Anniversary

Our marriage is 9 years old today. Were it a child it would be in 4th grade now. Chances are it would have lost its front baby teeth, and have memorized the names of all the planets (minus Pluto, which got demoted). It will have been informed that our Earth circumambulates the sun, but will not yet have been introduced to trigonometry or taxes. If, on the other hand, our marriage were a medium-sized dog, it would be 56 human years old today. It will have acquired, after years of frenzied puppyhood, an air of gravitas. It will have lost some hearing and declared a truce with the squirrels. It will spend inordinate amounts of time asleep in golden swaths of sunlight wearing a smile. And now seeing that we are considering hypotheticals, here’s another: if our marriage were a sturdy oak somewhere on a windswept hillside, it would still be waiting quietly for its first acorns (yet a decade perhaps two away). But hidden deep in its heartwood, it will have already begun a stunning and concentric collection of rings.

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Our marriage, assuming you care to know, happens to be at once all and none of the above. A thing unto itself, unfolding and alive. Teachable, warm-bodied, deep-rooted. Mortal. And somehow more — so much more — than I dared ever ask of this dazzling world.


9 responses to “Anniversary

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