marriage Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

39 Years and Counting

I look at that post title and, just like when I had my birthday back in March, I think, “Wow. How did we get here?”

Birthdays and anniversaries. Markers of the passage of time.

Karl and I were married at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 1980. And lucky for us, at 10:00 a.m. on June 28, 2019, we were sitting together on a rock that juts into the flowing waters of the Tohickon Creek.

Transported from one sacred place to another in, what only in retrospect, feels like the blink of an eye. The living of it sometimes felt like time was moving ever so slowly; so slowly that it felt like yearned-for change would never actually happen. And other times, the living of it felt like the rug, the very fabric of our lives, was being pulled out from under us. Irrevocable, instantaneous, radical change.

At Karl’s Gathering – Photo: Ellen Naughton

Through these past 39 years (and more, actually, since we met three years earlier), the one constant in my life has been Karl. Through education achievements, career changes, sudden death of a parent, depression, births of children, longer, more prolonged sicknesses and deaths of parents, spiritual discoveries, soccer tournaments, track meets, musicals, graduations, disappointments, college admissions, Siberia, initiations, sudden death of a(n adult) child, weddings, joys, walks…

It’s been us.

The loneliest times in my life have been when there’s been discord between us. Those were the times when I most deeply questioned everything.

Gratitude for the Luck – and the Choices We’ve Made

Given the particular professions I engage in, I’m acutely aware of how much work it’s been for us to remain a true, working partnership and best friendship through thick and thin. But I’m even more aware of how lucky we are. So much of what we’ve endured could have easily torn us asunder. But each of us, at critical junctures, chose to stay. We chose to talk. We chose to take a walk instead of storming out and staying away, perhaps pouring our souls out to someone other than each other. We chose to listen.

We chose to forgive. We chose to have compassion.

We also, as one friend reminds us every once in a while because she simply could not believe it when she ran into us laughing and joking in the parking lot of our local grocery store – chose to enjoy crazy things like renting a carpet cleaner to steam clean our rugs together.

“It’s the little things,” we said, laughing at how odd we must’ve seemed.

I do so very much love those little things we share. And the big ones. But most of all, I’m grateful to have Karl sharing them – all – with me.

At Tohickon Creek – 28 June 2019 – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-882)

Perspective

I imagine it’s not easy being married to me. (When Karl reads this tomorrow morning, he’ll probably choke on his coffee.)

Instead of making you guess what I’m talking about, I will cut straight to it.

Every day, over our morning coffee and card picks, I have added a new facet to our morning: I ask him to weigh in on my blog. Poor guy. Every damn day. (Actually, that’s not true. It was true for maybe the first week; but since then, he has come to realize that he, too, is ‘in this for the long haul,’ and thus is going to need to provide me with some feedback every day. So now he tends to volunteer it.)

He has surprised me on a few – liking a couple that I thought were sort of lame, mostly. And yesterday’s post was not stellar. I knew it when I wrote it. But I thought it might have earned points for being written in a slightly different style – with more dialogue, specifically.

— Just tryin’ to change things up, folks! —

But he kind of grimaced after letting me know he’d read the post and I knew his expression spoke the truth.

Looking for Honesty – Gentle, but True

And believe me, as much as I want him to love every pearl that flows from my fingertips, more than any kudos he could possibly heap upon me I want him to be honest. Gently honest, perhaps; but absolutely, unequivocally, truthful. I do not ever want to think or feel the slightest suspicion that he is blowing smoke in my direction and telling me what I want to hear as opposed to what he really thinks.

So I took his grimace in stride, and we agreed that I’d known going into this devotional practice that some days I would struggle to have anything to say. Indeed, as I’m pretty sure I’ve said before – I cannot allow myself to fully contemplate how many days I’ve committed to saying something – ha ha, even though it’s right up there in the heading each and every day.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I had an email conversation about half an hour later with a dear friend in which she specifically pointed out what she’d enjoyed about the post! The little things that had made her smile, including the fact that my missive was an appreciation of the technician who’d come out to fix my laptop – a welcome deviation from the usual tendency to bitch-post about service in our society.

It’s Not for Me to Judge

Janet’s email to me was a timely and very welcome reminder about perspective. It is easy to get caught up in musing about topics we consider deep, important, profound, or moving. It’s easy to feel like those are the things we ‘should’ be thinking or caring about on a regular basis. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time, right?

Maybe not.

The last thing I want anyone reading my 1111 Devotion posts to feel is that they’re a waste of time. But I’m hearing (if I listen to the message I feel Karl and Janet were both giving me today) that it’s not for me to judge.

Looking into the future, I know that, really and truly, if I am going to write a post every single day for the next 1094 days, I am going to be called upon to trust my muse. Be it Spirit, my allies, my intuition, whatever… I will need to trust that whatever flows through my fingertips is meant for someone, even if it’s ‘only’ me. Even if it’s just the satisfaction of fulfilling my commitment.

But deep down, I hope there will be at least one other person ‘out there’ whose perspective will allow them to feel a kinship with me that day. Who will smile, or think about something a little differently, because we had a chance to connect.

Thank you for joining me!