Anniversary Six

November 25, 2008 candacemorris 2 Comments

The Saint and I returned Sunday afternoon from our anniversary trip number 6. The trip was not unlike many other anniversary trips with its emotional ups and downs, adjustments of expectations, weeping disappointments, passionate embraces, deep slumber, and incredibly good food.

It always surprises me, how predictably unstable I am anytime we “plan” romance. I really should be used to it by now, and even keep it at the forefront of my planning while anticipating the celebration. It's not as though I haven't tried to better myself. I have experimented with many different scenarios. I have tried to keep it low key, just a small dinner with very little planning…inevitable disappointment. I have tried the whole shebang, with a week away in a new city and plenty of diversions. Inevitable exhaustion…and disappointment.

{This is not a complaint on my part for Joel’s ability to romance me. Au contraire. In fact, it has little to do with Joel – and is often my issues with discontentment, expectation, and disappointment.} Alas, this weekend? Well, you probably can guess...disappointment (but mixed in with a lot of fabulousness as well - just.like.life). I can give you a list of really viable reasons that added to the general inability for us to easily connect…but that entirely aside, it seemed the heavens determined that we were going to have to fight like hell to connect.

So, like the raging bulls we are, we butted heads, our horns intertwined and bloody, wounding the other even in the retreat…and at the end of it – we walk away knowing what we knew walking into it – just as we did six years ago this past Sunday.

I adore Joel.
Joel adores me.

Saintly gardener,
I see a weeping window, hot water beading down.
I see bearded face through La Fin du Monde;
I see willing-feet resting on the balcony of my sad symphony - anxious to be honorably charged to save...
I see a high-backed couch, banter the preferred tongue.
I see a cleansing whirlpool, swirling together desire and despair.
I see the sharp sea air smacking our cheeks with delight.
I see green paint and American women in cloche hats.
I see a hero with late-night pizza and hidden chocolate surprises.
I see your unending and tireless devotion to the me I had long given up on.

For you, my patience,
I will attempt to give a voice to that which has gone unsaid.

~your ever-weeping tree…

I remember the poem we had read at our wedding...

It seems even more apt now.

"The Buried Life"
Matthew Arnold

"Alas! is even love too weak

To unlock the heart, and let it speak?

Are even lovers powerless to reveal

To one another what indeed they feel?

I knew the mass of men conceal'd

Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd

They would by other men be met

With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;