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 one up either.  At the age of thirty-two when relatives and even strangers would chide me about never being married, my pat response would roll smugly from my lips without hesitation: No I've never been married, but then neither have I been divorced.  Stupefied, my accuser's face would turn from shock to pity as if to say how sad that one so young, attractive, and accomplished would have such a dismal view of the most holy state of matrimony.  However, I think it was as sound a position to have as any when you consider the divorce rate  even then was around fifty percent.  Over a decade later, I recently heard it’s reached an all time high of sixty.  That means 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’ve never been a gambling woman and even if I had been I doubt I would have bet on those odds --  Unless of course, like a hard gambler, I got “bit by the bug.” 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 help me clean and arrange my garage.    Oscar advertised his services as a handyman in the yellow pages. “The Clutter Cutter”  is what he called himself. Something about the sound of this made me feel I could trust him.  I imagined him to be as honest and to the point as  his business moniker. He would  give me good sound believable reasons for why I should finally let go of the pink shag rug I'd been dragging around since my freshman year in college.  He would understand and he would help me. 

    Oscar showed up promptly at 8:00am that Saturday, 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 Saturday 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 to my back, stepping into the doorway I had already left. Oscar trailed behind me into the kitchen announcing,  “I got some lemon crème éclairs from Servanti’s figuring we could have a little breakfast while we discuss your plans for the garage.” 

    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 regain my composure. 

    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 nice day 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 year, 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. The weather of marriage 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.