No, I didn’t write a blog post yesterday, which was my 30th wedding anniversary. “Why?” you may ask. Because, my wife and I celebrated our three decades of matrimony tonight with an anniversary dinner. (Last night, I hosted an event at the library, so we didn’t have time to raise a glass to our years of endurance. Make no mistake—marriage is as much about enduring the storms as it is about making love on a Hawaiian beach.)
Sharon Olds writes about enduring love . . .
The Promise
by: Sharon Olds
holding hands on the bare table,
we are at it again, renewing our promise
to kill each other. You are drinking gin,
night-blue juniper berry
dissolving in your body, I am drinking Fumé,
chewing its fragrant dirt and smoke, we are
taking on earth, we are part soil already,
and wherever we are, we are also in our
bed, fitted, naked, closely
along each other, half passed out,
after love, drifting back
and forth across the border of consciousness,
our bodies buoyant, clasped. Your hand
tightens on the table. You’re a little afraid
I’ll chicken out. What you do not want
is to lie in a hospital bed for a year
after a stroke, without being able
to think or die, you do not want
to be tied to a chair like your prim grandmother,
cursing. The room is dim around us,
ivory globes, pink curtains
bound at the waist—and outside,
a weightless, luminous, lifted-up
summer twilight. I tell you you do not
know me if you think I will not
kill you. Think how we have floated together
eye to eye, nipple to nipple,
sex to sex, the halves of a creature
drifting up to the lip of matter
and over it—you know me from the bright, blood-
flecked delivery room, if a lion
had you in its jaws I would attack it, if the ropes
binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them.
It’s a surprising confession on Olds’ part, but one that I completely understand. Nobody wants to see someone they care about suffer. So, the speaker of the poem promises to kill her lover if a lion has him in its jaws, metaphorically speaking.
When my wife and I first started dating, I told her about my fears of growing old alone, with no one to hold my hand or put a damp cloth on my fevered forehead. Her response was this: “I’ll be there with you. We will throw handfuls of peas at each other and have wheelchair races in the hallways.”. I think that pretty much counts as a promise to kill each other.
My wife and I went to our favorite Cajun restaurant tonight for our anniversary. Our 17-year-old son came with us. She and I both ordered seafood risotto, and our son got jambalaya. (I also ordered a chocolate martini and a double gin and tonic.) For appetizers, we got hush puppies and cheese grit cakes. When the server came by to offer us dessert, we were all stuffed to the eyeballs.
I remember some things about the day we got married. It was a cold and wet. I’d traveled with a friend from Kalamazoo the day before, and autumn was in full bloom—orange and gold and crimson all the way. After the reception, Brian (my best man) drove us to our hotel. There was a basket of chocolates in the room, and a heart-shaped jacuzzi was right by the bed.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you all the intimate details. (If you want that kind of story, I check out Pornhub.) What I want to tell you is that there was a moon that night. It was waning gibbous, but still large and bright as a pearl. And I felt like the luckiest person on the planet.
A lot of things have happened since that night. Lots of waxing and waning. And our love has survived all these storms and eclipses. Thirty years’ worth. We’ve hiked volcanos. Seen lava pouring into the Pacific Ocean. Met Alec Baldwin. Saw Lily Tomlin on Broadway. Voted for the first African American President of the United States. Voted (TWICE!) against a man who wants to be the Adolf Hitler of North America. Made it through a global pandemic. Raised two wonderful kids.
But some things never change. The moon is still rolling across the heavens. The Simpsons is still on TV. And my wife and I are still in love with each other.
Saint Marty has a moon poem for you tonight, based on the following prompt from October 1 of The Daily Poet:
You may have noticed the harvest moon of September, but October with its large O looks like a moon. Write a poem about the moon using multiple O words. Words with capital O’s look even better. Make a list of some words that begin with O and go go go.
Beaver Moon
by: Martin Achatz
November’s moon belongs to
the beaver, its “O” coasting
in pond and stream water
where that furred construction
worker has slapped and dammed
a home for himself, trapped
all that looming light so that
he can go for midnight
glides through stars and comets,
become a constellation of tooth
and tail. Tonight, I’ll stand
under the bowl of heaven, ogle
the bright lunar hole above,
imagine myself coasting with
the beaver through the black
current of night, our bodies
threaded, spooled with light.
