I don’t remember meeting my husband. I don’t really remember falling in love with him. I just was. Though we didn’t date until college, our love story is some real life Cory and Topanga shit. Kiel and I were born four weeks apart and our parents ran in the same circle of old friends. Our hometowns are about an hour apart, but we spent countless weekends and vacations camping, sledding and playing frisbee golf before it had its own specialty supply stores. Occasions of all kinds were marked for our parents and their friends to get together and remember they were still themselves. The story goes that I took my first steps at such a gathering. He was there, probably running around, already more coordinated than I was. I have always known him. He has always known me.
When I was seven, maybe eight, his parents invited mine to rent a cottage on a large inland lake about an hour away from either of us. We spent one week together every summer, and later two because one wasn’t enough for anyone. We tried to spend three weeks once, but two turned out the be the magic number. The cottages were small, togetherness was a necessity. We entertained countless friends and visitors, holding court in the beachless lawn. I read a book a day, tanned, tubed, water skied and napped. Kiel fished. After he went fishing, he usually made a snack and went fishing again. Days got away from us. Despite the most earnest of intentions, I would often spend an entire day without finding the time to accomplish polishing my toes, the single goal I aspired to achieve until its completion. The time was blissfully unstructured.
Time at that sparse cottage is one of those magical things. Kiel’s family still goes, though the cottage my family used to occupy is no longer for rent. Nothing about the place on Chippewa Lake looks holy, except for the oil painting of a grey man with folded hands above his austere supper. He’s been there for at least 25 years. When I arrive, I sweep my eyes over the meager furnishings, looking for the changes. Is there a new couch? New carpet? There are always a few new things, but never too many. The place is a constant punctuation, the backdrop for everything that has happened. Every year passes through.
I wrote this story for 11th grade English. The prompt was: Write about a person or place of significant influence. The exercise was meant to mimic a college application essay, but I was way too artsy to follow directions, which is probably a very common style of college application essay, now that I think of it. My husband and I were not in a relationship and would not be for a few more years. We were both dating other people, but I wrote about him. I wrote about him because the feeling of being known so effortlessly was important and rare. I didn’t understand the gravity, but I felt it. I am either someone who is a little spooky like that or someone who is incredibly good at getting what she’s after. I would prefer that people think both are true.
After 10 years of marriage and a million more quiet moments, I think about this one often. We have a lot fewer of those these days, and we have plenty of stories that don’t belong on a sweet anniversary post. We’ve been married for ten years. There have been some shit storms. That is possibly a big fat understatement. But I know who he is, and he knows who I am, and that is as close as I can come to explaining our secret to making it work.
He shows me who he is in the quiet moments.
Happy Anniversary Kiel, olive juice.
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