This summer my husband and I celebrated our 15th anniversary. Tony and I met at Providence College in 1991. My second year, we led the Communications committee together; I was the school paper editor, he the poster designer. I soon became interested in helping create posters, and Tony started hanging out more in the library. Thus began what the drama professor called "communications collaboration."
Our first year of dating was therefore, creative, playful, and highly entertaining. The intervening years have introduced some darker colours to the mix: unemployment, miscarriage, depression, and parenting stress. And the most exciting things we paint now are baseboards. But we take stubborn pride in sticking together, knowing that, while the mischievous smirks and longing glances are fewer and farther between, we're still the same editor/painter team that fell in love under the glowing light of the microfiche and first kissed amid the heady smell of tempura.
In Acedia and Me: A marriage, monks and a writer's life, Kathleen Norris cites a recent study that "monitored the daily habits of couples in order to determine what produced good and stable marriages." It revealed that "only one activity made a consistent different, and that was the embracing of one's spouse at the beginning and end of each day."
"Most surprising to Paul Bosch, who wrote an article about the study, was that 'it didn't seem to matter whether or not in that moment the partners were fully engaged or even sincere. Just a perfunctory peck on the cheek was enough to make a difference in the quality of the relationship.' Bosch concluded that this 'should not surprise churchgoers. Whatever you do repeatedly has the power to shape you, has the power to make you over into different person.'"
Norris comments, "So there...Let's hear it for insincere, hurried kisses, and prayers made with a yawn. I may be dwelling on the fact that my feet hurt, or nursing some petty slight. As for the words that I am dutifully saying - 'Love you' or 'Dear God' - I might as well be speaking in tongues, and maybe I am...Every day and every night, whether I 'get it' or not, these 'meaningless' words and actions signify more than I know."
Here's to many more years of hurried kisses!Old colour photos by Ted Yee. Black and white wedding photo by Rudolf Klassen.
1 comment:
love it!
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