Borderline

Last night I dreamt that I was in a hilly urban area. Big city, not a particularly posh part of town. It had a bit of a Latino feel to it, but may have been California. I was in a car--a big '50s or early '60s sedan, light pool green, lap belts, no headrests--with my daughter and another female (I don't know who she was, I don't recall whether she was young or old, but I had the sense that she was important), and the hired driver who was taking us to meet my wife somewhere.

But we weren't going straight there. Somehow, it had been arranged that en route to meeting my wife, the car was going to stop by Madonna's gated residence, where I was to quickly substitute for a gigolo who was scheduled to meet with and, er, service Ms. Ciccone-(probably hasn't changed her license back yet)Ritchie.

So we pulled up to the residence, the driver agreed--according to plan--to take a few laps around the block then return shortly, and I crossed the sidewalk to the entrance, leaving my daughter and the other female behind. Arriving at the gate, I found the security keypad, and in the dimming light of dusk, noticed that the buttons 2, 8 and 0 were more worn than were the others. I tried them in a few different combinations until I heard a ring through the speaker. The line connected, and at the other end, Madonna said, "Hello?" "Hi, I'm...here for you." "Oh good. Come on in and let's go for it." [buzz, click]

Immediately, almost with a whiplash, my mind raced and heart pounded. Not at the moral crisis of principles...covenants vs. the possibility of being with the woman who defined and continually redefined female sexuality for at least one generation, but at the logistical dilemma of how to buy time and hide the deed from my daughter, the other female in the car, and my wife.

After just a few moments, I left the gate ajar and ran back to the street. There was no car when I arrived, but after just a few seconds it appeared over the crest of a hill to my left (which had a sunsetting sky behind it, but I had the sense that I was looking to the east, while it was darkening to the west, and yet it was definitely late evening), speeding down the road toward me and, registering more silhouetted heads in it than jived with the three who had been in it when I saw it last, I knew something was wrong. The car skidded to a stop in front of me. When the interior lights flashed on, I saw several men, maybe half a dozen of them, all dressed in black, looking through the windows at me and holding pistols to the heads of my daughter and the other female.

The end.

"New Words"

This evening, I heard a song that left me aching to be a better dad. (I can already imagine the Ensign admonition, “The best way to be a better father to your kids is to be a better husband to their mother.”) It's called "New Words," by Maury Yeston:

Look up there, high above us
In a sky of blackest silk
See how round like a cookie
See how white, as white as milk
Call it the moon, my child
Say "moon."
Sounds like your spoon, my child
Can you say it?
New word today -- say "moon"

Near the moon brightly turning
See the shining sparks of light
Each one new, each one burning
Through the darkness of the night
We call them stars, my child
Say "stars."
That one is Mars, my child
Can you say it?
New word today -- say "stars"

As they blink all around us
Playing starry-eyed games,
Who would think it astounds us
Simply naming their names?

Turn your eyes from the skies now
Turn around and look at me
There's a light in my eyes now
And a word for what you see
We call it love, my child
Say "love."
So hard to say, my child -- It gets harder.

New words today, we'll work to say
Learn "moon," learn "stars," learn "love."

La la la la la la…

Learn moon, learn stars, learn happy

Learn peace, learn love, learn puppy

Learn friend, learn toy, learn sharing

Learn hope, learn joy, learn caring

Learn life is there for living

Learn love is there for giving

Learn merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Live and laugh and dream.

A Top Five Cause, so no surprise

Well, that was nice while it lasted. This morning's Tithing Settlement--full tithe, FYI--and a discussion about Christmas gifts for the extended family--she has six siblings--formed a perfect storm for a blow-up about household finances. (I would say "household budget," but to call our cash inflows and outflows a "budget" would be an insult to the word.)

Jungle fever

I returned recently from a trip to Central America, where I was struck by the beauty of the Guatemalan women. That's not a typo. And I don't mean those that are of primarily Spanish ancestry; I mean those who are heavily indigenous. There's a certain nobility in their facial structure and a clarity of countenance that holds a curious allure. In the town of Flores, I was smitten by one little Lolita (which makes it sound like it was her fault...right?) in particular. Then I imagined her at age 73 and was quickly able to return to my touristic responsibilities, undistracted.

Other than a good deal of gawking, it was a well-behaved trip. Although in a bar/club in the pseudo-resort town of Panajachel, on lake Atitlan, I did dance with a twentysomething and her professor, both of whom were with a large group of law students from the university in Guatemala City. Both were attractive, though not stunning, and more of Spanish ancestry than indigenous. No lambada-like moves that would have been out of place at your garden-variety stake dance, but I was definitely "aware" that this was probably the first non-instructional time (we've had some tango and salsa lessons) since I've been married that I've held the hand and felt the (clothed) lower back of a woman to whom I was not related.

The trip (on which my wife didn't accompany me, as she doesn't "do" Latin blight very well) afforded me a great deal of time to reflect on my marriage and my family. I was joined by an intelligent and insightful friend, who knows both of us fairly well and served as a helpful sounding board, and I returned home with a general feeling that, all other considerations aside, my marriage was worth more effort than I was giving it. This feeling came with a sobered, hopeful contentedness that I haven't felt in a very long time. I mentioned to my wife a day or two after I returned that she was more beautiful than I had remembered her. She said I was feeding her a line. I reminded her that I'd never fed her "a line," for better or for worse. I think it meant something to her, maybe just a little something. There's a little more sweetness in her eyes, a little more patience and interest in our tone with each other. We've spoken openly and earnestly about a variety of hot-button topics, even the idea of my leaving my semi-high-paying job and its 2-hrs-per-day commute, to be able to spend more time with the kids. No fireworks. Just something akin to being wrapped up in a fleece blanket that just came out of the dryer. Not sure exactly why. We'll see. But at the very least, it seems to feel better--at least for this moment--than the various alternatives.

Stiffnecked rubbernecking

Don't waste your clicks pointing out that my subtitle reads "...on the verge of infidelity..." while it's evident--and will become more so, with virtually each post--that, based on Matthew 5:28, I've long-since committed adultery in my heart. Already sorted that one out. But thanks.

Mr. Cliché visits Costco

Yesterday eve, I’m nearing the end of the shopping list, and am shuffling through the pharmacy in search of mosquito repellent. (Yes, in November. Long story.) I’m not having much luck—again, it’s November—and enlist an employee’s help. To enable a quick wrap-up once I’m done in the pharmacy, as we stroll, I recite to him my few remaining items, and he points me in their general directions. Then I turn down an aisle and nearly stumble over a big display for Elizabeth Arden skincare products, with Catherine Zeta-Jones perched atop the famous Red Door, smiling, legs crossed demurely in front of her, toward the camera…toward Me, rather. Not sure how long I stood there like every other Madison Avenued Yahoo before “Sir…sir…sir?” broke the trance.

(Couldn’t find the exact photo, but here’s a substantially similar zoom from a shot of Mrs. Douglas at an Arden store opening. Boy, it’s sure easy to marvel at Two-Kids-And-Approaching-Forty, while ignoring the Hidden Legion of Personal Trainers, Dieticians and Nannies reality.)

August 2009 update: It appears that, to the the delight of all, Arden is continuing the campaign. I passed the display yesterday while picking up a prescription at Costco. Lucky Michael.

Anime: Not just for dirty old Japanese men

I realize that we haven't yet enjoyed enough of the view from 30,000 feet to swoop down to rooftop level, but a string of events this evening illustrated “Much of What Vexes Our Marriage, In A Nutshell” so precisely and concisely, that it’s time for a quick post.

First, a bit of background: When things are, let’s say, colder than they are warmer between us (which is more the norm than the exception), I still try to give my wife quick, if perfunctory, kisses before I leave for work in the morning and when she goes to bed at night. I do this out of a fear, of sorts, that once we miss a few days of even those, their absence becomes increasingly conspicuous to both of us, and eventually we’re awaiting something momentous enough to justify the resumption of physical contact…something momentous that is unlikely to occur. I hope that makes sense.

So, we have a Halloween tradition of a few years now, in which the kids forego trick-or-treating in favor of bowling, miniature golfing, mini-karting and/or nickelcading with me, followed by a pumpkin pie frozen yogurt. They wear their little costumes anyway, and it’s a blast.

I got home from work, herded the kids out the door, and gave my wife one of “those” kisses, to which she responded, “Ah, the token peck.”

We went to local fun center for miniature golfing (tangent: at nearly every putt, I was acutely aware of how many times I’d played this same course as a kid with my friends; to some, this may be a bit heartwarming – to me, well, for many years, my definition of “failure” was the idea of living out life in the same zip code in which you were born), air hockey, Fußball and video games. My daughter, with pretty good rhythm for a white girl, was tearing it up on “Dance Dance Revolution.” I don’t know whether you’ve seen the most recent releases of the game, but the background graphics are somewhat evolved from earlier versions. In this case, every song featured a single, animated girl in “club-appropriate” attire, dancing to the music amid a frenzied CG background. Not overtly provocative – no bumping, grinding or pole-sliding…just how a girl might dance alone in her dorm room with her iPod on and the lights low. I’m there having a blast with my kids, my sweet daughter stomping away at this game, my son over Whacking-A-Mole, and I’m transfixed by this electronic Lolita.

The frozen yogurt place was closing right as we got there, so we took our treats to a nearby Barnes & Noble. As we walked through the magazine racks toward the café, I saw “25 Tips To Heat Up Your Bedroom” on the cover of something, and thought, “Meh…not even worth the discussion.”

Anybody remember the classic “Message from the Mormons” commercial of the kid bursting into the house, exulting in the two As on his report card, only to be struck by the Gorgon’s howl from upstairs, "How many times have I told you not to slam that door?!" As we headed from the garage to the front door, I became Frankenstein, so the kids were yelping and squealing as we entered the house. No sooner had I closed the door behind me, when I turned to see a furrowed brow delivering a stern rebuke (louder than any noises we were making), “I just put the baby to bed! Can’t you keep it down?!”

So as I stand there, staring into the steel, I think, "Am I supposed to want to plant anything more than the token peck on this face?"

Loser, winning near the goal

Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Like the rest of you, I suffered through Keats' "Grecian Urn" during my junior or senior year in high school. With enough woo/love/leave episodes under my, uh, belt at that time to constitute a pattern, it's remarkable that I missed his mini-ode-within-an-ode here to Hunter's Complex—or Sagittarian Syndrome, as one of my sisters calls it. Two centuries before the universal attention deficit diagnosis, Keats knew that The Thrill Is In The Chase.

In (brief) relationship after (brief) relationship, I can remember the exact moment that I lost interest, and it invariably came with the realization that I'd won her. Not to be confused with I kissed her (although that tended to be more characteristic of its nascent stages), this awareness came following an act or an expression or gesture that said, "You have conquered my heart."

Eventually, I caught on to this, as did my best friend, who wrote me a monolithic work, "Your Relationships: Five Simple Steps," which was hilarious, scathing, and spot-on...and got deleted when a server crashed back in e-mail's stone age. Merely catching onto it didn't do much to break the cycle in most cases, although I was able to overcome it—or at least delay its otherwise-inevitable appearance—to nurture a few longer and more meaningful relationships along the way.

I've heard this behavior ascribed to the variety of low self esteem reflected in a quote attributed by Woody Allen to both Groucho Marx and Sigmund Freud, which is something to the effect of, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."

In grad school, an observant roommate gave me her copy of Cosmo, bookmarked to an article about "The Three Month Man," which offered a variety of other explanations, most of which applied to me in some form or other. It blew me away: How did they figure me out?! I haven't managed to track that one down again (it was sometime in late '96 or early '97, if you want to check your extensive collection of back issues), but I did find this article that seems to be a warmed-over rehashing of the Cosmo one, and still accurate. (In case the link changes, the title is "Are You The Next Three-Month Man?" by Andre Cross, at AskMen.com.) Don't skip the quiz at the end—at any given moment between ages 16 and (skip 19-21) 26, I would have scored at least 80%.

In any case, the Hunter/Conquerer/TMM psyche isn't the most receptive ground for the deep roots that a long-term commitment needs to cast down.

For the record

Before I plunge into this, I want to make it clear that my wife is a remarkable woman, and that any of my subsequent posts that suggest otherwise must be taken strictly within the context of the topic at hand, my mood at the time, etc. And downplayed or altogether dismissed accordingly.

At the risk of objectifying her into a list of attributes, here’s a sampler: She’s strong-willed and assertive. She’s deeply spiritual and broadly knowledgeable on Gospel topics—and not just the porridge fare of the last couple of decades, but esoteric, “Whoa…did he really preach that?” source material-type stuff. She is smart and tenacious about things that are important to her, and is a lightning-quick study on topics of interest. She’s the eldest of a bazillion children, so—at the cost of her adolescence—she mothers with élan, and that's backwards, in her sleep, while bedridden. (Red flag for the savvy reader: Dad doesn’t help enough around the house!) She’s tall, slender—by any reasonable, real-world standard for a mother of three—and beautiful (Norwegian/Russian ancestry; I forget the conversation, but a colleague of mine said recently, “Look who’s talking, you married a supermodel...”), and can probably out-bench me. She knits spectacular sweaters by hand and often without a pattern. She studied piano for about 15 years and is a Certified Nursing Assistant. She’s very conscientious about the food that comes into the home (focused on organic, locally-grown, etc.) and is probably the best non-union cook / handywoman / gardener I know: Her meals and like-a-rose-in-the-desert hobby farm are legendary in our neighborhood, and she's the one people say they want to be with when catastrophe strikes. Oh, and did I mention massage school?

I’m not entirely at ease with the foregoing paragraph. (And it’s important to note the recurring theme of utilitarianism and practicality there, as these are all-too-often the primary considerations that tether me to the marriage.) But I don’t think these praises flow from a need for “I’m the kind of guy who would marry a remarkable woman, therefore, my wife must be remarkable” self-validation. Not at all. That's not to say that I don't need validation, but the statements themselves, in isolation, are truthful and sincere. My purpose is to underscore my opinion that she is, well, remarkable. And most people who know her seem to agree: They remind me of it freely and frequently, usually in some form of reprimand. (Come to think of it, if things don’t work out for us, Killer Kalves may have the fringe benefit of luring a better and deserving partner to her; God knows she’s certainly deserving of better.) Her real problem is the “us” part – we simply don’t bring out the remarkableness in each other. [Author’s note of delight: As I wrote “remarkableness,” I didn’t expect it to pass spellcheck, but apparently it’s a real word!] Rather, we tend to squelch it.

Crap, now you know Act IV and we haven’t even covered the Prologue. So I’ll back up a bit: We had a whirlwind courtship, even (gasp!) by L.D.S. standards. We were both a few years out of B.Y.U.—she was working and I was in grad school—and wore as a badge of honor of sorts that we “survived” the Y with our respective bachelorhoods intact. (Which wasn’t for lack of opportunity: She had no lack of suitors, and I no lack of suiting.)

We were engaged within three months of meeting, were married four months after that, and—here’s the zinger—spent something this side of 30 days (a long weekend here, a holiday there) in each other’s actual presence before we Knelt The Big Kneel. It was, in short, a virtual courtship, long before the days of True, Facebook or Twitter, jet-fueled by what we both believed to be Signs & Spirit. (I’ll go ahead and say “believe,” although those beliefs have sure taken a buffeting.)

We didn’t know each other at the Y, which was odd, in that we later learned that we’d had several mutual acquaintances and friends, one of whom astutely observed, “The way you guys got married is probably the only way either of you could have gotten married to anyone. Given your track records, the luxury of a ‘normal’ dating process and engagement would have meant lots of psychoanalysis and lots better-fish-in-the-sea critiquing, followed by thanks-but-no-thanks. You had to get to the altar based on the ideal, because neither of you were ready for the reality.”

And unready for reality we were. Our first several months were a Millennium-Falcon-Hits-Warp-Speed blur of one massive, fundamental surprise blasting by after another:

“You think Saturday General Conference is optional?”

“You want to have how many kids? And pack them into a behemobile that gets how many MPG?”

“You’ve never read The Grapes of Wrath or Hamlet?”

“You’ve never read Jesus the Christ or cracked open even one Journal of Discourses?”

“You feel some type of cosmic injustice because the man’s simply expected to be the provider?”

“You were only studying for the LSAT out of curiosity?” (Before you smash your monitor: That one wasn’t directed at me.)

“You don’t like to save up in advance to buy anything?”

“You believe the earth’s age in the Bible is literal?”

“You’d be happy to live in one place the rest of your life?”

“You don’t know who [Che Guevara / Copernicus / Matisse / Bismarck / Louis Armstrong / Thomas Aquinas / Adam Smith / Anyone de Medici] is?”

“But is charity really a sacrifice if you practice it after you buy the Lexus?”

“Versailles isn’t pronounced vair-sall-us.”

“That was Paul the Apostle, not Alma the Younger.”

“A household ‘budget’ is knowing what you already spent?”

Finally, a trio for every couple trying to navigate the virgin/mother/whore Impossible Triangle: “You want to bring along lots of good books on the honeymoon?” / “You’re not okay with oral sex?” / “You want me to wear what?”

In fact, I’d say that these types of curveballs continued for our first several next several years together, albeit with decreasing frequency and gravity. (Although a dandy sailed through the strike zone just last week, while we were discussing Palin’s candidacy: “So you’d vote strictly on that one issue, absolutely, positively, 100% regardless of any and every other consideration?”) But during the early going, the barrage was such that it seemed the only things we had known about each other before marriage represented the sum of our commonalities, and that anything we didn’t know beforehand was categorically destined for the conflict-to-be-confronted-at-some-point file.

And we’ve worked to resolve them. We’ve softened positions and moved toward common ground on several, marquee matters. But on so many others, there’s a cat & mouse pattern that goes something like this:

1. One of us (inspired by a friend, a message, an example, a recollection, or weariness with the status quo) will make an effort of some sort, even an iddy-biddy nudge in the right direction.
2. The other notices, and decides how to respond, if at all.
3. The initiator doesn’t feel the effort was appropriately or sufficiently acknowledged, and retreats.
4. Both recognize The Pattern at play, both are frustrated, and both retrench into the respective positions.

I’m sure The Pattern isn’t unique to us. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to break.

A few months into our marriage, we saw the King’s Singers cover Phil Collins’ “Groovy Kind of Love”. As we sat there in the audience, I felt—felt so strongly that I want to say “I knew,” but that seems too self-fulfilling—that we wouldn’t ever have that kind of love, that soul-to-soul connection. We’d been told (see “Signs & Spirit,” above) that this was a good thing, and so I believed that we could learn to love each other in a functional, edifying and maybe even eternally serviceable way. But it wouldn’t be that kind of love, that warm, regenerative, refuge/escape-to (instead of escape-from), groovy love that, in the words of a poignantly relevant Cure song, makes her “eyes catch fire the way they should.”

Something in me wishes I could talk with her openly about everything—everything—that I anticipate covering through the course of these writings. (Don’t get me wrong: We do speak frankly about a whole array of serious stuff, including matters central to the themes of this blog. In fact, if there’s such a thing as speaking too frankly among spouses, I suppose we get into that territory from time to time.) Something in me thinks that if she were to see through my eyes and feel through my heart, we’d be better equipped to cope, heal and progress. But something else makes me think that what she’d discover, although not altogether foreign, would be too shocking, too frightening and too painful to justify her continued efforts.

One night, several weeks before we got married, I had a short dream in which a butterfly landed in on my hand. I touched it, played with it a bit, and in so doing, marred its wings and bent its antennae. After a time, it seemed to have had enough and did its best to flutter away, in confused and disoriented fits and starts, eventually disappearing into whatever the scenery was. I told her about this dream; I think it weighed on her; we moved ahead with our plans. So here we are, 10+ years and three precious children later. And behind every keystroke to feed this blog will be a thousand iterations of the questions, “Is there really greener grass? Would I give up my kids for it? What the hell am I thinking?”