marriage mania

Been an interesting weekend in Cambridge, where I've been decompressing on my way to writing camp. This is my first visit since '96, back when I had a college friend studying at Northeastern to visit and a shihan (in aikido, a master teacher) to train with. Eire moved on to St. Louis and stopped returning my calls, and Kanai-sensei died suddenly of a heart attack earlier this year. It's a little weird being back in the area and visiting entirely different people; the physical/retail landscape hasn't changed much but the crew has become much more motley.

And marriage-minded, or at least inclined to talking about it. Friday night Alceste and I started talking about what we thought marriage was over yakisoba and a row of little white plates of Korean condiments. A little intense for a first in-person conversation, especially when one has just stumbled off an airplane, but then Alceste and I appear to be the talk-about-everything kind. Alceste talked about marriage as shared adventure, I of how I didn't see the value in marriage until I was 28 and realized that it wasn't just about a transfer of ownership, but possibly something richer and finer. Neither of us have been married yet, so it was all a little abstract.

And then Snufkina happened to be here; she'd come into town Thursday for a friend's wedding. So we got to hang out at a party Saturday night, and then had lunch together Sunday; more time than we get to spend together when we're both home in San Francisco! I also have photographic proof that she owns a dress, which she was wearing Saturday night with cute little sandals with big flowers on them to show off her fresh pedicure. This is the same woman who's been expounding on the virtues of a fresh pair of chaps and the pleasures of ordering around one's boyfriend while wearing the cowhide; I may be able to blackmail her with these photos.

But the point is that at lunch in Harvard Square yesterday we talked about her friend's wedding, and how Snufkina had felt about it; she's not too down with the whole marriage thing, but I sense that part of her--like me--wants to be. We go to weddings, as participant (in her case) or employee (in mine) and we see how stunningly happy the couple and their families are, and we want that. The last wedding I attended as a guest was Pavlova's to Croon, and although I had to leave early, the part I got to be around for went a long way towards wearing down my cynicism. Seeing AX and 3Jake toasting their dear friend and her new husband, watching Croon put his arm around the incandescent Pavlova, listening to his little niece announce how happy she was that her friend Pavlova was now her auntie--man. Cut me a big ol' slice of that and hand me a fork. Snufkina (also as yet unmarried) was having a related experience with her friend, who she believes has made a good match with a strong man who really loves her.

And I think we both found ourselves wondering if our opposition to marriage stemmed as much from the fear that we would never meet anyone who would make us glow like that as anything else. Is it pragmatism, or a defense mechanism? It's easy to forget that a wedding is one afternoon or evening in a long string of days and events, that you're not seeing the fights, the sulks, the misunderstandings that had to be overcome so that the couple could get to the altar (or the meadow, or the middle of the dance floor, or wherever they did the deed.)

Then my brother-who-is-not-technically-my-brother picked me up and whisked me off to the lovely Chestnut Hill home he shares with his third wife, and we ended up really getting into it out in the backyard over hummus and pita chips (side note: they are CRAZY about hummus around here. The hummus shelf in the cold case at Star Market reminded me of the ramen shelf at the Ueno Park 7-11 in Tokyo--ground garbanzos for days, dressed up with everything from kalamata olives to jalapeno peppers.) Labyrinth is in his early fifties, his wife (married three times before) a few years younger; they've been married for almost two years. Both have kids and horror stories; both clearly believe that the other is the best thing that ever happened to them. I was laughing with delight watching them spar; they were saying awful things, but obviously having a wonderful time. We talked about how separating marriage from the childbirth-and-raising track changed things; they nodded sagely when I mentioned that I'd heard that marriages initiated after age 30 seem to hold up better than ones begun before that. None of us actually used the term "starter marriage" but you could tell they were both thinking it. The one thing I added to the conversation that seemed intelligent to me is that young people marrying seem to be wondering what the marriage is going to do for them; and that older or previously-married people conversely wonder what they can do for the marriage. How they can use the marriage to grow as people and to contribute something to the world. I have no idea where that came from, but they liked it; one of those things I say and wonder if I'm channeling someone else altogether.

It is odd to be talking about marriage so much and so deeply. It's not a subject that comes up much at home, and I'm not sure if that's something to do with either my friends or living in San Francisco. Could be both. I know that it's kind of hard to talk about marriage there in a way that might be construed as admiring; it's like religion or politics. You'd better have your sophisticated face on. It's also weird because now that my father is gone, I can start thinking about the pattern of my life again, goals and plans; I'm no longer on hold. But what I wanted before his diagnosis and what I want now seem to be different animals, and I haven't sat down with the newer one and really gotten to know it yet.