Mawwiage

Allen and I have been married ten years and one month. Today.

Before we got married, people were very free with their advice on the institution of wedlock . . . blissful and otherwise. My favorite advice? And the same thing I tell people who are about to get married? "You'll love being married. It's the best."

I'm breaking one of my own blogging rules by writing even this much nonspecific "sap" in a post, but it's true . . . politically correct or not.


This quote is my favorite part of Paradise Lost--it's what Eve says to Adam when they are driven out of Eden. I engraved some of these lines in Allen's original wedding ring (which has been lying at the bottom of the East Carribean since 2002, but it's okay, because I lost a ring he gave to me, too . . . we balance each other out well). I love these lines because I think of leaving Eden as the real beginning of their marriage. Though there were incredibly tough times to come, there was an abundance of love, hope, and leaning on each other. I think this statement of Eve's is perfectly mirrored in Mark Twain's short story "The Diaries of Adam and Eve" with what Adam says at Eve's grave: "Wherever she was, there was Eden."
Isn't literature great? It doesn't hurt our marriage that we both majored in English . . .


To celebrate 10 years, we spent the day together in Jackson Hole and took in an overnight stay at Grand Targhee, the best ski resort in the intermountain west (and the same places we went, ten years and one month ago---the picture above is of wild swans on the Snake River near the aptly named Swan Valley). A bad day at Targhee is like the best day anywhere else. And we had a great day.



So maybe I can't take a jump like Allen can (let alone land a jump like Allen can) . . . but that's one of the great things about being married--we enjoy each other's strengths and talents as much as we do our own. I love seeing Allen catch some sweet air, and he loves that I remembered chapstick and sunblock (this time).