My wife and I attended our first marriage conference in the season of change. We woke early on a Saturday. I flicked up a red blinker and turned as the yellow arrow buzzed threateningly. We continued down a hall of oaks toward the church. They provided childcare so we could hear our thoughts. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear them. I was a green leaf dappled with a fiery orange that fought leaving my branch even in the strongest wind. I sipped cold coffee and tapped the bony lump on my medial ankle with my leg crossed and resting on my thigh. My knee formed a right angle. There is some order to our bodies. Most pieces have a pair, some singular, but all needed enough to evoke a gestalt sentiment that lends itself to metaphors of a Christ.
A pastor painted an image of financial freedom, sexual understanding, and spiritual intertwining. It all seemed to be built in a furnace that we are charged with stoking. We were told to intentionally feed its destructive flames. In an effort to save our souls we were asked to destroy ourselves. A couple performed an anecdotal shadow play where the small man with red hair and a trim beard played the one addicted to pornography. The bodies of strangers made him feel better about himself and who he wasn’t. He loved the small woman on stage with him. She had wavy hair and a voice that sounded both delicate and strong in one breath. She played the woman who was never enough; the broken creature who had to be okay with that. She seemed to be the kindling. He wasn’t enough either, though. They both were short in stature, as I said before, but we could see them towering as the dust settled. They had ashes resting on their eyelashes. They asked each other if the other wanted to speak with a genuine concern each time. There was a warmth that only fire could bring.
We paused for lunch. We ate sandwiches and flowers were set at the table. Flowers are found at funerals and weddings the same. Tiny purple blooms brightened a mood that was understandably heavy. No one was making eye contact with me but maybe it was my half of the equation? We celebrated the ceremony of providing our bodies vitamins, carbohydrates, and proteins to continue all its metabolic functions. It felt enjoyable but we wouldn’t do it if it weren’t necessary, right? Killing yourself after all is the easiest thing to do. You just do nothing. It is what happens if we let the planet run its course. I don’t say that to keep you up at night but for quite the opposite purpose. I want you to sleep and look forward to waking up to the warm smell of sweet cinnamon bread baking or the distinct smell of a freckled yellow banana being ripped into so many pieces. You want to eat it. You want to break the course. You don’t feel obligated. You feel delighted.
After the conference I had a camping trip planned with some close guy friends. The location was in my less than private hell. It was the same site where years back my heart had been broken by two friends and I don’t mean to make that sound so pathetic but if it does I can’t stop what you think of me. We set up our tent and laid out our bedding. I organized the bags of food to sustain us through the night. We decided to walk the trails and the sky changed as it does. The sun no longer lit up everything but transformed into a small lantern on the ledge of the horizon that reminds me that I live on a planet in a galaxy in the universe. Even still, though, it’s all about me. We found a fulcrum in the woods and stood on it playfully aiming to reach a balance. It was a large metal rectangle unevenly resting on some type of rig. It may have been used to load horses into a vehicle. Regardless, we had fun pretending we could see eye to eye and equate to each other.
We dragged branches to the site and threw them in a pile and sparked its own destruction to provide visibility and warmth. We laughed, ate and smoked poison, and drank poison. It was so funny. One guy changed the subject to his wife leaving him after she had sex with someone else. We paused long enough for the wind to blow the ash and continued with foolishness. One friend found himself having enough to drink that he found it worth mentioning that he liked something I had written over a year ago. He wanted to read it aloud. I wanted to disappear. He got what he wanted and I never do. We retired to our tents and I couldn’t sleep. I looked forward to the daylight but when it came I didn’t celebrate. We awoke with new wrinkles and maybe some regret as the light hit us. Still laying on the floor we were passing around a cell phone with the picture of a shaved bear. We began laughing at the image but it was an awkward laughter that sometimes we spread over our greatest fears.
The fire was dead, barely warm, completely useless in boiling water for coffee. I looked at the ash. The time had changed. We gained an imagined hour in our minds.
I took advantage of this fake time and napped on the couch once home with the tv playing loudly. When I awoke I asked my wife if she wanted to get cheeseburgers. She acted like I had read her mind and agreed with a smile. It’s all thanks to casomorphins. Once at the restaurant we drank soda and our son played with a red balloon tied to a plastic stick. We mocked him for his simple joy and subsequently laughed at the absurdity. We rehashed the marriage conference from the day prior after I walked her through my camping experience when that friend made me feel loved and like a fool simultaneously by reading something I had written. She got it. She got an itch in her throat and the air changed to one of new territory. We both were enamored and horrified by the question: is your marriage a safe space? My wife always has a tear stored in her eyeball. It’s one reason I fell in love with her. She leaned forward and it spilled out as she said that she wants to know my past. She wants to live in my present. She wants to know me fully. She said that she, too, makes no sense on paper; that I can find errors in consistency and would mark up her margins. I told her that there are pages I pulled out of circulation; that for now let’s rest in knowing they exist and that they are available to each other to be checked out. It was the joy and intimidation one may have felt standing in the ancient library of Alexandria.
