I was lying in bed just now, thinking. Always thinking. Often not a good idea, that thinking thing. I was listening to Kate Rusby again, though I said I wouldn't because she can be a bit of a downer. Turns out she's only a downer when I'm already down. When I'm happyish, she is just serene.
I was thinking of this book I could write. I have a story I could write that would be so compelling, so fascinating, so complicated, so rich with imagery and language, with themes on love and God and devotion and faith and growth and how the people we become are not always the people we plan to become.
I have no doubt that it would be published, and as I was sitting there on Oprah's stage, discussing my book, with Jude in the audience, Oprah commented on how my eyes sparkled as I gazed at him, smiling. She invited him to come sit with us on the stage. He was very shy and a bit awkward. He doesn't like to be the focus of attention. Even when I read his court transcripts I can see the shyness in my mind's eye. Maybe that's why he does so darn well; he comes off as intelligent and just a bit awkward enough to seem genuine. He's believable, through and through.
So, there he is on stage with Oprah and I, and my mind is swirling with thoughts of how Life takes you by surprise and how much this man has changed over the years and how privileged I am to be a witness to his life and his evolution. Then for him to suggest that it's because of me.... Well. You can see why my eyes would be sparkling. Thems would be tears, you see.
It is shameful how much I thought I knew ten years ago but titillating to realise that I can be slapped in the face with told-you-so's. I hear the echo in my mind of people before me telling me I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I thought I knew what I needed to know about marriage. I thought I could predict how things would unfold: Infatuation would die down and a comfortable love would take over. I thought it would be as straightforward as that, as if marriage could be summed up in one sentence. The arrogance of trying to sum up any significant hunk of Life in one sentence can only be justified if that sentence is, "[Blank] defies single sentence summations."
I've spent a lot of time in the past couple of months, thinking about marriage and talking with Jude and friends about marriage. What does it really mean to cleave unto someone? The level of cleaving the Lord wants from us-- what does it look like and is it really possible in this life? It seems premature to suggest any answer after only 10 years of marriage.
I've got this inkling that ten more years from now I will be able to say that it is possible to cleave unto each other fully but that it can only come about when we learn to respect the distance between us and our partners. For true oneness to occur, we'll have to eliminate pride, jealousy, and the desire to control, and do it all within the bounds God has set for us. Hmmm. Tricky? We'll see. A theory I can only prove by testing it. I'll get back to you in a decade with the preliminary findings.
My friend Louise shared this quote with me a while back, from Rilke:
"The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole."
Beautiful, huh? This quote rang true for both Jude and I. We need it. We are so different from each other that if we insisted on a total cleaving, a complete merging, we would actually be driven apart, sure that something was wrong with us once we realised that our ragged-edged puzzle pieces don't match.
I've spent ten years trying to jam this puzzle together into a work of semi-respectable art that combines God's vision and Hollywood's vision of what a marriage should be. Aside from honouring fidelity and being helpmeets to each other, God doesn't say a whole lot about what a marriage should look like. God, through scriptures and living prophets, gives us some basic ideas, but I'm starting to realise that those ideas are merely paint pots from which we paint our own landscapes. As for Hollywood-- pffft.
I've spent so many hours and days wishing Jude was more like me. Interestingly, he has not done the same thing. A few days ago, I came across a record I made of something he wrote to me over a year ago:
"I love you so much. I miss you and the children every day I come to work. Some days I could almost cry (except, of course, I am a man, so I do not).
Natasha, you make poetry mean something. You put life into music and life into what would otherwise be the mere duty of existence. You make Love worth protecting and a family out of a group of children and a motley husband.
Natasha, you breathe spirit into soul and feeling into touch. The water from your well shall always satisfy. You are the wonder that all metaphors fail, the gift that can be opened everyday.
There are days when I am forced to pause, when I am struck by the fact that you are my wife. You are a dream I get to touch, a future unfolding before me, a fantastic, mysterious and challenging encounter of womanhood as it should be. I love your cheer, your courage and determination. I love your smile and the life that makes that smile an insight into our eternal origins. May the next nine years be better, as growth-filled and as warming."
I am such an asshat.
I've assumed it's because I'm so worthy of emulation that he admires me. I've thought that he needs to catch up to me and become more full of life. But really, he is stunning and awe-inspiring in his own right. He's not like me or even like some of my favourite people. He is more staid than passionate. He does not listen to sad music to get in touch with his inner Sad. He does not enjoy arty flicks that demand concentration and interpretation. He does not love all kinds of poetry. He does not understand how I can love a woman, romantically. He has not always loved me the way I wanted him to.
But while my eyes were averted in frustration, Jude was busy loving me the way I needed him to. He truly is the caretaker of my life.
He's helped me realise that I should not feel so bad about being high-maintenance and putting him through the ringer, as I rarely do it on purpose. He says I am, "....a fantastic, mysterious and challenging encounter of womanhood
as it should be" and I find that I'm starting to believe him.
Without our honesty and without our struggles (usually MY struggles) we would not know just how exquisite a lover he is. (I mean that non-sexually, although... you know.) Without our differences and the straining between us to understand and respect them, we would not be the people we are and I think we're pretty special.
It's almost... almost as if the Lord knew what he was doing when he put us together. Hmmm. He gave a young woman full of passion, need, hurt and a tendency to over-think and to over-love to a strong man, who has, perhaps, an over-ability to control his emotions. A man who is not prone to flightiness. He commits, he works. He is this giant of gold, strong but malleable, with his arms outstretched holding everyone up. And me, being prone to too much emotion, anxiety and panic, I cracked him open and found that he does bleed. The man of gold bleeds. Incredible, right? He cries. And he's the better for it.
I give him life and he makes it possible for me to live. Unlikely an accident, this pairing.
So, as I'm sitting on that stage, talking to Oprah, my eyes sparkling with tears, I'm thinking of how strong he is. Forget the fact that he's cleaned up my strawberry puke. Forget that he's wiped my butt during labour. Forget that he held our daughter's head and caught her body as I delivered her into the world, in our living room. Those are merely symbols of something greater.
He has let me be honest with him, promising a safe place to fall. He has let me share so much of myself with so many without worrying about what people will think of him. He lets me have the tenderest of feelings for people dear to me, without insecurity. He has nurtured love between me and his children and honoured my mothering at every single turn. He has handed me his heart with trust that I'll keep it beating, with maybe just a twinge of hesitancy because, dude-- hearts are not supposed to be dripping outside our body cavities, you know; Love sometimes contradicts all our natural instincts.
My eyes sparkle because I look at him and see the personification of so many philosophies of Love. It takes a real man to understand and exemplify Rilke.
I don't think I can bring myself to write this story, worthy of the New York Times bestseller list and appearances on Oprah. Some things are so special and sacred and to risk people failing to understand is too painful. Maybe one day I won't mind.
Until then, the caretaker of my life can be the caretaker of my stories. He's teaching me to trust.
[Photo no. 1 by Louise Burton. Photo no. 2 by me.]
Daily Gratitudes
- I'm inexplicably sunnier and more level-headed today. Extra sleep? A good random day in my cycle? I didn't do anything to "give it to the Lord". Not that giving anything to the Lord is a bad idea. Just, you know, not everything is because we're not being spiritual enough.
- Strangers who care enough to be commenters. (Not a criticism of people who don't comment. Just a stand-alone note of appreciation.)
- Kid art.
- I managed to write this post despite interruptions every 1-6 minutes. I'm not exaggerating.
- Things that make me laugh.
