October 8: Wonderful Horror, Beautiful Ugly, 24th Wedding Anniversary

Arthur stared about him in a kind of wonderful horror.  Ranged away before them, at distances he could neither judge nor even guess at, were a series of curious suspensions, delicate traceries of metal and light hung about shadowy spherical shapes that hung in the space.

I love the phrase "wonderful horror."  It's sort of like the term "beautiful ugly" or "awful joy."  A combination of opposites used to describe something that is full of ambiguity.  It tries to embrace the entirety of what is being described, whether it's a person, place, or experience.

When you think about it, nothing can truly exist without its opposite.  How can we know what light is without experiencing darkness?  Can one tree be beautiful without another tree being ugly?  If watching the Perseid meteor showers is full of wonder, then watching an equivalent event in nature must be full of horror, like Hurricane Katrina.  You see what I mean?  Each thing is defined by its antithesis.

I am approaching my 24th wedding anniversary this coming Monday.  My wife and I have been married for almost a quarter century, but we've been together for closer to 30 years.  Those years have been full of joys and sorrows.  They've been beautiful, and they've been ugly.  We've experienced peace, and we've experienced struggle.
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This pretty much describes any marriage.  It's impossible to be with the same person for a long period of time without problems arising.  It kind of goes with the territory.  Yet, it's that foundation of love that helps couples weather the storms.  Marriages fail when one partner or the other loses sight of that love, turns away, toward something that seems exciting or dangerous or both.

One of the biggest misconceptions of marriage is that it's always midnight swims, bodies naked under a coral moon.  Sure, those things still happen.  But most of the time, marriage is cooking spam omelettes because that's all that's in the refrigerator to eat and you can't afford to order a pizza.  Marriage is built on both the extraordinary and the extraordinarily mundane.

This past summer, there has been a lot of ugly to go along with the beautiful of our marriage.  We have been struggling, but we have also had moments of joy, including our little vacation in Mackinaw City.  We walked hand-in-hand along the shores of Lake Michigan, enjoying this simple moment of physical intimacy.  It was beautiful ugly.  Or lovely sad.  Or wonderful normal.

I wouldn't wish away any of these infinitely small moments of love I've shared with my spouse over the years.

They have made Saint Marty's marriage fragile strong.