Anniversary Day

Over the past six months of the pandemic, we’ve heard the term “Alone Together” over and over again– for good reason, too. The whole time has brought such a weird mix of elements to our lives, and we need to keep reminding ourselves that, alongside the isolation we inevitably feel when cooped up and missing people who are dear to us, we are also in a shared experience that can break down barriers and generate power, even amidst terrible loss.

Today, Rob and I celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary — a milestone of togetherness. Here’s how we looked right after the service, which took place on the front lawn of my childhood home.

So young…both of us! Well, I was— still am — three and half years older. We had really only known one another for about a year and half when we took the plunge into marriage…it was, in some respects, a whirlwind romance. We simply felt that we belonged together. Like many couples, I’m sure, we also had a whole lot more getting to know one another still ahead of us; this, to me, is what makes any marriage (though I can’t presume to know any others, really) such an ongoing adventure.

Twenty years and three children later, we looked like this:

With the arrival of each child, that initial sense of togetherness kept getting expanded, and sometimes intensified, like a kind of accordian — also called a “squeezebox” — that makes a variety of sounds depending on how wide or narrow it gets, depending on how the air flows through it.

Those three kids were all here during the spring months, and there was some squeezing, mostly of the positive kind, going on around here then. Now, though, they’re off, and Rob and I are back to where we started from, in a way: just the two of us. It took a couple of weeks after our youngest went back to college to use up all the beets and peppers and tofu he left in the fridge, but now the way he stood in the kitchen, patiently chopping and stirring and preparing, is just a memory. Again, I am guessing many couples have experienced a similar rhythm, adjusting to a “they-were-here-and-now-they’re-not” feeling.

Meanwhile, I’ve been focusing on getting my book manuscript finally ready to send out, an activity that requires a whole lot of solitary time. Last week, I came upon a passage in the most recent edition of THE NEW YORKER (Sept. 14, 2020) that perfectly captures what this process has felt like. It’s the opening paragraph of an essay by Laura Miller, about the novelist Susanna Clarke.

Writing a book is like moving into an imaginary house. The author, the sole inhabitant, wanders from room to room, choosing the furnishings, correcting imperfections, adding new wings. Often, this space feels like a sanctuary. But sometimes it is a ramshackle fixer-upper that consumes time rather than cash, or a claustrophobic haunted mansion whose intractable problems nearly drive its creator mad. No one else can truly enter this house until the book is launched into the world, and once the work is completed the author becomes a kind of exile; the experience of living there can only be remembered.

Wow, is this ever exactly right, every bit of it, although I don’t yet know about the “launched into the world” part, only can imagine it with trepidation. For only the past decade or so, I’ve been very familiar with the wandering “from room to room” part. Since our daughter just happens to be starting work with Habitat for Humanity, going to a construction site each day and readying a home for new occupants, I dare to feel a certain synchrony with her right now.

So, I will say heartily on this Thirtieth Anniversary Day, thank goodness I’m not “the sole inhabitant” of this actual house in which my husband and I continue to live— sharing tales, meals, chores, anxieties, joys, dog care, televisions shows and, of late, fabulous N.B.A. playoff games and tennis matches.

Here’s how we looked a couple of summers ago…

Still standing, hand in hand! I can say with assurance that I know my partner a whole lot better than I did even when we fell in love; and I also know myself a whole lot better, too, mostly thanks to the way the marriage itself keeps offering reflections from new perspectives, like an ever-flowing stream.