they stopped fighting altogether but rather
That they stopped trying to hurt each other, little by little –
Over time, until they re-taught themselves the purpose of laughter.
They always seemed to find that path back to each other
Like orienteers, compass and map in hand, with sharp
Machete chopping through the overgrowth of years of being lost.
At home, they laid out acceptance for each other,
Like a dinner placemat, as a standing invitation.

Some would think this sort of marriage a sham.
Some would argue that these were very desperate people,
Clinging to the fear of being alone by clinging to something else
But this was not true at all.
Over the years, they learned so much about being lonely.
They explored every contour of that dark terrain.
They knew it better than anyone else ever could after all these years
Of walking these trails, much more so than when they first
Were married, when they were first dating,
When their marriage was going to be the gold standard
For every marriage yet to come.

In the end, they simply learned that each other was all they had
To face the uncertainty of each moment.
It was only each other keeping them from the black night,
From the volatile shimmering of all things,
From the great tentativeness that life really is.
In the end, it was their bed of forgiveness in which
each turned to the other as a form a refuge against the day.
Like the gradual ease of darkness that gives way to light, this notion
Gradually graced each of their lives at the same instant,
Independently arriving at the realization that their
Lives were illumined by the simple fact that after
All this time together, they were able to learn once
And for all the kind of stuff of which their love was truly made