Sustaining a Marriage, Embracing Whimsy, and other Life Lessons

The birthday questions project rolls on…!

Leonie asks: What do you most want to celebrate about yourself?

Since childhood I’ve carried this self definition of being ‘the fearful one.’ I’m actively working on shedding that right now. My approach to the challenge? Embrace whimsy.

On a Christmas episode the TV show Bones a tactiturn character–I think she’s a district attorney– cooks up this crazy bargain with the two main characters. It’s a really goofy request and they are confused. She just looks at them and deadpans, >“I have a puckish side which cannot be denied.” That’s my new mantra.

P.s. That particular epsiode has one of my all time favorite TV lines. Booth says to Bones: “Thieves and murderers get Christmas too Bones. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s all about.”

Denise asks: Where do you see yourself at 65? Where will you be, physically and spiritually?

I’m so frail right now physically that this is a very scary question. I hope I’ll be healthy. I hope the chronic pain won’t overly shorten my life span. I hope I’ll be mobile and traveling and taking my grandkids camping.

Spiritually, I would love to be a little like Phyllis Tickle. That woman is amazing: wise, articulate, authoratative, gentle, confident – she’s inspiring a whole new generation while her adorable husband sleeps in the front row. I love it!

Susan asks: My question: as you describe it, one decade of your marriage has seen babies, post-partum depression, migraines, major spiritual shifts and now an international move – how have you seen each other shift and accommodate all this? What has sustained your relationship?

And don’t forget a stillbirth. We’ve kind of been through the ringer, huh?

Okay, I’m gonna embrace my puckish side here and come clean with something: I really do not pay that much attention to my marriage. Paul is a very devoted husband and in the words of Jen Lemen “He worships you like a goddess.” This, my friends, goes a long way.

Paul often says that my roll in his life is to keep him “from living a boring life.” I’m very good at that, and thankfully that feeds him. We naturally talk quite a bit. We are both pretty intentional about the kind of life we want to build together and how we are going about doing that. We evaluate things sometimes: are we traveling enough? where do we want to be in the next 5 years? etc. But it’s always is a sort of haphazard way. We do not have marriage summits. We do not go on retreat.

We’re content with parallel play (Paul on his keyboard, me on mine, showing each other stuff on youtube from time to time.) But we are not the kind of couple that’s going to go to a marriage retreats or take a couples workshop. We don’t describe each other as ‘being in love with my very best friend ever kissykissyfacelalala.” In fact, we are sometimes tempted to throw things at people who do self-describe like that. (We aren’t really all that nice. People get confused and think we are, but I don’t think we are. We are kind of John Stewart-y.)

The hard times—the death of our first son, my illness, Eden being so highly sensitive, faith crises, —these are kind of romantic to us and really bring out the best in us. I think we bond more over these challenges than over the rainbows and butterflies.

Paul’s one request is that I be more attentive about what happens to him on my radar when new passions come into my life. The first flush of new obsessions—newborns, writing, housemates, church planting, artistic projects, teenage adoptees—these tend to knock him off my plate. I’ve become more aware of that over the years and try to adjust my focus on him a little when I feel the energy of a new passion coming on.

Paul has a good sense of humor. We both have our own separate adult selves/lives. We respect each other’s life visions – that’s sustains us a lot.

Amy asks: In the last 9 years, what experience has been the most frightening? The most enlightening? The most exciting?

Most frightening: being in the ER with violent migraines.
Most Enlightening: stepping outside the walls of the church
Most Exciting: living communally in the Densmore House with our family of choice (our nuclear family plus Sharon, Rebecca, and Souren)

Dawn-the-punk asks: Why is the sky blue?

I’m not sure but whoever writes the best 100 word or less fairy tale about this will get one of my altered postcards. Email me the tales: moi at magpie-girl dot com.

More Q’s with their A’s still to come….

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