The Nature of Union

Posted by Guest | June 22, 2010 | 11 Comments

Susan Noyes Anderson has written our UP CLOSE: MARRIAGE MAKING IT WORK post today. Sue describes herself as a grandma who loves to write and a writer who loves to grandma. She hails from Northern California and is the mother of four grown children and the grandmother of three (who still have a lot of growing to do). If you haven’t seen her blog at Sue’s News, Views ‘n Muse, be sure to visit. She also has fun maintaining a poetry web site with nearly 200 of her poems on it. Sue is the author of three books and has published articles, poems, and stories in various magazines, anthologies, and online publications.

I met my husband when we were both freshmen at the University of Utah. He was only eighteen years old at the time, and I was even younger–sixteen. We fell for each other pretty hard, but it was four years until we got married. (His idea. He wanted us to graduate first.)

For the first ten years of our marriage, I never even noticed he wasn’t perfect. The next ten years were spent resigning myself to the fact that he wasn’t perfect. The following ten taught me to accept the fact that he wasn’t perfect. And today (eight years into the next ten), I appreciate the fact that he isn’t perfect.

So. We’ve come full circle. Except that this time the “not noticing he isn’t perfect” comes with knowledge and appreciation. I see his imperfections, and I like them. They are familiar, endearing, and they balance out my own. I need that. Working in unison, we bring one another from either extreme toward the center, and both of us come closer to getting it right.

As people, we are still imperfect as can be, but our choice to be together (forever) is not. And that IS perfect.

Not long ago, I ran across a photo of two trees, a photo that reached all the way into my heart and pulled hard. These graceful giants seemed almost to share one trunk, but their upward growth flowed in and out, at times intertwined and at times separate, weaving away then toward each other in a beautiful dance of branch and limb. As always when I am particularly moved, I wrote a poem. One of the first things I did was share it with my husband, because it’s about us.

I’ve always been drawn to visual representations of the tree of life, and I’m delighted to have found what is, for me, a visual representation of the tree of marriage––or my marriage, at least. Acted upon by sun and storm, worn by wind and water, our trunks have stretched and dipped, met and parted. Winding over, under, around, and through each other in ways both sacred and superficial, our boughs have formed shapes and spaces known and understood by only the two of us. From newlywed bliss to the financial woes of a growing family, amidst baby blessings and adolescent acting out, through times of privation and times of plenty, we have stood side by side, shoulder to shoulder. Birth, death, disease, disaster, accomplishment, disillusionment, pain, jubilation, fear–all have left their mark. Life has joined us at the root and made us stronger.

As a young man about to marry the girl whose dreams were straight from a storybook, my husband inscribed the inside of a plain, gold wedding band: “Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.” It may have taken us forty years to figure out what that really means, but he was right. And we are living it.

union: the nature

our roots run

together

trunk to trunk

we rise up

bark on bark

we grow

leave knots

love knots

forget-me-knots

knotholes and

arching separations

always winding back

together

bowing

to and fro

as branch in

branch we dance

and struggle

hang low then

stretch high

boughs yearning

reaching turning

tasting bits of

one (the very same)

bright azure sky

Comments

11 Responses to “The Nature of Union”

Jill Shelley
June 22nd, 2010 @ 9:51 am

Interesting to me that you did not notice his imperfections the first 10 years. Usually it takes about 6 months to a year for those to appear

On another note, I think it’s the imperfections between a couple that really help us to grow and become. If life stayed in that perfect blissful state we feel in the beginning, we would not accomplish much in this life.
Cheryl
June 22nd, 2010 @ 10:53 am

I love Sue.
I knew my husband had imperfections when I married him. He was flawed but I thought I could fix him.
I was wrong.
I fought against him for the first 15 years…the next couple of years resigned and finally I’ve accepted.
Took almost 20 years to get there.
Love that poem. When I grow up I want to be just like Sue and her marriage.
April
June 22nd, 2010 @ 11:39 am

I love that picture. It looks like one of the trees is taking the other tree for a dip in the dance of life!
Kristin
June 22nd, 2010 @ 12:24 pm

Well done. I love the thoughts, the photo, the imagery, the poem…the whole thing.
Sue
June 22nd, 2010 @ 5:29 pm

Jill- I was head over heels and seriously could not see any faults for those first few years. Then reality set in!

Cheryl- Thanks for the kind words; I love reading them! In all honesty, though I should mention that when I write these poems (and the various mushy, anniversary-type posts on my blog), I do so because I’m in a romantic and rosy mood. Believe me, we have our not-so-rosy moments, too! (I have poems about those as well…probably not appropriate for Segullah, though!) heehee

April- I just love the photo, too. (I guess it’s okay to say so, since I didn’t take it!)

Kristin- Thanks for commenting. I’m really glad you liked it. =)
becky
June 22nd, 2010 @ 10:14 pm

Sounds like you have a beautiful relationship. Agree loving each other imperfections and all is lovely.
Michelle Glauser
June 22nd, 2010 @ 11:23 pm

Lovely.
Sage
June 23rd, 2010 @ 4:27 am

Wonderful, Sue. Truly wise words.

I think I was doubly drawn in because I have always considered my husband my personal “sturdy” tree. I also love the tree imagery in the scriptures and felt I needed someone with a lot of inner strength. I was more like Cheryl, though. I went into marriage with a feeling I knew his weaknesses and would help him (actually my patriarchal blessing alludes to that…), but I always remembered my sealer (and uncle’s) advice not to change the other, but to change yourself.

Now it’s been almost twenty years and I have worked hard to change myself. And we have changed together. And this photo and poem speak to my heart.

Thank you.
Serene
June 23rd, 2010 @ 7:28 am

Wow Sue! That was such a great post!
But I am slightly envious. My marriage has been a whole lot of work right from the beginning. We’ve worked, cried, and laughed. The first few years entailed more of the former, but the longer we stay together and figure things out it entails more of the later.

Luv ya!
Braden
June 23rd, 2010 @ 12:15 pm

Sue, that was very beautiful and very wise. Aesthetic and profound. Thank you.
How Long Is Ever After? « Course Correction
June 25th, 2010 @ 1:43 am

[...] but real couples get disillusioned shortly after making their vows. I was impressed with a recent blogger who said she didn’t notice her husband’s faults for the first ten years of their marriage. [...]