Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Wedding Wednesday


I'm reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert and I'm really enjoying it. She is the author of Eat, Pray, Love and this book is about her journey to come to terms with getting married again. She spends a year researching marriage. Marriage in other cultures. The history of marriage. It's all very fascinating. Did you know a young Queen Victoria decided to wear a big, puffy white dress and thus was born the tradition of brides wearing a white dress?

Sometimes I come across a paragraph in a book that stands out to me. That I have to read again. Then have to take a picture of. I thought I would share that paragraph with you here:

"The poet Jack Gilbert wrote that marriage is what happens 'between the memorable.' He said that we often look back on our marriages years later, perhaps after one spouse has died, and all we can recall are 'the vacations, and emergencies' - the high points and low points. The rest of it blends into a blurry sort of daily sameness. But it is that very blurred sameness, the poet argues, that comprises marriage. Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody - so utterly well known and so thoroughly ever-present that you become an almost invisible necessity, like air?"

That just goes to prove my point that the little moments always end up being the big moments when you look back at your life. I truly believe that. I love the high points. The vacations. The big moments. But I also love the daily moments. Drinking coffee together every morning. Cooking dinner together each night. Playing catch with Manny together. Walking Manny together on the weekends. The routine moments that I've come to cherish. Look forward to. 

Those are the moments that comprise a marriage. Where you really become known. And that is the most beautiful thing about marriage. Being known. Truly known and loved unconditionally. It's a big, cozy security blanket to be known so intimately. 

Do you agree? Does the daily sameness make a marriage?

2 comments:

Anne said...

Love that paragraph! I'm so excited for more daily sameness with Doug :)

Robyn Proctor said...

There's nothing more calming than sitting down with Dillon drinking coffee in the morning. Great passage!