Happy Anniversary

22 very happy years of marriage celebrated today.  Don't know why, when I first awoke, I was thinking of the worst day of my life, an awful Christmas Eve fight three years before I met Marie.

Between Marie and me "never a cross word" would be an exaggeration, but there's never been a fight. The cross words are rare. They're sometimes provoked, sometimes not, but they always produce an apology on one side or the other.

Marie is my soul mate – she understands me so well that I never have to explain myself to her.

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, too. Of course there are times that I have to explain myself. But she always understands the explanation and never argues with it. And I've never had the impulse to argue with her when she explains herself to me.

There are lots of ways in which we see the world differently. After all, she's an artist and I a scientist, so we are presumably dominated by our right and left brains, respectively. But our fundamental attitudes are completely aligned. Neither of us thinks that whatever truths we each hold go beyond the personal to the universal; neither of us thinks that others who see things differently are screwed up; neither of us thinks that we have to force or persuade others to see the world as we do. Both of us see life as a gift.

I remember a windy, rainy late afternoon in Birmingham when Marie was a few minutes late picking me up. This was before cell phones, and we'd agreed on a time and place. I was shivering under an umbrella on a dark street corner, dodging splashes from passing cars and growing more miserable by the minute. "Where the hell are you, woman???" I kept muttering. I was in a bit of a snit when I climbed into the car.

But she's like me -- she was genuinely sorry and apologized with feeling. And I knew that, had the situation been reversed, I might have been a little late and she in a bit of a snit. I knew that she had no ulterior motives, and I knew as I warmed up that we'd soon be sharing a drink, appetizers, good conversation and, a little later, a good meal. Life is too good and too precious to waste on anger at small unintentional offenses. By the time of her second apology, I could honestly say "That's all right. Forget it."

Sadly, this cold has be so far down that we'll have to delay our anniversary dinner tonight to some other time.