On Marriage

May your home be filled with laughter
And the embrace of a Summer day.
May you find peacefulness and beauty
challenge, satisfaction, humor and insight
healing and renewal, love and wisdom
as in a quiet heart.
May you always feel that what you have is enough.

Today is my (second) wedding anniversary. We have been married for a little over 5 years, today is the fourth anniversary of our wedding.

Had my mother not called last night to wish us a happy one (a full 18 hours before it actually was our anniversary - gotta love that date-line), I wouldn't have remembered. 10 to one husband wouldn't have either. Now we both have a heads up. My mum remembers every significant date of everyone in our family, extended family and just about every other significant family associate. I have no idea how she does it. I'm always a bit baffled when she calls me to remind me that it's Great Aunt Kathleeen's birthday (this is my Fathers maternal aunt who is about 100) or when she casually drops into conversation that it was Uncle George and Aunt Jo's wedding anniversary last week and they've probably been married for more than 40 years... It's a skill I simply wasn't born with. I clearly have a hard time remembering my own wedding anniversary.

But anyway. Last night as I went to bed last night I was pondering marriage. Americans love marriage. It's kinda the national institution. I was a bit startled when folks decided that same-sex couples shouldn't marry and more than a little irritated when laws started being passed saying they couldn't. It's not like heterosexual couples have done a bang up job of sticking to the program as it were. Young folks in Australia seem to have quit marrying. In my family, certainly very few of my generation have decided that it's a good idea. Instead they form what we call "De Facto Marriage" partnerships. Common Law marriages if you will. They buy houses and cars together, raise children together, but rarely if ever ritualize or legalize their union in the same way that marriage does. Before I got married I figured that was as good a way as any to become a family. I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about and, in fact the feminist voices in my head whispered cross things about the patriarchy and subjugating oneself to the will of one's husband and all that.

Husband proposed and I agreed to marry on my 24th birthday. His proposal was (like him) quirky. It was Thursday, we were eating pizza on a hideous orange couch which furnished our tiny Chicago apartment and watching ER. I'd been presented with a sewing machine as my birthday gift (which I was very pleased with) and at some point I pestered him for another present. He returned with a pretty ring and the question. My reply wasn't immediate, I required more information, which prolonged his agony for at least an hour, before I said yes. About 5 minutes later (not literally, but almost) I was pregnant. But not before I had recklessly purchased a lovely dress which I really looked forward to wearing on my wedding day. Our surprise pregnancy stuck a big spanner in the works of "traditional" order. The dress I bought would most definitely not work with a pregnant belly.

After several months of what felt like intense pressure (some internal, some external) not to produce a bastard grandchild I caved in and Husband and I married one Saturday morning before a tired-looking hispanic judge at the Chicago Cultural Center, with two friends of mine as witnesses, my feet swollen with +2 pitting edema. It is a beautiful building, but I was not a beautiful bride. In the few photos of that morning which exist my eyes are still red and puffy from the hours of crying I did the night before. I wore a tent like white shirt and linen maternity capris. It should be noted for the record that while I had no problem being married, and most definitely wanted to marry Husband, that morning felt nothing like a wedding. It was a legal transaction which pleased my immigration attorney to no end as it expedited her green card application on my behalf... It wasn't a horrible day though, and there were lots of good bits. The dinner we had with a few close friends at a to die for (and very expensive) steakhouse in Evanston, for example, and our Just Married decorated car thanks to my sweet girl Carrie. Those bits were lovely. I loved also my titanium wedding band. The funniest though was when , on the way home (new) Husband accidentally stepped into a puddle of newly poured wet concrete in his specially purchased Italian wedding shoes and was left with no recourse other than to run awkwardly into Chicago's famed Marshall Field's department store where he washed said concrete from his foot in their fountain. We may have broken it. Fountain's probably don't like concrete a whole lot.

The decision was taken shortly thereafter to plan and execute a simple family wedding in Australia just over a year after our son was born. This is the date which I consider my wedding anniversary.

On August 2, 2003 we were wed. Properly. Surrounded by a lot of my family and friends and a few of his who travelled from America. Even though I was still a good 50 lbs heavier than I am today I wore my dress. It was a funny, lovely, significant day, which finally left me feeling married. It was an impressively inexpensive wedding by American standards, officiated by my Uncle who is active in his Congregational Church and who was willing to acquiesce to my non-denominational-with-Pagan-leanings ceremony wishes. He was, I think, more nervous than I. The Persian carpets which had decorated my childhood homes were under our feet on the floor of the little community hall in the tiny country town where my parents live. The local Ladies Auxiliary fired up a half-dozen weber grills to roast the beef which fed our guests, and we drank lots of good Australian wine. The venue's power supply couldn't support the thousands of Christmas lights we'd strung for decoration AND the ovens in the kitchen simultaneously so we made the decision to forgo mood lighting in favor of feeding our guests. My dear friend Suzanne scandalized my aged relatives by belly dancing in full costume before my younger brother, cigar in hand started singing Frank Sinatra tunes, and teaching - if you could call it that - my (almost tee-totaling) Husband how to safely consume flaming Sambuccas... The evening ended after most everyone left, and those remaining piled into a rare sober friend's car and headed to the local pub, where we danced and drank till younger Brother was firmly but cheerfully ejected at close for standing on the pub hearth, waving his warrant card in the air (did I mention he's a police officer?) and threatening to urinate into the fireplace.

All in all a fine day: everything which our first was not.

So here we are 5 years since we were legally married, 4 since we were wed. With two boys instead of one. Still glad that we are actually married. Being married is different from simply being together, however legally bound you may be by your possessions, or your children. It's a joyful, difficult, wonderful, irritating, frustrating, rewarding, happy, human expression of love, partnership and daily reminder of a couple's journey together. It's the hardest thing I've ever done and, so far, among the very best.

I love you, Ryan.