The Anniversary of the Connection that Produced Bogs and Chop
Last week I said I would write about my partner because it is our anniversary tomorrow. 8 years married, 9 years since we ate kale on my living room floor for our first date. I’ve been sitting here for so long not writing because it gets harder to write about, as it gets more mysteriously amazing, as the years go by, because it’s nothing like I thought.
I don’t have words for the perfection of the shape of it. It’s apprehended in a flash, not fast but not verbally, in an arc, or like looking at a whole tree. Just how much a tree is a life in and of itself, but also a home for countless species, for countless relationships, which multiply, expand and contract, constantly, in waves.
Maybe something that feels new, or more deeply felt this year, is that every place where we disagree, or experience difficulty with each other — it’s clearer than ever that these places are portals to the heartwood love, every single time. Therefore they are evidence of love, from the entire cosmos. There’s this feeling that every difficult place we have in our relationship, we can trust it is for us. It is magnificently designed to help us awaken to each other, to ourselves, to life.
There’s a new sense of awe, what a miracle that this person is still here, doing all the flavors of household life, sharing life, with me. Making me tuna melts. Making me the greens with garlic and ginger. Playing the eagle game, setting up the couch fort, teaching them how to listen “with eyes and ears,” losing sleep while we work through a conflict, spending hours and days and years on figma, photoshop, all the animation applications I don’t even know the names of, showing Chop how to make gradients with markers, how to draw a 3D shape, how to talk to his sister, showing Bogs how to tidy up, how to stop hitting, how to dip the bread in the eggs before Kyle cooks the french toast.
What I’m leaving out of this list is 9 years long.
It’s a million things I probably don’t even know. But it’s so much bigger than that, the doing of the things is only one layer, the easier one to express. Maybe just a willingness to be brave and ride through, be within, so many experiences where the connection feels obscured. So many sleepless years of just doing the things to keep the kids going and growing. Having some (maybe even unconscious) faith in those experiences of distance. At this point I just marvel at the mystery that is: this person continuing to be here in this house with me. Witnessing me in alllll the moments, in this journey, in this ever-humbling thing called parenting. It feels so very rare in this optimizing-obsessed, immediate-gratification, consumer-approach-to-relationships culture we’re living in. It feels like the more time we accumulate together, the more his beautiful crystal of character is revealed in front of me, at the same time that it’s being cultivated, in this magic crucible of growth called marriage.
The biggest thing is that it’s not a given that it’s a crucible of growth. It’s not a given. It can be, and it is right now (thanks to who you are Kyle).
I spend a lot of time here writing about my experience, and my experience with my kids. Partly to respect the people in my family’s privacy, and also because it’s trying to stay within what feels true for me and not him or others. But every once in a while I need to put this gratitude here in this space because the truth is an individual can only be so while at once also a branch on this earth tree. Or leaf to put it more accurately. Or cell. My marriage is an enactment of this truth (only ever in the present moment), because of the sustained presence of this person! Therefore every single thing that I offer that is of any use to anyone else (here or elsewhere), comes from this support I receive from this person Kyle. To put it very inadequately: thank you I love you!