the rose of kiev

It was a Wednesday night, and Dave and I had just finished eating a late dinner in the living room.  As the end credits scrolled across the television screen, I lay back on the couch. Long orange light slid across the kitchen floor - it was just before sunset, the night of the summer solstice.  Dave stood up, thanked me for making dinner, and went down to the basement to work. The DVD looped back to the menu, so I rose to eject the disc - season one of The Simpsons , the third disc of three.  I reached for the plastic rental cover and popped it back into place with the two others. I walked toward the basement stairs.  "Be back in a minute - don't lock me out!" I called down to Dave.  I heard the soft thunk of something mechanical.  "OK," he called back.  Discs in hand, I slipped into sandals and opened the front door. It was a beautiful night, and a thin summer humidity cooled by the evening wrapped wide ribbons around my ankles, calves and ar...

I firmly believe that the most enduring of marriages are made of people who are, not the best matched, but who are the most committed fighters. Marriage isn't about finding the perfectly compatible person, even though compatibility has a helpful place.  It's much more about finding a good person to fight for who will fight for you, too. That fighting?  That bloody-nosed refusal to lay down and quit?  That's what commitment looks like. Commitment, real and long term, takes a rough strength.  Pledging vows is easy in the heat of infatuation; "In sickness and in health" is an easy promise in the midst of health and youth. It is a harder vow to hold when it is ugly and overweight, tired and sick and irritated.  It's harder to hold to when it is aging and angry, insecure and emotional. It's hard to stay when you want to leave. It's hard to still commit when it's no longer easy. But, in a marriage, we promised to commit then, too: in weak...

Even in the best of times, depression is heavy. Therefore, when additional bad stuff arises, such as an illness or an injury, the extra weight can make life a lot more difficult. But even in that, there are often extra graces for the bearing. I wrote before about the small external graces that help hold up the heavy ceiling.  But there are important and specifically-relational graces that really shine during the extra-difficult times.  And sometimes, beyond all reasoning, those graces even come straight from the problems. In a mishap a few weeks ago, Dave sustained three major scrapes - one the full length of his right forearm, a deep one on his left elbow, and a nasty one just below his right knee.  For two weeks, he was limping and wincing, slathered up with three tubes of Neosporin and fresh wrappings every morning, was in too much pain to shower without help, and took as many painkillers as the prescription bottle allowed.  He was miserable, an...

Freedom can be huge and terrifying. Dave and I have been thinking about our freedom a lot, lately; it's becoming more and more clear just how open our future is right now. Right now, our only clear objective is for him to finish school and get his Master's degree in hand.  Under the best of circumstances, that will happen in September, just four months from now.  And in September, we'll hit the edge of the map. Uncharted freedom is not a place I really ever anticipated.  Frankly, I don't really know what to do with it. In this generation, there seems to be an expected structure of life events: graduate from high school, go to college, start a career, get married, buy a house, make babies, and raise a family. I am 25 and Dave is 28.  We have been together for 7 years, and married for 3 and a half.  I've finished college, and Dave is almost done with his schooling, too.  After that, he will, of course, begin applying for jobs, an...

My husband, Dave, is diagnosed with depression. I, however, am not. This difference, exacerbated by my self-starting oldest-child syndrome, makes Dave's depression nigh inscrutable to me. But we are married, so we have to - we must - figure out how to talk about it.  It's been a rugged road, unpaved and pitted with mistakes and upsets.  But it is getting better, and it has been good for us.  And in the shmita we have come so far. But it is still hard.  Heartbreaking.  Some moments are still right to the edge of screaming unbearable. But we are fortunate, because those moments are the exception.  So much of what we have is summer night scooter rides , and eating dinner together on pine tray tables in the living room, and sharing Youtube videos of cats: bright torches staving off the night. But when the darkness does come with all its weight, it is the tiny graces, pinprick stars on a sable sky, that revive me....

Thoughts on Marriage Quiet Time Dave and I had a lot going on when we were first married: we were in a church that met at least three nights a week, we each had a full-time college class load, and we both had part time jobs.  But in June of 2010, we both got our degrees.  And in October of 2010, we left that busy church.  Our lives have quieted down a lot, and the quiet has been good for us. Dinner has become an important part of our evening rhythm.  We both get home from work at about the same time, and I put together a simple meal.  There's an unassuming melody to it, a gentle heartbeat.  I ask how many tator tots he wants, and he always says 15.  I knock on the study door when the food's about done, and he gets my silverware and napkin for me.  I hear the scraping legs of unfolding TV trays in the living room as I dish up his plate.  If it's early enough, we watch the news on PBS; if it's later, we watch Jeopardy and Wheel...

This past weekend, Dave and I decorated our apartment and our plastic 3-foot Charlie Brown Christmas tree. And two years ago today, I wore white, he wore a tux, and we said, "I do." Happy anniversary, Dave.

Dave drove me to work a few mornings ago. I was ready to go ten minutes before we had to leave, so Dave asked me to run downstairs and retrieve the load in the dryer. I came up with an armful of an outfit he had washed in a rush after he spilled black oil down his left pantleg. I relocked the basement door and came upstairs; he only wanted the jeans. Dave works in a machine shop that uses machines like this lathe. Working with metal in this capacity has the same perils of wood-working - sawdust and wood chips - except that the chips are metal instead of wood. So as Dave shoved on his pants, he grumbled, "I hate wearing shorts to work. I always get metal chips in my shoes." "Well, that's no good," I replied. "Yesterday one fell down the back of my pants." I began to laugh. "That's terrible!" I exclaimed. "Yes, yes it is," he said as he tightened his belt.

Friday afternoon I left the law office on my bike with a graduation card in my purse. I was accompanied by a heavy summer thunderstorm. Biking along the river and under bridges gushing runoffs from the streets felt like being on an amusement park water ride. But I had to go no matter what - I had my university graduation rehearsal to attend. All ten thousand of the 2010 graduates were emailed and instructed to gather at French Field House (across the street from the stadium) at 1 p.m. Around 12:30 I locked up my bike and waddled wetly into the open garage door of the indoor track field. I wrung rain water from my french braid as it dripped from the cuffs of my jean capris. A few hundred people had begun to gather by the frail 8-foot-tall markers denoting fields of study. After some confusion with where my fellow journalism majors were (College of Behavioral and Social Sciences) and what color my tassel needed to be (maroon), I spent the next hour swathed in hangover-breath while eavesd...

My girlfriends like to bother me about when Dave and I will have a baby. Their eyes light up at the thought of having a small wriggling creature to play with...and the ability to give it back to me when that creature diarheeas down both chubby thighs. So for anyone wondering when that blessed event will even begin to be a possibility, here's a checklist of things to look for: 1) 2 college degrees hanging in frames on the wall. Emphasis on framed , not just received. Just because the tassel's on the other side of the hat does not mean we are suddenly in a hurry. 2) A diminishment in my present glee every time I refill my Ocella prescription. 3) A time when our sink spends more time clean and empty than as a neon-moldy scientific experiment. 4) A clear floor, when we would no longer have to hike over the hills and dales of laundry baskets and bookbags. At this point, we'd have to stack the crib on top of the hamster cage. 5) A trip to the grocery store that isn't determin...

One year and four days ago, I woke up quietly at seven in the morning, wide awake long before my alarm went off.  The metal rungs of my bunk were cold against my feet as I climbed down. Energy was surging in me, a great and quiet pulsing.  The house was quiet that last morning; all the girls were still asleep.  The stairs creaked under my steps as I went to the first floor bathroom.  I pulled aside the brown shower curtain, and reveled in the hot water.  If it could be washed or shaved or scrubbed, I did it all twice.  I came out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam; it was cold outside, but the sun came warmly through the dining room window.  I ate a bowl of cereal at the sunlit dinner table .   The quiet throbbed with anticipation.  After I had rinsed out my porcelain white cereal bowl, I laid down in the tan leather couch to edit my vows in green ink.  Then the floors began to creak, doors slammed open, and the happy shrieking began.  But for an hour, the morning before my wedding ju...

Marriage Is:  Good Days and Bad Days As a child, I had an innocent view of life getting better as a straight and steady 45-degree inclined line.  But as life progressed, a different pattern became obvious - waves, undulating good and bad.  It's just the way it is. And no matter what you do, how good you are or how hard working, circumstantial stuff unpredictably affects your life.  Exhibit A: Marriage.  One morning you turn over and are awe-struck by their sleeping face, compelled to reverently kiss their forehead.  The next morning you roll over and inhale their noxious morning breath, and small offenses mount like hash marks on a prison wall:  Left his beer can out last night for me to pick up.  Didn't do the dishes last night like I asked him to.  Didn't breathe right when I told him goodbye before work.  Mental note: give him the cold shoulder and a snide remark about the dishes later tonight.  And sometimes it is that childish, even if it may not be that conscious.  Ri...

I love a good movie argument. I was watching "Hitch" a few days ago.  During a speed-dating session Hitch and his potential girlfriend, Sara, are arguing about a misunderstanding.  She (wrongly) thinks that he set her friend up with a guy, Vance, just so he could get laid.  Once Hitch realizes the misunderstanding, he leans across the table, already on his feet, and with the attention of the room yells back at Sara, "Vance is a pig, and I refused to take him on as client!"  This was followed by her stunned silence and Hitch stalking out of the room, righteous and wounded. It's the kind of argument that everyone wants to have, but probably never will. I've had enough arguments with Dave to know this by now.  Even the times when I think I'm going into an argument lily-white right with both barrels loaded, I never have a clean get-away.  There's always, every single time, a way I am wrong or something I didn't think of.  I have never gotten a chance...

Everyone played "Mother, May I?" as I kid.  One of the players is nominated the "Mother" and stands separate from the pack, whom are all lined up an equal distance away.  Then Mother goes down the line and gives instructions as to what each player may do.  "Carrie, take 3 giant steps forward," to which the player must respond "Mother, may I?" and wait until she hears "Yes, you may" before taking her steps.  If you move without asking permission, it's back to the starting line with you.  First to touch Mother wins.  And is apparently the biggest suck up. What a weird thing to base a game on asking permission. But as a child, it's true that your every move is cushioned and guided by permission.  Some kids rebel against having to ask for it.  Some kids embrace its safety.  I remember I used to love using the "they didn't give me permission" card when I didn't want to do something.  "Well, if you don't wan...

Marriage Is: Opposites Attracting (and Annoying) While praying together recently, Dave said, "Sometimes, God, it seems like you intended Heather and I to be together because of how different we are, and it's a good thing even when it's frustrating."   I'm happy with anything, and Dave is picky about everything.  I can make a decision on a dime, but Dave needs a week's notice before he can make a decision.  I crave the stimulation of people, but Dave is perfectly content without it.  I am Dave's excitement and motivation.  Dave is my prudence and wisdom.  I thrust people into Dave's life and he diminishes my need for their affirmation.  It usually works out well, even though our opposing opposites sometimes manifest in ugly nagging and feet-dragging, but all said and done, together we get It done and do It right. A Lot of Kissing I have a dim memory from when I was twelve of walking into our yellow kitchen while my mother was at the stove.  My father wa...

Marriage is: Someone Who Believes in You Girls have these weird things called hormones.  When  those IFAW commercials   come on showing the starving kittens and begging for donations, it's the hormones that make girls cry.   It takes a feeling like sympathy and tips the scale to tears.  And last week, hormones turned my uncertainty about my writing into full-blown paralysis and a tear-choked throat.  Squeakily I asked Dave to sit down and talk with me for a little while because I felt weird.  And with that quiet assurance of his, he laid down on the bed with his arm around me as I clung to him, tears slowly darkening his light blue shirt.  He waited until I was ready to talk, until enough of his warmth and strength had seeped into me to ask, "Do you think I have a shot at being a writer?" He rubbed my shoulder. "Of course I do.  I wouldn't be encouraging something I thought was a pipe dream."  He had cured me in fifteen perfect words. About Honesty Want a go...

Six months ago I put on a white dress and a ridiculously high pair of heels.  I walked down the aisle with my father wearing my mother's veil.  I met Dave at the altar, and we read the vows we had written to each other in front of nearly 300 of our friends and family.  I walked back out of the auditorium with Dave as "First Kiss" from The Last of Mohicans played over the sound of clapping.  We got out to the hallway and hugged each other until our attendants followed, shrieking with happiness for us.  I remember looking down at my new ring through the happy tears and spluttering, "Oh my God, it really happened!"  There was joy, such an awesome amount of joy, in those first five minutes. But there was no magic. Let me explain. I was raised in the church by Christian parents and graduated from a Christian high school.  At every moment in my young life, the wonder of marriage was on a sacred pedestal.  Living together with someone "in sin" was the unthin...

Marriage is: Like Popping Zits: After an hour-long conversation in the car with Dave, I realized the relief I felt after talking everything out was the same feeling I have when I drain a big pimple. This is the grossest and most effective way I can illustrate what marital conflict is like. Everyone who's endured adolescence knows the different classes of pimples: the surface whiteheads, the simple but deeper blackheads, and then - The MegaZit. It hurts,  it's bright red, it's perched on the tip of your nose, and  you have to wait 3 days before it's ready for you to do anything about it. And the more potato chips and HoHo's you ingest, the more frequently and grotesquely do you break out. But think about it: there are the "whitehead" moments, where you ask each other nicely to please stop leaving cups all over the living room because it's irritating. Then the "blackhead" arguments, at which point you have to talk through your annoyance and a s...

I laid in bed at around six'o'clock in the evening a couple weeks ago, listening to the ceiling fan as I stared at the wall. It had been an exhausting week filled with a rainy birthday, a sinus infection, and not enough time with Dave. Earlier that afternoon he and I sat in the Lowe's parking lot for an hour wearily talking through ways we had let each other down and how to get through the rest of the school quarter. As I began to wake up from the three-hour afternoon nap we had taken together, I contemplated many things that fit into one general heading: Marriage is hard. Those who are married understand that small sentence with every fiber of their experience and being. Those who are not married may be aware of its truth, but the hard wisdom isn't in you until you're in it. But for me, the difficulties have been opening my eyes to see something about God and the importance - the beauty - of freedom in love. What's so strange about God is that He is both a pa...

Marriage is: Finding Out How Awesomely Your Husband Handles Conflict I could not brag big enough to describe how amazing my Dave is in handling our arguments. Calmly and with a twinkle of humor, he'll take his emotionally over-wrought wife when she's defensive and stubborn and inarticulate and force her to sit down (even if it takes dragging her to the couch and pinning her down) and work through it NOW so it can be done and over with. His conflict skills are revolutionary for me - you mean you can be mad at me AND still love me just as much? You mean it's ok and normal that I make mistakes?? WHY HAVEN'T I GOTTEN THIS MEMO BEFORE? And more, we usually both end up laughing at the end. The Good Made Better and the Bad Made Worse Shortly after I got married, unmarried friends were asking me what being married was like. And with all my deep experience of, oh, a month, the first thing I was able to articulate was this: "The good things are a lot better, but the bad stuf...