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Little flecks and flakes of happiness add up to make big chunks of joy. I know that I’m more prone to snark and snap, to wryly catalog the indignities and inconveniences of daily life, and I’m making a conscious effort to curb that instinct… or at least to counter it with daily observances of contentment and cheer. I’m thankful for the small things as well as the big things. When the big things sometimes go to hell, I’m still thankful for the small things.
Cheers to a break in the weather: a bright breezy day after days of rain.
Cheers to inspiration when it comes, and to dogged determination when it won’t.
Cheers to The Fella, who has a way with words that often makes me unexpectedly peal out laughter at the simple, hilarious aptness of his phrasing.
Cheers to that mixed case of cava and prosecco lurking under the table. When I bought it, I giggled giddily to the liquor store clerk and waggled my hands in excitement. Both The Fella and the clerk looked on with amused patience.
Cheers to the new champagne flutes I picked up for a song. It turns out my old glasses lasted so long only thanks to disuse; now that we’ve started, y’know, drinking out of them, they smash like eggs. I expect these will, too, but for once I’m not going to fret over material things. I’m going to keep picking up stray glasses whenever I see them for a buck or two, so I can enjoy the drinks and enjoy the bubbles and, every so often, enjoy the tinkling sound of smashing glass.
Cheers to my new shoes: not quite sneakers, not quite ballet flats, not quite half of the retail price. You are very easy and comfortable and I could walk a mile in you. This evening, I think I will.
Cheers to the library, and to my upcoming online Lolita book club and to Prof. Hungerford’s online lectures from the Open Yale Courses (Lectures 5-7). Now if I could just teach myself to say “Na-BOK-off.”
A dream:
In the dream, The Fella and I decided quite practically and happily that we should each marry again, adding another husband and another wife to the marriage. The very straightforward dream reason: the more people in the marriage, the greater the likelihood that at least one spouse would be in the mood to make pancakes for all of us on a given morning. (Perfectly sensible, you have to admit, and as good an argument for polygamy as I’ve heard.)
Everything went swimmingly, without envy or rancor, right until my dream-fiancé and I started talking about vows. He (and I’m sorry, fictional dream second husband, your features and character made no impression on me at all) started trotting out the classics about love and forever, and I quite plainly saw that I could not possibly marry this other husband…
… because I love The Fella in a way I never knew was possible, and there’s no one else I can love like this — no matter how many pancakes he would make me.
Two astronomical Valentines today, for geek love.
First, Ann Druyan reflects on the message she contributed to the Voyager Golden Record. [update: the original Radiolab broadcast dates from May of 2006, but I see that Morning Edition and Radiolab have replayed it as a Valentine's Day broadcast. The rebroadcast is available here, but I recommend listening to the original broadcast in all its meditative, lyrical beauty.]
Second, Jonathan Coulter’s I’m Your Moon:
I’m your moon
You’re my moon
We go round and round
From out here, it’s the rest of the world that looks so small
Promise me
You will always remember who you are
A few moments of unadulterated joy this week:
- the fluttering lashes of my littlest nephew, and the sharp smack as his brother high-fives me but good.
- baking bread on a rainy day.
- Sitting in Gramma Suzin’s kitchen with Gaoo and Airdna, eating leftover pierogi and laughing and laughing and laughing.
- hot espresso with good crema, served in Granny’s demitasse.
- a strong, smart, dazzling girl who sends out jokes (really funny ones, too!) from the heart of her grief — a semaphore that signals I’ll be okay!
- a celadon-glazed ceramic strainer (a wedding gift from Elli & JM) filled with plump, cheerful cherries (a gift from me to me).
- drunk on prosecco and polenta fries, looking over the table at The Fella and realizing that my face hurts from smiling.
- an old friend reminding me of a night long submerged in my memory, when we sat by the coast and watched, by turns chattering and hushed, as the moon rose shrouded in red.
- a videotape featuring 30 minutes of non-stop frollicking kittens. For real.
- the fluttery wings of butterflies in my stomach reminding me that I’m head-over-heels, first-crush-blushingly, absolutely mad for my (oh my gourd) husband.
In brief, since I do
purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any
purpose that the world can say against it; and
therefore never flout at me for what I have said
against it; for man is a giddy thing, and this is my
conclusion.
It’s true! The Fella and I are making it official: we’re engaged to be married.
In the recent months, The Fella and I have had some discussions about us, about marriage, about commitment and family and forever. We had come to a happy, informal understanding about The Future.
And then, as he always does, he managed to surprise me.
Amazing: after our earnest talks, and with our future equitably (and, some would say, unromantically) decided between us, the moment retained a luster of surprise and magic.
After he proposed, a moment passed while I silently gawped and got teary-eyed…
.. and then I noticed that he was anxiously awaiting the answer.
I suppose that, in the deep recesses of my brain, I thought the balanced, intelligent decisions we had made along the way would strip the sparkle from the moment. It delights me no end to see how wrong I was. In the moment, all our sensible talk washed away, leaving only sensibilities: I was stunned, and he was nervous.
Love is crazy.
For Gaoo, who is sure to ask: the opening blockquote is Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, and the title is from Shakespeare’s sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Its aptness for us is hard to overstate: so far, our relationship has unwaveringly weathered death*, depression, illnesses and traumas of varying degrees, chronic pain (and its attendent crankiness), post-traumatic stress disorder, richness, poorness, something borrowed, something blue… oh, wait.
If it’s feasible to work sonnet 116 into our vows, believe me, it will be done — not only to acknowledge the love of Shakespeare that finally brought us together, but because I would dearly love to intone “Edge! Of! Doom!” during the ceremony.
*Um. Not ours. Obviously.
Elli
Elsa