Tuesday, January 29, 2008

My Wife My Valentine

"I kissed her and saw that her eyes were shut. I kissed both her shut eyes. I thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into......"

All I know is I don't want to get out of what I've gotten into. The sacred, sanctified ritual of being married, with the blessings of God and family, is the most beautiful place I've ever been in.

After countless years of being lost in a forest of faces each sapping me of myself I find myself tied to the freedom of permanence, solidity as permanent as Earth's revolutions of the Sun.

I now understand why societies and cultures treat marriage as a special sacrament. It brings the best out of two people and it cements traditions while creating new traditions. It is the bedrock of continuity.

Her Pooja Room, her things, her kitchen, her tossing around restlessly as I desperately try to sleep, her comments, her way of doing her things make my world uniquely my own - she imprinted over my world like a tattoo covering the whole body. And in a world of 6 or so billion she and I are an island, a continent, a family, a home.

No one cooks like her. No one is as mad as her, my child woman. Her common sense, and her innocence co-exist with a deep spiritual faith which doesn't stand in the way of her choice of ridiculously expensive handbags. She makes me laugh, and sad and lifts me up and takes me to depths of hell.

She makes me a man. Strong, committed, able to handle a woman without running away, because she's not just a woman. She's a woman who has agreed to be my wife. Me - the most imperfect of men, going through times that squeeze life out of living. That she stands with me teaches me commitment. She doesn't take without giving personifying grace.

In her I am free at last. Free to be the man I was born to be. So there's no place I wish to be or need to be, except with her.

100 or more years ago Emily Bronte wrote what I would feel 100 plus years later, and I waited a life time to say and feel this about someone:
"..... but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same .. "

" .... my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being ... "


It's been worth the wait.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is such a beautiful piece of work! You really love your wife ! Wish all marriages were like this!