Mawwiage
If you had asked me who wrote The Princess Bride, I would have said Christopher Guest. In actuality he only acted in it as Count Rugen, the infamous Six-Fingered Man. Rob Reiner actually directed the movie, but one of the standouts that we all vividly remember is when the clergyman, played by Peter Cook, presides over the marriage of Prince Humperdinck and Buttercup. Despite not wanting to be cast in the Trumpian light of making fun of disabilities like a speech impediment, there is classic audio humor in the cleric’s works to the wedding audience when he declares, “Mawwiage. Mawwiage is wat bwings us togeder today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dweam…” What bwings me to mind about mawwiage is that I am so very content in mine and I cannot imagine a more perfect union than Kim and I enjoy.
I have friends who have been together much longer. In fact, three of my best friends from college knew or met their spouses in college, lo these almost fifty years ago. I do not pretend to know the depths of their respective souls or all the twists and turns that they may have suffered during their married life. I can only at best judge from a distance in suggesting that they all three seem to be very happy in their lives and feeling that they are in an ideal match that suits them well. I also have plenty of friends (including myself twice) who have gone into marriage with the best of intentions, only to see themselves among the 50% of American marriages that end in divorce. I am the product of divorce and yet Kim is the product of a long-term marriage. We hold up that 50% statistic where among our six siblings between us we are 67% happily married without a divorce among us (although if you discount Kim, who married later, we drop to 60%).
Many people over the years have pondered the whys and wherefores of monogamy, but it remains after all these millennia as the lifestyle of choice for humans (even those who are not heterosexual, though I’m not sure there is enough evidence on that yet since still only 10% of LGBT’s are married). If we thing in zoological terms, I suspect that Marlin Perkins would say the species tends to mate for life…or at least intends to mate for life. Recent studies show that there is a clear and decisive longevity benefit to being married. Sociologists are sure to attribute this to many logistical factors such as increased availability of health insurance and such, but the truth seems undeniable that the best way to insure a longer life is to be or stay married. No one suffers relative to this more than widowed people, presumably because the angst of loss weighs so heavily on them. As for divorced people, they do not compare as badly, but they too live less long. To my knowledge there is no separate reliable measure of happiness in longevity, but I think its fair to assume that longer life and happiness are correlated highly.
I am writing this piece from a solitary perch in my bubbling hot tub under a blue blue San Diego sky with the moderate late October temperature hovering at a near-perfect 70 degrees and with nothing pressing on my Saturday agenda other than what I want there to be. Kim has a day caring for Bling Betty (who I am pleased to report is, indeed, recovering some of her eyesight even though she still sports a nice plastic neck cone to impede her field of vision) and preparing some Halloween goodies for the late afternoon Halloween gathering we are attending. She is happy in her days, to which she regularly adds piano-practicing and singing as well as catching up with all her friends across the nation. I do my thing from hot-tubbing to writing to gardening to planning out my next project (which may or may not include work as I chose to define it). But we touch base with each other through the day and regularly ask each other what the other is up to and thinking about. We have done that once for fifteen minutes in the living room already and will do it again after I power wash the driveway and try not to decapitate myself by using the power washer to unclog a clogged fountain water line. We Wil then have minor hoot over our costuming for this gathering (she will be Aunt Em from Kansas and I will be a Wicked Witch of the West Winkie with full-on green face paint).
The point is that we are both at peace with our routines and our shared existence and mostly support one another in our independent interests. That seems to be the essence of mawwiage to me. Sharing, caring and supporting, but not necessarily needing to do together every last thing. I am always surprised when I see couples where they seem to spend too much time joined at the hip and those where they seem to be on such separate tracks that mutuality of interest seems virtually absent. But its not right to think that way and we can all pretty much acknowledge with some range of non-judgementality that there is spectrum of togetherness that different people will find more or less comfortable for themselves. The key is that the two people are in synch on their positioning on this spectrum. Without that it seem likely that the unrequited demons will arise and wreck havoc on the union.
I hesitate but feel I would be remiss without stating why I feel my two prior mawwiages didn’t succeed where this one has. Mawwiage #1 was when we were young and hadn’t yet fully developed our sense of directions for our lives. We had plenty of tolerance for each of our separate activities, but never seemed to have enough interest in our mutual activities to have that all-important bond that keeps a couple together. As for Mawwiage #2, that one is harder to assess on this dimension since it was overwhelmed by differences in outlook which made it hard to respect each others’ separate interests and find sufficient common interests. If Mawwiage #1 fell prey to youth, Mawwiage #2 succumbed to unrealistic mutual expectations. But as the prophets always say, these steps are what led us to where we are and if we like where we are, then the steps led us well.
I have found myself increasingly adopting Kim’s likes as my own and that may ultimately be the sign of a highly respectful and successful mawwiage. Cecil. Taught me to tolerate and like dogs. Betty is teaching me to see the comfort and peace that communing with other species can bring. But it is Kim’s passion and endless love as expressed through her care for her dogs that has taught me the value of pets. Kim also puts out pound after pound of bird seed. I now find myself enjoying watching the quail feed outside our window, watching the hummingbirds flit among the trees and bushes and even watching the other birds. I crossed another threshold this morning here in the hot tub. I saw a black crested small bird land on a bush near me and wondered what it was. I finally called Kim’s brother Jeff and described the bird. He told me it was a Tufted Titmouse and upon Goggling it, found it was, indeed, a match. I guess now that I have an app for identifying flowers and plants, I will need the same for birds. Thank you, Kim for that new interest. What can I say, but “Mawwiage!”