We are now a little less than three weeks out from our wedding day, and while everything people told us about the final days has been a bit true, I continue to try and stay as grounded and present to the experience as possible.
And so, in honor of our love (in this exact moment in time), our union (in bringing together our families and spirits to celebrate), and the adventure (that we're about to embark on in our honeymoon and in life), I am stepping away until late next month. A few of my favorite thoughts and words on partnership, love, and unity are below. Have a great month, and see you on the other side!
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
“Along with the differences that abide in each of us, there is also in each of us the maverick, the darling stubborn one who won’t listen, who insists, who chooses preference or the spirited guess over yardsticks or even history. I suspect this maverick is somewhat what the soul is, or at least that the soul lives close by and companionably with its agitating and inquiring force. And of course all of it, the differences and the maverick uprisings, are part of the richness of life. If you are too much like myself, what shall I learn of you, or you of me? I bring home sassafras leaves and M. looks and admires. She tells me how it feels to float in the air above the town and the harbor, and my world is sweetened by her description of those blue miles. The touch of our separate excitements is another of the gifts of our life together.”
“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.”
“Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.”