I marched around the yard mad yesterday morning, snipping daffodils while the snow fell. Fickle New York spring, yellow waving in the cold mud, snow on my scissors. April is leaning backwards into winter, but spring is teasing. Such a flirt, she is.
My husband and I had been arguing all morning about something small and petty, stupid and forgettable. We won’t forget, though. We’ll fight about it again in a year or two, because that’s how we do it. That’s our pattern. That’s marriage. My god he’s infuriating. He finds me similarly infuriating, I’m sure.
Like every other couple in the history of the world, we fight about three things: sex, money, and kids. We don’t fight often, and usually it’s more of a debate, but it’s always sex, money, or kids. This one was about two of those things, but I can’t tell you which two because it would violate trust with the person I’m mad at. Which is tempting, given that I’m mad at him, but he’ll probably read this and there’s a long line of tomorrows, so I’ll keep details of our stupidity to myself.
Last week, we watched our 30th anniversary go by without fanfare, part of the blur of decades. We ate cabbage and pasta and raised another glass, allergic as we are to celebration. I adore him, really, and he’s my best friend, tired as that cliché is. It’s true. He’s great. And infuriating.
Marriage reminds me of that Fitzgerald quote about two opposing ideas:
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
I would change it:
The test of a marriage is the ability to hold two opposed humans in the same building at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
When people hear 30 years, they’re impressed. Like we’ve cracked a code or won a lottery, or something. But all we really did was show up every day and usually like each other. We showed up when it hurt, when we were scared, when it wasn’t any fun. When the money was tight and the food was bad. When we barely tolerated the sight of one another. Still we got up, every morning, feet on the floor and hands on task, even when heads and hearts weren’t in the game.
We didn’t show up because we’re particularly strong or special. It’s just what you do, unless the restlessness overtakes you. Even at our worst, divorce seemed too hard, harder even than showing up. We’ve both been divorced before and have some perspective. Our starter marriages failed, so we came to this with healthy skepticism. Maybe that’s the secret - a practice marriage. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I got two lovely kids out of my first one. It’s complicated. It always is.
To abuse another tedious cliché, it’s been hard work for a very long time, for both of us. What we have now - whatever peace, shorthand, teamwork, whatever success - it’s been practiced. It’s been earned.
We’ve, so far, survived four kids and a big mortgage, horrible jobs and the drone of aging bodies. We screwed up, made up, and cleaned up, over and over again. We’ve raged and stewed, steamed and curdled. We’ve both been very wrong while insisting that we were clearly right. We’ve stomped and slammed and rolled our eyes. There was inappropriate use of gestures and language. Red cards and yellow flags. But we get better at it all the time. We’re still learning.
It doesn’t help that menopause has made me want to be alone, and retirement has made him want more attention. Add a few pandemic years to the mix, and it’s an unsavory stew. Recently, I called him a “total fucking pedant" and, while that’s not very nice, it’s not untrue. He agrees (that it’s true, and also that it’s not very nice). Maybe pedantry is my kink. He loves me anyway.
There is no fairy tale, just an imperfect life with imperfect people. Two opposed ideas, every single regular, boring, infuriating day. Every day filled with the everyday that turns into 30 years and somehow feels like happiness. Like a yellow flower in the snow.
He knows me better than anyone else on earth and, also, he doesn’t really know me at all. I know him the same way. We both think we know it all and that’s enough because it’s better than anything else. He makes me laugh, he makes me dinner, he’s kind and cute, bright and infuriating. He’s my person and I can’t imagine doing any of it without him.
He just came to the door with a tattered gray lump in his hand.
“Look what the rodents did to my grill cover.”
“Would you have more coffee if I made some?”
“Maybe.”
Make the coffee. Look at the daffodils, raise a glass, enjoy the pasta.
Happy spring!
Lisa
Things to share:
The Paper Garden, Molly Peacock’s gorgeous book about Mary Delany, a late-blooming artist in the 18th century. It’s a brilliant account of art, history, love, marriage, and death. Those are Delany’s paper collage daffodils up top.
Read The Longly-Weds Know, a sly poem about marriage by Leah Furnas.
I just started Hourglass, Dani Shapiro’s memoir of marriage, and it’s already so lovely. Her first paragraph took my breath away, it is a twin to my own experience:
From my office window I see my husband on the driveway below. It’s the dead of winter, and he’s wearing nothing but a white terry-cloth bathrobe, his feet stuffed into galoshes. A gust of wind lifts the hem of the bathrobe, exposing his pale legs as he stands on a sheet of snow-covered ice. His hair is more salt than pepper. His breath makes vaporous clouds in the cold. Walls of snow are packed against the sides of the driveway, white fields spread out to the woods in the distance. The sky is chalk. A rifle rests easily on his shoulder, pointed at the northernmost corner of our roof.
In my story, the bathrobe is green and it’s the southernmost corner of the roof, but the woodpeckers are tormenting our husbands just the same. I love the way Shapiro writes, so elegant and evocative. It’s time for a reread of Still Writing, her beautiful little book about writing.
I got such a kick out of
's essay, “Marriage Requires Amnesia,” and do not understand all the silly controversy. She’s funny! Marriage is hard and weird and if we can’t laugh about it we’ll cry! I can't wait to read her book about the subject, Foreverland. Divine tedium, indeed.I found out this morning that a half dozen people in my near circle have Covid. It’s still a thing, though you’d never know it to see all the maskless revelry. Put the masks back on and get boosted, people! Duh!
omg this was so good