The Way We Are

The Way We Are

    I guess getting married is kind of like being planted.  I never planted a tree but then I never dug up one either.  At the age of twenty-nine I’d never been married, but I’d never been divorced either.  When I would say that to people they often looked at me strange as though that were an odd perspective to have.  I think it was as sound a position to have as any when you consider the divorce rate was right around fifty percent.  Over a decade later, I recently heard it’s reached an all time high of sixty. That’s right.  Six out of ten marriages will only bear fruit for a few seasons.  After that, they will wither up and die.  There will be no more shade from the sun, no shelter from the rain, no reaching branches to cradle birdsongs in the spring.  I’m not a gambling woman but even if I were I’m not sure I would bet on those odds --  Unless of course, like a hard gambler, I got “bit by the bug.” That’s what people say when someone is taken over by a passion of any kind.  You can have a gambling bug, a traveling bug, a shopping bug, and any other kind of bug you can think of.  Oh, but beware of the Love Bug.  It bites when you least expect it to. 

    Oscar wasn’t extraordinarily, or even ordinarily, good-looking to me when I met him.  He was 5’7” compared to my lengthy 5’9”.  He was balding, a bit plump about the middle, and crowds made him uncomfortable.  I mean, come on, I met him off Craigslist.  No, I was not desperately scouring the personal ads.  I was looking for someone to clean out my garage.  I hate doing that kind of stuff since organization is not my strong suit.  If it was, the garage would have never been in such bad shape in the first place.  Oscar advertised his services as a handyman and included in the ad, “In addition to hauling off undesirables, will help you organize your desirables.”  Something about the wording of that phrase made me feel like I could trust him.  It sounded like someone who would care that I might have difficulty parting with the pink shag rug from my first apartment that I’ve been dragging around for ten years.  He would understand and he would help me. 

    Oscar showed up promptly at 8:00 that Monday, the 4th of July as we had had agreed he would.  At the sound of the doorbell I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and a deep sleep.  Who actually gets somewhere on time on a Holiday morning? I thought to myself.  Peering from the upstairs bedroom window at the top of his bald head, I decided a frantic attempt to look as though I had not just woken up wouldn’t be necessary.  Even women who aren’t looking for husbands pluck their cheeks and smooth their hair when a good-looking man comes around. Having made a flash judgment about Oscar I did none of this.  I opened the door with my mouth agape in a yawn.  “Come on in, I’ll put on some coffee,” I garbled in yawn-ese.  I took so little notice of him that I didn’t even see the bag he was carrying from my favorite bakery.

    “That would be great,” he replied, stepping into the doorway I had already left.  “I got some lemon crème éclairs from Servanti’s figuring you wouldn’t have had breakfast already.” 

    That’s when I almost spilled the water I was pouring into the coffee pot.  I mean you just don’t get a guy who’s never met you before showing up at your house with your favorite pastry from your favorite bakery. Those things only happen in the movies and Oscar was a far cry from a leading man.  “Uh, thanks. Just, uh, set them on the dining table.  I’ll be right out,” I stammered, trying to conceal my momentary decomposure. 

    We were supposed to get started in the garage by 8:30.  But by the time 10 o’clock rolled around we hadn’t even moved away from the dining table now littered with our empty cups and saucers; the Servanti’s bag crumpled on a corner of the table.  In the course of our “consultation” I’m certain the word “garage” never  came up once.  Sitting across from me was the most charming and interesting man I’d ever met.  How could I help but like him when he consistently got my jokes and matched my odd sense of humor point for point. He had an amazing way of telling a story or recounting events in his life that made you feel that you were there – and even wish that you had been. 

    Around 11:30 his expressive brown eyes took on a life of their own changing into magnetic pools that drew me in deeper and deeper.  On the wake of a hearty laugh, mine or his or mine and his, I heard myself saying, “I know we’re supposed to be working on the garage but it’s a Holiday and it’s pretty warm outside.  Why don’t we go down to the lake for a swim!  And we did. We’ve been to that lake many times since. The fabulous stories that Oscar tells now almost always include me and I no longer have to wish I was there.  I am there, because the following 4th of July, we were married.

    The moment of conception for a new relationship often goes by unnoticed.  When the love bug bites it does so innocuously.  There is no sting that alerts you so that you can smash it or swat it away.  You only know you’ve been bitten in hindsight.  When every waking moment is spent thinking of the last time you were together, or anticipating the next time you will be; when times apart are bridged with frequent phone calls to relay something that no one else would find amusing; when you suddenly realize that you feel “rooted” and grounded in something much bigger than you ever were alone. That's how it was with Oscar and me.

    Yet, even so, no relationship is without its times of uncertainty and upheaval.  We’ve had a few bitter winters, summers that seemed unbearable, an autumn when it seemed all was lost.  In the midst of “seasonal changes” that all relationships go through we’ve held on to the roots that bind us – a promise we made to each other before all our friends and family almost twelve years ago. We’ve learned to trust that no matter how bleak things may seem, the birds always return to nest, and sing us their birdsongs again. Weather doesn’t faze us as much as it did when we were younger and less seasoned. Now when I hear a young women discounting marriage as a failed institution since "six out of ten don’t last", I gently remind her that four out of ten of them do.