“Three windbells cool the humid summertime;
Clashing their shrilly sweet metallic chime.”
–A Chime of Windbells
This season always reminds me of falling in love with my husband. When we were first dating, we would take his dog, Maggie, for long walks through the dark, tree-lined streets–and down to the river–on warm summer nights. The humid air, the lightning bugs, the tinkling of people’s wind chimes filled me with the lightest feelings of joy and possibility. Later, lying in bed and listening to the night sounds through his open window, I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else but right there with him.
Now here we are, all these years later, with a house and two children. We were talking last night about whether people, after years of marriage, can still feel the way they did when they first fell in love. I was thinking it would be so nice if they could hold on to some of that passion and possibility forever; I think Mark was making the case that this wasn’t very realistic, given that people evolve throughout time. I guess he’s right that so many things can clutter the years of a marriage and make it more complicated than it ever was in the beginning. People lose sight of each other sometimes.
Maybe it’s time to hang some wind chimes.
3 responses so far ↓
1 map // Jul 6, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Funny. I bumped into our chimes in the basement the other day and stood there listening to them like I was in a trance. I considered grabbing them and hanging them on the porch, but stopped because I remembered how they annoy you. Either one or both of us is / are misremembering, or people really do change over time. Maybe it’s only my chimes you find unpleasant.
2 jwh // Jul 7, 2009 at 9:27 am
you’re doing it again, you two… mark, you know how i feel about people and their bedroom scenes…
this is a hard time for all of you, but it will pass.
i was so horrible to my husband when we brought home our second child… everything he did annoyed me, especially when he was trying to ‘help’ or tell me what he thought about things. i was, admittedly, hormonal, sleep-deprived, and prone to unbelievably irrational behavior. but i couldn’t help it.
when things were getting particularly ugly, i just decided to stop. stop being such a rag and stop taking whatever it was i was feeling out on my husband. not easily done, but i could tell i was hurting him and i didn’t want to do that. my husband noticed, and was relieved.
(there’s a whole other part about ‘happiness’ and how i don’t really think in those terms, but, i’m not going to go there…)
the point is, be nice to your wife. and stop being so rational… everyone knows you’re a romantic.
3 Cindy // Jul 8, 2009 at 10:41 am
as we loaded into the van the other day, I looked at Mitch and said ” I couldn’t manage my life without you”. It’s a different life than we had as as singles, as couples, as the parent of one, and a totally different passion, but it’s still there.
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