Back
in high school (and I don’t mean this ugly) I was a weird kid. Since I was
12, I’d been writing these strange, gothic songs even I didn’t understand.
My parents divorced and I withdrew into my bedroom refusing to speak to my
family, oh, for a couple years. At a time when kids were supposed to be
interacting innocently with the opposite sex through that societal training
called “dating,” I was locked in my room writing music. I did not date, per
sae, and although the few boys who endured spending time with me back then
still think kindly of me, I was a handful. It always ended poorly. But in
my favor, most all my social experiences ended poorly back then, which sent
me right back into my room.
Instead of dating, at 16 I moved across town into a hippie commune. It was
1972; the sexual revolution was all the rage. Human consciousness had just
taken a giant caffeinated jolt out of the 1950s into the 60s. Who were we
anymore then sexually? If the model for marriage was no longer Ozzie and
Harriet Nelson, what was it?
By the time I reached 17, I was a playing music in the same folk clubs that
spawned Bob Dylan. My posse was a group of musicians, all men, none younger
than 28, some as old as 40 (“Wow, almost dead,” I used to think). There
were no girls but me. I was quickly dubbed, “The new kid.”
This was the culture that shaped my sexual identity. I never got to be that
innocent teenager who learned slowly and thoughtfully, not just about her
own sexuality but also about those strange and beautiful creatures, boys. I
never got a chance to hold hands without expectation of sex. And with it, sex
brought the expectation of marriage, even in the era of sexual freedom,
make-love-not-war and “power to the people.” Those darn Nelsons still had a
lock on my ideology.
This Saturday I will turn 54. On my own for the first time with this new
self-love, it feels like a do-over. I feel like a 17-year-old. Seriously.
But this time, I get to explore at my own pace. I say who, I say when, I
say how much. I get to pose the questions: what is sex, what is marriage,
do they have anything to do with one another and what do they mean to me?
I can’t help but wonder, is marriage by nature degenerative? Is it doomed
to fail because people mistakenly allow culture to define marriage for them
instead of creating their own unique form to fit their own special needs?
Could this be because, who knew any of us had special needs, much less what
they were, much less how to get them fulfilled?
So what really is marriage and how do we create a successful one in this
day and age? How many people do you know who are wildly in love after 30
years together? I’m divorced. That was brutal; why would anyone want to do
it again? I know a friend, divorced three times and she’s out there dating
again, opening herself up to possibility. She’s dating in her 60s. What
does that look like? I had no idea the first time around, why should I have
one now?
To get to the bottom of this, I conducted one of my patented unofficial
research projects, which consists of nagging friends and strangers in
supermarket lines to answer my posed questions: If divorced, would you
marry again and why?
100% of the interviewees were divorced. 100% said they would marry again.
The answers to “why” varied as widely as the interviewees. Everything from
tax breaks, insurance, proclamations of love, shared happiness, sorrows
halved, to have someone to grow old with, someone to take care of. Every
single person, despite the agony of divorce, said they would take the risk
of marrying again.
However, the research did not settle me. None of the above resonated true
for me. I had had the ceremonies, the companionship, the tax breaks, the
insurance, the “security.” None of that made a marriage for me. So what is
it, for me, if anything at all?
Then I remembered a man I met several years ago. I’d only known him for
about ten minutes and haven’t seen him since, but in the memory of his
parable I perfectly found my answer.
It’s a mid-September night on Madeline Island, Northern Wisconsin. We’re
sitting outside under the tent at Tommy’s Burned Down Café. The fires are
going, and my friend and I are perched silently on our barstools, staring
into space. He’s just buried his dad, and my cousin was killed a couple
weeks earlier.
Out of the blue, a man walks up, puts down his beer, looks directly as us
and commands, “Ask me what I’m thinking.”
Resisting making a joke about being a psychic, I comply, “Ok, what are you
thinking?”
“I’m thinking about my wife.” Do I see a tear shimmering on his lower
eyelid?
“Awww honey…where is she?” Now I want to know.
“Oh she’s on the mainland. I work on the island four days a week. I think
about her when I wake up, I think about her when I go to sleep, she’s even
in my dreams! I miss her when she’s not there and I can’t wait for Friday
so I can get home. ‘Cause when I’m with her, I’m home.”
I can’t help but ask, “How long have you been married?”
“Twenty-five years.”
Bingo. That’s it. That’s what marriage is for me. It’s not a ritual
declaring a union in front of the world and the government. It’s not
sharing expenses, tax breaks, insurance, legal documents. It’s not even
sharing happiness or reducing sorrow.
No, for me marriage is that after 25 years, I think about him when I wake
up, I think about him when I go to sleep, he’s in my dreams, I miss him
when he’s not there and I can’t wait to be with him, because when I’m with
him, I’m home. It’s as if his compilation of consciousness, at 10–100
meters, is parked on top of mine, covering me, so close to the Source we
are nearly one.
I have no idea how that translates into taxes or ceremonies or living
arrangements or insurance. I feel married to him because in my soul,
through all these years, somewhere he’s always been there in that way, no
matter what.
So how does someone who feels married already (according to my new standard
but certainly nowhere near culturally) start over and learn to date? I
don’t know but wouldn’t this be a great way to revitalize any relationship?
Just start over from the top. Begin again as strangers. Learn how to be
best friends.
I ask my friend Gale about her 30-year marriage. She’s still madly in love
with him. How did they take it that first step all those years ago?
When they first met in high school, they became biking buddies. They rode
bikes together for nine months before they even kissed.
“I could barely look at him, I was so in love with him.” How sweet to see
this 50-something woman still blush telling the story.
“We just biked and talked, every week, week after week. But the entire time
I was shaking, I was so in love with him.”
I’m flabbergasted. “How did you bike for nine months in that condition? And
what moved it along to the next level,” the part of me still 17-years-old
wanted to know.
“One day, he was standing on my sidewalk straddling his bike, and I just
walked right up to him and planted one on him. The rest is history.”
So she took the time to grow the stranger into her best friend, and when
Intuition impelled her, and not a moment sooner, she complied. By that
time, the kiss was planted on solid ground.
This year, for my birthday, I want to learn to “ride bikes.” Take my time.
Where’s the fire? Because it’s the journey, you see…and I don’t want to
miss one single second.
Happy freeking birthday to me.....
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