Contributing Our Verse

I am super-excited about this post. Next Thursday (May 27th) is our fifteenth wedding anniversary, but I can't wait until then to publish this. Fifteen years! How is that possible? On our five-year anniversary, we went to England. On our ten-year anniversary, I wanted to go back to England but surprise, we found out Elaine was arriving so we stayed home and bought a gazebo for our backyard because we'd just moved here. Who knew that they sell gazebos in February, not in May, so we had to buy a floor model and Darren had to assemble it without any directions. He got me to help him, which, you know, grumpy man without a plan + nauseated pregnant lady = couple who sounds like they've been married for 10 years.

And now...15. What to do for fifteen? It may surprise you to learn that I wanted to go to England, but that's not really feasible right at this juncture of our lives. And we don't need a gazebo or a new baby, so what to do, what to do?

I came up with the inspired idea of having the uh-mazing Julie Kittredge take pictures of us as a family at the same park where Darren and I had our wedding pictures taken. (After you read this blog post, if you want to see more pictures and Julie's write-up on the shoot, you can go here.)

I tried to think of what to write about fifteen years of life lived together...all the highs and lows and everything in between. So many thoughts. So much has happened. But I also kept thinking about a poem I have loved for years and years from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and that seems to sum up best what I really want to say:

Oh Me! Oh Life!

Oh me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless,
of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself,
(for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light,
of the objects mean,
of the struggle ever renew’d
Of the poor results of all,
of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest,
with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring–
What good amid these,
O me, O life?

Answer:

That you are here–that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

So, without further ado, join me on a little journey that has spanned 15 years...

Then...

Now...

Can I go on the record here and say that I asked the florist for a "small bouquet of lilacs"? I wonder what he would have given me had I asked for a large one.

When the girls first saw our wedding pictures, they pointed at Darren and said, "Who's that man with you, Mama?" Give poor Daddy a break. It's 3 against 1 at our house. It could make anyone lose all their hair.

In a gazebo...

...and in the same one fifteen years later...

Couple...

Family...

Twenties...

Forties!...


By the fountain...


Happy couple...

Happy couple...

Good...

Better...

So...happy fifteenth anniversary to my dear husband; I am so glad we're in this play together. And to my two best girls in the world--you make it worth getting up in the morning, albeit maybe not so early sometimes.

We are here.

We are here.