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Feb. 10, 2006
Love is easy, married is hard
It takes a special connection to stay happy for all of those years.
SHARON MELNICER
Love is easy ... married is hard. In the days before wedding preceded
anniversary, floppy-brimmed, Woodstock hats arrived with lavish
boxes of chocolates and romantic record albums, like Mel Torme's
Torch Songs were artfully presented with a long-stemmed rose
accompanied by a poem, something erotic penned by Leonard Cohen
or Irving Layton.
The days before the nuptials featured moonlit drives in the country,
endless conversations murmured over countless cups of coffee, romantic
dinners left uneaten because our hands had more important things
to do. How did we drive a standard, clutch a dripping ice-cream
cone and hold hands, all at the same time? Sleeping and eating were
inconveniences to be barely tolerated because they interrupted the
time spent together.
This being in love was a frenzied, frantic business, so exciting
it made my stomach sick. The fire raged, the heart exploded and
putting two rational thoughts together was a Herculean effort. Not
a good thing for an English teacher.
And then, I got married. Not once, but twice. I figure the first
one was good practice for the second. It gave me lots of opportunity
to learn new skills. Like how to whip up Three-Cheese Hamburger
Helper, make my toilet fixtures glisten and sanitize my floor so
that we could eat off it when the holidays rolled around.
After marriage, pre-planned gifts on Valentine's Day and at wedding
anniversaries marked our love officially. On our first anniversary,
my husband bought me a frilly nightgown that couldn't keep a bug
warm. On our second anniversary, my husband bought me a flannel
pair of pyjamas with a turtleneck. On our third anniversary, he
gave me a Dust Buster. It was downhill after that.
Here I am now. It's year 35 of Marriage Two. I just turned 61. The
first marriage lasted about five years, ended badly and made a flock
of lawyers a lot of money. Husband One and I are not good friends,
as popular and civilized as the practice may be. I am thankful that
there are no offspring from that flower-child marriage of the '60s.
However, what I can say now is that I no longer have the uncontrollable
urge to run him over with my Volvo. I consider this a huge step
with regard to my mental health. If I'd had a brain 40 years ago,
I would have done lunch and gone shopping with him, but never, ever,
made the long walk down the aisle.
As for husband number two, it's a whole different story. Thirty-five
years together speaks volumes. Sure, things have changed, but then
they have to. Otherwise we'd all die of cardiac arrest at the age
of 22. The passion still burns but it glows rather than singes;
the endless conversation is punctuated with intervals of comfortable
silence. We still hold hands in the movies. Flowers are picked up
near the check-out stand at Safeway after the groceries are done
but, the point is, he still buys them. As for me, I prefer to shop
for my own hats and nighties.
Appliances have been officially crossed off our mutual gift-lists
and jewelry has replaced chocolates (my cholesterol level is way
too high). Any piece of new software, or a CD by Lyle Lovett, seems
to please the mister. Sounds dull, I suppose, but it's not. It's
love that has less flash, less sizzle, I guess, but though less
mercurial than the old days, its constancy, its solidity, its safety
and its equal component of friendship have combined our 35-year-long
love into an amalgam from which soulmates are forged. Sometimes
I think we should be wearing matching bowling jackets, except that
we don't bowl. We finish each other's sentences or give voice to
a thought the other hasn't spoken. My 32-year-old daughter, the
gift of this marriage, has observed that her father and I are starting
to look alike. Now, that's spooky.
But the truth is, that's what soulmates are like. They've felt the
fire, felt the chill when it went out, walked through it, been burned
by it and been lit by it from within. The analogy may seem tired
or clichéd. I may be starting to sound like a bad country-western
song, but love isn't. In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks
Golde, after 45 years of marriage, "Do you love me?" It's
an exquisite moment in the show, because Golde is flummoxed; it's
something she has truly never thought about. At song's end, when
both declare, "It doesn't change a thing, but even so, it's
nice to know," the depth of their love is no longer a question
in their minds, or ours. We have no doubt about their love for one
another and how strongly it sustains them. Blessedly, like Golde,
neither do I.
Sharon Melnicer is a Jewish writer, artist and teacher
living in Winnipeg.
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