“You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.”
~ Laurie Halse Anderson

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A BIG THANK YOU to the fifty fantastic women, ranging in age from twenty to eighty; some never married, some divorced, and some very married, who gathered to hear my presentation “Understanding, Appreciating, and Supporting the Men in Our Lives” last night!

What support they gave ME – just by the atmosphere they had lovingly created! Each of the round dinner tables had a clever centerpiece depicting some aspect of masculinity: Motorcycles, Mathematics, Camping, Shirts and ties, Fatherhood and so on. I LOVED IT! The table at the entry had the biggest display of all – piles of work boots, army boots, etc. And guess what they served for dinner? MACHO NACHOS! After a meal like that, who wouldn’t want to dive into the male psychic!

Some of the written comments:

“Your message is awesome! Uplifting!”

“This was fantastic! I get really worried with the “de-masculization” going on this country.”

“This was great! I wish other women in my family could have been here!”

“Very insightful and supported! Interesting and fun!”

“Your presentation was informative, humorous, logical and inspirational!”

“You spoke the truth! Thank you so much!”

“Loved it! I’ve learned a lot through the years and wished I would have had this presentation when I was young. It’s true!”

Several mature women expressed that last sentiment in their own words to me personally: If only I’d known. Other women told me that they did not expect to get much out of the presentation since they considered themselves very experienced. Instead, they came away amazed at what they had forgotten or missed altogether in their relationship with their husband. HAPPY DAY!

The young wives though, were the most impressive. Their openness and zeal gave blew me away…

“This was so refreshing! I have stopped hanging out with certain groups of women because all they did was complain about their husbands. I LOVE MY HUSBAND!”

“I recently joined a Bunko group but emailed out to our group to say that I would only participate as long as there was NO husband bashing. I had to put it out there. And now they all know where I stand! Gosh, I made my husband proud! Thank you!”

And my favorite comment of all?

“Have you written a book? I would like to read it.”

I have just finished studying my thirty-fifth book on marriage and am to the point that I’m ready to write my own book. In fact, I’ve finished the first several thousand words. It is completely different than anything I have written on romance and marriage; it is spilling out of me like magic – clear as a bell – non-stop; a whole new paradigm I have not heard or seen anywhere, plunked down, the full score, in my brain. I have, in fact, sat at the computer for three days straight without getting dressed.

When it’s over, the battle will have just begun. Though I’ve been doing some speaking already, I expect to put a lot more energy and resources into reaching wives, especially young wives, in live presentations, webinars, and conference calls. My blog will go VERY live and I’ll pump out the podcasts and newsletters. I expect it will be my personal focus and passion for the next ten to twenty years of my life; next in importance to my own relationships. And though I will be just one voice, I visualize becoming ten voices, then a hundred, and then a thousand; maybe ten thousand: wives supporting wives.

In the meantime, I’m withdrawing from as many of my regular activities as possible so as to concentrate on writing the book; serious musing. It’s the great wrestle of the writer to find time and space and privacy; a match  I refuse to lose this time though I am an underdog with rheumatoid arthritis. This is a hill that I will not retreat from; not until I can wave my book from the top! I will bring you with me; post updates on the way. (Do you know how scary it is just to say that out loud? But commitment is the name of THE game, isn’t it?  Got to commit.)

Spring is the time for new beginnings, and my new book.

Please wait.

“If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple: Know what you are doing,
love what you are doing, and believe in what you are doing.” ~ Will Rogers

“Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings,
all the snow in Alaska won’t make it “white”. ~ Bing Crosby

Click here to view the embedded video.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Lean into the wind
Let it freshen our sails
Give us strength and energy
A love so born of trial and storm
Will last all eternity.

On the best, most thrilling day of my life, I wore my mother’s wedding dress. Snowflakes cut out of plain white paper decorated the walls of the gym. Guests ate homemade sheet cake. I wore a ring bought by his father. And thank goodness someone took a Polaroid photo.

He had promised to give me “a beautiful life” and I believed him. Though he was nineteen without a rudder and I was eighteen without a paddle, we set sail anyway, thinking our waves would be ripples and our winds nothing more than breezes.

The storms came of course, and we held on with a white-knuckle grip. Shouting through the howling mayhem, our faces drenched with the salty spray of tears, ducking the wild yardarms of fate and circumstance and false expectation that threatened to toss us overboard, we managed to stay afloat by batting down the hatches.

And when the doldrums left us depressed and dangling in seas disturbingly still, we sweated it out until an invisible force swelled the sails with new purpose.

Of course, we had to work hard, if not frantically, at keeping our hull intact; sharp rock formations and icebergs hid on every latitude. We did our best to avoid them, but when our ship took on water faster than the two of us could bail it away, we dove below the surface to assess and repair the damage.

The greatest challenge I think though – when two little people try to sail around the world – is the tendency to  fight over the wheel and the compass. We overcame near mutiny time and again by taking turn at watch and remembering that every ship needs a captain and a smart, loyal mate.

So, here we are, thirty-four years later, heading into the sunset of our lives.

Your cheeks are ruddy my dear, from weathering the toughest stuff nature can throw at at man, and my hands are calloused from scrubbing the deck, but I think we are beautiful.

Let’s keep sailing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

 Happy Anniversary to Captain O my Captain!

Last year’s anniversary Musing:
Forever Backwards Forever Forward Forever Now

Photos by Mona

“A good marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” – Ruth Bell Graham

If I were writing a book about marriage (and I am), the very last chapter would be on forgiveness. That’s a figurative way of saying that forgiveness is Advanced Living 500; it is the graduate school of relations. The smartest, most spiritual, most mature people on earth grapple with ascending this Mt. Everest, but like those who make it to the top say, the view is worth it.

Standing at the summit, with the crystal breeze blowing in my face, I think I can say, that, really, to be just about perfect, and therefore to have a just-about-perfect marriage, we only have to master two things: PURE LOVE (which includes a hefty amount of self-sacrifice) and FORGIVENESS (which often includes a significant measure of repentance).

At this precise moment, I am feeling mighty fine about my progress on both counts. The sky is clear, no clouds on any horizon. I feel fairly acclimated to the rarefied atmosphere. As my boots dig into the ice and the flag of truce waves triumphant, it seems my membership in the elite club of Superior Spouses is secure.

Then…crrrraaaaacccck.

Thunder rolls out of nowhere, the earth begins to shake, the mountain opens up, and suddenly – I am in a familiar crevasse – not that far actually, from base camp (my wedding day).

I have to choose again. To ascend or not to ascend. To forgive or not to forgive. To repent or not to repent. To love or not to love.

I have to choose again. And again. And again. And again.

And so does he.

Thankfully, forgiveness is not an emotion; nothing so elusive as that. It’s a choice. And I can make a choice. So, I scrounge through my backpack of mountain-climbing paraphernalia and pull out the three tools that will get me out of here, back into the sunlight.

*First: ASSIGN MY LOVED ONE VALUE AGAIN.

Accept that he’s not a monster just chomping at the bit to toss me over the edge; in fact, he’s in his own crevasse right now, dreading hypothermia as much as I am.

*Second: DECIDE NOT TO TAKE VENGEANCE ON HIM.

Put away the ice ax and screws.

*And Third: RESTORE OUR RELATIONSHIP.

This snow bridge may take time and careful testing. Important: get an early start. These slick slopes are easier to cross in the “morning” of – soon after – an incident. As the “day” (week, months, years) wears on, the mushier (more difficult) they get.

If practice makes perfect, my husband should be a world champion mountaineer by now. We both should. The rumbles and tumbles keep coming, but I think, after 34 years, all in all, we are increasingly expert at reading the weather and side-stepping falling rock; spending less energy crawling out of crevasses, and more time enjoying the summit. Thankfully, we have survived this thing called “marriage”: unquestionably the most daring undertaking in the human experience, because we refused to be buried alive by our avalanches of pride.

(Experience has taught us that if one climber falls, the whole expedition is in jeopardy.)

So, fellow adventurers: no need to fear! Though you may not always like being tied to the same rope as your partner, as long as it’s a line fixed on conquering together, anchored in forgiveness, you can avoid the hazards and minimize the risks.

And believe me – it’s all worth it. The view IS SPECTACULAR!

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“Acceptance of what has happened in the past is the best way to change the future. You cannot change the fact that it happened. Why not accept that it did—face reality—and go from there?” Joe Beam, Becoming One

(*For more on the three steps of forgiveness see the book and author cited above: 2010, p. 119, Simon & Schuster, Inc., Kindle Edition)

“The question is, is it really working? Husbands and wives are often comfortable strangers rather than courageous intimates.” Dr. Juliana Slattery, Finding the Hero in Your Husband

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My husband and I met during the disco-ball seventies. Fun meant a Friday night dancing non-stop with the BeeGees. We married and the eighties came along. Though we could still point an index finger and jut out a knee at precisely the same moment, the swing became more our style. It took a little more teamwork than Travolta madness, but we mastered it. Clear the dance floor – here come the Z’s.

That dance served us for years, but when the stake offered ballroom classes – why not? We can dance, right? Woah! Waltzin’ and fox-trottin’ were harder than we thought. Making our feet conform to foreign patterns took concentration. It was tempting to revert to our good ole’ swing, but we hung in there and eventually added a few new moves to our Fred and Ginger repertoire.

Only recently, as I’ve been musing about what elevates marriage to the level of true intimacy (“the ‘very within’ place of the relationship…looking beneath the surfaces”, as author Thomas Moore puts it), have I realized how critical it is to be a GOOD DANCER.

We all admire trained dancers — men and women: the way they flow, the way they flex, the way they give and take almost effortlessly. Watching two ballet dancers, or two ballroom dancers, or even pair skaters, move gracefully apart and then together is thrilling: she’s in the air, then he’s in the air; she’s twirling while he’s circling, harmonizing perfectly his strength and action against her beautiful posturing.

A man and a woman combining all their balance and energy into an exquisite dance is a lot like a world-class (or rather, celestial-class) marriage. Both dancers know how to lead and both know how to follow. They are comfortable taking turns in the spotlight; sometimes spinning alone, sometimes spiraling so close, they become one. With fluidity, they meet needs and express needs.

The secret, as my honey and I learned with every new cha-cha-cha, is staying flexible. Rigidity in your relationship or personalities can keep a marriage earth-bound; the partners find it difficult to experience heavenly intimacy: the kind of connection that allows a man to feel so brave, he can lift and lean and leap knowing his wife will be absolutely on her mark; the kind of belonging that allows a woman to trust her husband so fully, he can hold her above his head with one hand.

The question is: is it time you two learned a new dance? Has the music changed so that your current two-step is out-of-step with the new circumstances in your lives? Sure it takes two to Tango, and sure it will require stretching — you may even bruise each other’s toes to start — but the mindset required to learn a new dance is the same one required to achieve real emotional intimacy in marriage…

vulnerability and forgiveness.

Why not give it a whirl?

“A major part of soul-work involves just getting out of the way so that life can go on. We may hang on fiercely to our own interpretations and programs, as if we knew best what we should do, but care of the soul is more a process of listening and following…

It recognizes that we all have old stories, guiding voices, raw emotions, and unfathomable natures that make our lives ultimately inexplicable and rich beyond imagining.”
Thomas Moore, Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship

 

*In addition to Musings here and on Mona’s Musings on Facebook, check in at MMB each week (posts Monday) through the rest of the year for new and more specific/practical Mona’s Musings about understanding men and marital intimacy!

One thing I do know about it: pure intimacy is as rare as it is rich.

Days and years can pass without experiencing the real thing, even when the Object of Intimacy — the only creature that can satisfy our magnificent craving — is nearly constantly at hand. The conditions have to be just so, nurtured by design or fate, and then, like sleep, it comes on very gradually, spontaneously, unexpectedly. Two people, at the same moment, have to want nothing more than to pull the covers over their heads and conspire there, breathing on each other in the tent of complete trust: silently agreeing, absolutely knowing, that every thought and act is safe forever from the glare of the world outside themselves.

Last night was one of those nights for us. And, of course, I can’t blab, I mean – blog, about it or I would be violating the prime directive of intimacy; the universe would starve me for a long time after such an infraction; my loved one would drop the rope that binds us together and who could blame him?

In the glow of the morning-after, it is sad to think about Intimacy-Deprivation: an epidemic; a long drawn-out famine in today’s tell-all, bare-all world. Couples get tangled up in a tornado of a have-all, do-all, know-all, and the wrestle to extricate themselves from the mayhem — to find peace in a storm-cellar that they dig and defend together — takes a lot of commitment, a lot of loyalty, a lot of deference, a lot of restraint…and then,

spontaneous combustion.

And when it happens – when “I understand / You understand”, “I accept / You accept” ignites the dross of routine loneliness and love whips up suddenly like a bushfire – that’s when the buried marriage explodes into the light so that lovers are reconnected, rejuvenated, restored to their original state.

The whole process is all sort of mysterious: first of all, because no one can explain or predict exactly how it happens, and second of all because no one can share much about it when it DOES happen. I wish there were fool-proof instructions (we usually fail at intimacy, by the way, because we ARE fools), but since you have to build your own bonfire, and I assume you want to, I’ll go out on a limb and share just a few innocent suggestions. Come closer, so I can whisper.

  A rainy Friday. An autumn night. Apple cider. And candlelight.

REWARD OF SERVICE
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The sweet lives are those to duty wed,
Whose deeds both great and small
Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread,
Where love ennobles all.
The world may sound no trumpets, ring no bells,
The Book of Life the slurring record tells.

Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes,
After its own like working. A child’s kiss
Set on thy singing lips shall make thee glad;
A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.

Click here to view the embedded video.

DUTY
(from Wikipedia)
“is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person commits himself/herself to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one of the best sorts of lives but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest.”

And isn’t it all worth it for
THIS?

Related Musings:
Forever Backwards, Forward Forwards, Forever Now
A Loving Marriage: For The Children’s Sake
Thank You Daddy, Thank You

There is only one thing as romantic, if not more romantic, than your own wedding, and it is seeing your children happily wed. These, you say, are the fruits; these are the saplings grown from the cones that fell from our branches; these are the blooms in spring and the rainbows after the storm. They are precious. They are delicious. They are exquisite and never so beautiful as now, at this moment…this moment when the whole world worships the most real thing on earth: the love between a man and a woman. Here are photos from that moment; the most recent romance unfolding just this summer. Mona

(All of the quotes below are taken from “The Mystery of Marriage” by Mike Mason.)

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“Love is an earthquake that relocates the center of the universe…”

“Everything else stops, or at least fades into the background, and love itself takes center stage.”

“Suddenly, for what seems the first time in life, one is presented physically and three-dimensionally with an object that is entirely worthy of one’s whole hearted love and devotion.”

“That love should come embodied, encased in flesh, walking and talking and loving in return—for that we are never quite prepared.”

“Of course we are programmed for it, to anticipate and long for love to enter our lives in this dramatic and personal fashion, but that is not to say we are not bowled over when it actually happens.”

“When the miracle of love erupts before our eyes, we cannot help being swept off our feet, dumbfounded, incapacitated for any other action or response except that of love itself: gazing, marveling, contemplating, loving.”

“For secretly we long to perpetuate that one astounding moment in the Garden of Eden. We long to stand in awe of one another, just as Adam and Eve must have done when they first locked gazes.”

“We long for our whole body to tingle with the thrill of knowing that this one fascinating being, this being of a different gender, has been created especially for us and given to us unreservedly for our help, comfort, and joy.”

“Men and women ache for the heart with which to know this reality, and for the eyes with which to see one another (and therefore themselves) as the astounding miracles that they are.”

“For in the first place, love convinces a couple that they are the greatest romance that has ever been, that no two people have ever loved as they do, and that they will sacrifice absolutely anything in order to be together. And then marriage asks them to prove it.”

“A marriage, or a marriage partner, may be compared to a great tree growing right up through the center of one’s living room. It is something that is just there, and it is huge, and everything has been built around it, and wherever one happens to be going—the tree has to be taken into account…It is somehow bigger and stronger than oneself.”

“To be married is not to be taken off the front lines of love but rather to be plunged into the thick of things. It is to be faced, day in and day out, with the necessity of making over and over again, and at deeper and deeper levels, that same terrifyingly momentous and impossible decision that one could never have made without being head over heels in love and out of one’s mind with trust and faith. This is not a resignation to a fate, but the free and spontaneous embracing of a gift, of a challenge, and a destiny.”

“The wedding is merely the beginning of a lifelong process of handing over absolutely everything, and not simply everything that one owns but everything that one is.”

“For when we get married, love itself comes to live with us.”

Related Musings:

“For always in love there is an immense and impossible decision to make, and there can be no real rest until it is made. It is like the pilot being faced with the decision to try to make a dead-stick landing of a jumbo jet in a cornfield. Love cannot circle around forever; it demands resoluteness, wholehearted commitment. Never satisfied with just a little bit of a person’s heart, love wants the whole thing, and is forever pushing toward the brink.” Mike Mason, The Mystery of Marriage

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A recent series of medical tests plants me inside a radiology office. “Revealing my inner self, I think idly, twirling on a stool in the darkened room. Not much different than showering — or blogging really. Silly thinking and spinning does little to alleviate my anxiety.

She finally returns: the technician-who-talks-too -much. Please nice lady…I know I must look tense, but you won’t make it better by chatting  – I just want to get out of here!

Away she blows: the weather, the insurance, the front office, what’s for lunch, we are so behind today and sorry for the wait and would you please take off your wedding ring?

Un-huh. Un-huh. Wait – WHAT?

Your wedding ring. Take it off. We’re going to x-ray your hands.

Oh.

Luckily, my fingers are not swollen just now – the way they have been – and it slips right off. I put it in my purse. I love that ring. It’s my fifth I think. I lost the first one after only a year. Insurance replaced it – but the imposter disappeared a few years after that. I went around with a bare finger for a long time until my Honey went out on a limb and a credit card for an entirely new model, but that one also vamoosed sometime later. It gets a little fuzzy at that point – there was another version somewhere in there – but I do remember the one before this one. The shiny band had shrunk in London (cheese and cream) and was riding in my handbag until the next visit to a  jewelers. Bad idea. The bloke who stole my worthless purse probably never knew he threw a diamond ring in the trash. I balled so hard, I broke blood vessels.

Months later (and 34 years since we met), I spied my future (and final) wedding ring near a Munich ’launderette’. Riveted, I could tell — even through the smudged window of a pawn shop — that it was exactly right for my unusually small finger: size 4.  And the design thrilled me — everything about it was perfect, especially the price… even so, it was probably the most expensive souvenir we bought in Europe and will always be my most treasured one.

Always?

I stare at my left hand, which has been positioned on the glass plate, ready for zapping by the x-ray machine. The knuckles are red and swollen; blue veins pop out between age spots; and my thumb will not extend – only the beginning of  deformities I might acquire. Just looking at it makes me cry and I hope the technician doesn’t notice. What will happen to me? What will happen to us? Will Dale still love me when I’m old and crippled?

Okay! comes the voice from the booth. Right, please.

This one feels and looks just as bad, all splayed out. The machine hums and clicks and round two is over. I realize the talkie-technician never did see my tears, or pretended not to. Relief. How would I have explained that my heart hurts more than my hands?

Please wait in this chair until the doctor okays the pictures.

Sure.

I sit with my hands in my lap. Tucking thumbs inside balled up palms helps. If Dale were here, he would hold me. The memory of the night before, when the warmth of his large left hand made my small right one feel so much better, gives me a surge of pleasure.

My ring!

Fumbling painfully with the clasp of my purse and the zipper pocket inside, I blindly sort pennies from paperclips. Wincing with every pinch, I finally draw out the band and put it back on my ring finger, swearing never to take it for granted, never to take it off. No matter what happens, no matter how my thumbs may twist or throb,  swell or knob, ‘les misérables’…this ring, and the priceless man who gave it to me, will not disappear and cannot be replaced.

The technician comes back. You can go, she says.

I hobble on creaky feet out the door and to the car. Waiting for a green light, I realize my ring can spin at the base of my finger. Ahhh. Still no swelling. Can’t wait to tell Dale.

Who knew the day would turn out romantic?