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The Second Proposal


I am not one of those who had multiple opportunities to marry throughout my life. I know people who could have married anyone. Had numerous suitors and sorted through them like a closet stuffed with clothing. Not me. I can count on one hand the number of men who were even remotely attracted to me and not one of them saw me as a take home to mom prospect. For me there has only been Will and now Rob.

My first engagement was storied. Surprise. One knee, rose, wine and a ring in a box. Very school girl fantasy.

Rob and I were not school kids though I was hardly a girl with Will either being 35 and all. But Rob and I came to be engaged after knowing each other for just a tad more than three months, and I would characterize the courtship as not usual.

The third anniversary of our betrothal is tomorrow  – sort of – and I don’t think I have every really written about it.

Rob came down to Iowa to pick me up for a Spring Break trip. He actually began planning this vacation for me early in our friendship when we were still just friends. Destination – Arkansas. We took Dee to my folks but had headed back to my home in Des Moines to visit with BFF and her husband before heading out. We went to dinner and saw the raunchiest comic/hypnotist show at a local comedy club before getting home around midnight.

A couple of weeks early, we’d talked about my coming to Canada. I made it clear that a move of that magnitude was not whimsical nor could I do any “test-driving” of living together. It’s not that I am old-fashioned. I just think living together is not a test for marriage compatibility.

“Let’s see if we are compatible by playing at house.” is a stupid idea that is mostly doomed to failure because I have rarely witnessed two people do this having discussed in advance what they want or where they are really going. And playing is how children learn things. Adults at play are … well … adults just playing. Nothing more or less.

Before you wonder, I told Will the exact same thing when he was basically spending every minute at my house within a month of our dating. I don’t live with someone unless we are getting married in the very near future. I don’t believe that two people learn anything from the process that simply having frank discussions about wouldn’t reveal and compatibility is like happily ever after – a matter of mindset and resolve. If I am in love and committed, do socks and underwear on the floor or snoring or never remembering to start the dishwasher before bed so there are clean dishes for the next day really matter all that much? Shouldn’t tightwadness or ditzy behavior have already been apparent? Sexism isn’t something that is easily cloaked until close quarters flushes it out and if you need to “test drive” someone, isn’t that really a red flag?

I knew that Rob and I were compatible. I wasn’t so naive that I believed that marriage is some flower and singing animal strewn forest of nuptial bliss. I didn’t need a test drive. Do you test drive friendships or do you just have them?

Before we went to bed, Rob took a box out of his suitcase and showed me the rings. An engagement band and a wedding ring.

“I’m not ready to ask the question, but I want you to wear this,” he told me.

I protested. I didn’t want this until he was ready. I could wait. He insisted.

We headed out the next morning to stock the ice chests for the trip and then hit the highway south with me ringed. It felt strange to wear a ring again. I’d taken my wedding ring from Will off the day after his funeral and it took months of rubbing my ring finger raw to get used to it being gone. Now it felt funny to have the finger encased again. I chalked it up to my whole thing with jewelry in general. I just am not meant to be adorned.

The second night in Arkansas – and again we were in bed – Rob said,

“You know what I wasn’t ready to ask? I’m ready. Will you marry me?”

And I said yes because I was too.

On the way back to pick up Dee at my folks’, we had a marathon discussion session. I don’t think I knew as much about Will after several years of marriage as I did about Rob after Arkansas. Very little was left unsaid. Full disclosure then and since. Too often we fall into this trap of believing that all will be revealed over time through gestures and situations and that another person can be learned through proximity. But I lived with my parents for 18 years and I don’t think either one of them ever really knew me. And it wasn’t for lack of time or love. We just didn’t talk. Really talk.

Closeness is more than sharing a bed and bath.

Wolf Hall


Wolf Hall was, maybe still is, the ancestral estate of the Seymours. Jane was Henry VIII’s third wife and the mother of Edward VI. She came in between the headless wives and contrary to popular myth, Henry did not routinely murder his wives. His first and third wives died of age and childbirth respectively. He’d divorced number one because he became convinced he’d sinned in marrying his brother’s widow, as she was, and that this was the cause of his son-less state. A hugely big deal in the Middle Ages. Well, let’s be real, being without sons is still considered tragic to lesser or greater degrees depending on where in the world you stand. He annulled his fourth marriage on grounds of ugliness and bad breath, and wife six survived him but only just. Wives two, five and six were adulterers to varying degrees with two and four losing their heads over it and six barely managing to outlive him before being arrested for treason herself. Wife two’s guilt isn’t proven but five and six were definitely involved with other men which given Henry’s reputation was just plain stupid.

Wolf Hall is mentioned infrequently in the novel of the same name by Hilary Mantel. In fact the Seymours only appear when the author wants to foreshadow or make a specific point about creeping evil. Jane Seymour’s father was a lecher who carried on with his daughter-in-law at one point and may have even fathered his own “grandchildren” on her. Jane herself is a quiet voice of practicality who is continually affirming Cromwell’s (the main character’s) information about the debauchery that goes on in her childhood home.

Wolf Hall represents the slip on the slope and it’s not until the end of the novel, after Thomas More’s head is piked on London Bridge that Cromwell heads off on his first visit to the Seymour’s. But an astounding amount of teetering on the top of the slope has taken place by this point and even if I didn’t know that Thomas Cromwell will lose his own head at a not to distant point in the future, I’d be able to guess it.

I love Tudor England. Sometimes I wonder if my affinity suggests that I lived a life or two there. There are only a few other time periods I am drawn to so perhaps.

It was not a simple or simple-minded time. Henry is neither monster nor misunderstood. Thomas More is no saint and Cromwell not as soulless as the history books would like us to believe.

History is suspect. It’s written by the winners and the vanquished never get to tell their side of the tale. Tales, being multi-sided like houses and books, should represent, don’t you agree?

Wolf Hall is a sumptuous read. It’s so hard to find decent fiction anymore that I am a bit sad when I finish. Thick text though so be aware that an audio version might be better. I found a delightful discussion about it at The Slate and will leave you with a pulp version of Tom and Henry.

Flowing


If you want page views, you should use the phrase “outing myself” somewhere in it or talk about dead people. Although the latter is usually the bigger draw here, I’ve had amazing results with the former this week though I suppose they are technically one in the same.

The last hour of training this last weekend was wiled away with Patanjali. I didn’t have much to say out loud. My opinions on life, energy and the transformation of true self (some people refer to that last as “soul”) are not fully formed and stray far afield of generally recognized lines. Mostly, I listen. Most of the others in the training are younger than I am, many of them could easily be my daughters had I been an early mother. I recognize a lot of passions and ideas that I’ve long since discarded. I am struck by the optimism and that’s a feat because I’ve always found it difficult not to err on the side of Pollyanna’s dreams.

A few things.

First was something I touched on in a reply to Sharon’s comment yesterday.

It’s easy to believe that you have the answers. Read a little Yoga Sutra. Cultivate a yoga practice. Eat quinoa and shun milk for soy. Enlightenment!

No, not really. There is a common feel to the Yoga Sutras. Issues we grapple with today can easily be addressed within its teachings. But that’s so with most philosophical/religious texts that have stood the test of time. The bible. The Koran. The Talmud. Even some of the timeless literature, The Iliad, Cinderella (did you know that every culture has its own version of her story? every single one.) Human beings are complex in their utter simplicity.

Yoga is a good path for the me as I am at this point in time. I would never speculate in detail about decade from now, but I feel safe saying that I will still be following this path or at the very least, a tributary.

But I have no answers. Sorry. I won’t be jumping into guru mode or overlaying sutra on my experiences or vice versa. The margin for serious error is too high.

Monks in Tibet sit around with sutra-like texts and debate it. I am a bit skeptical of my own ability to do much more than merely relate to it and pick up a theme here and there to run with. Apply it to others? Not so much.

The other thing that came up was the whole “religion” problem that yoga has. It clearly has meta-physical roots. One doesn’t have to read to far in before the “g” word comes up.

One young lady, who reminds me of DNOS and Edie in some ways because she has this tiger aura about her, brought up the fact that it is simply disrespectful to gloss over the religion in yoga. One doesn’t have to personally embrace it to gain from a yoga practice but to ignore or disparage it is … rude.

Rude is not the word I would use. I would say “arrogant”. In a very white sort of way. But I’m a fallen away American, and the my adopted country folk are often kinder than I am in their assessments of things.

Finally, our instructor, Kat, talked about the Hugging Guru who’s achieved such a level of  “yoga” in terms of non-attachment (quite different from “detachment”) that she radiates joy. A person can physically feel it radiating from her being like a soul heat lamp. Even before she is seen, people can feel her. A lightness permeates them and once in her presence, a single hug is a bath of love. As a result of this – um – enlightenment? – she really embodies what Kat described as “being in the world but not of it”. Therefore, this woman has caretakers. People who make sure that her physical needs are met, that she gets to where she needs to be when, and that no harm comes to her.

Not most people’s reality.

But,

I realized, and not for the first time, that it comes pretty darn close to mine. And that can’t be an accident, can it?