Happy Eleventh Anniversary, My Beautiful Wife

On this day eleven years ago, a dear friend hauled me out of bed and was driving me to my wedding when he asked:

"What do you want to listen to?" 

I didn't know quite what he meant, so I asked:

"What do you mean?"

He said:

"You'll remember this song forever.  Rest of your life and then some.  So pick it right, but whatever it is, and don't pick anything not in this sleeve."

He handed me a sleeve slipped full of CDs.  I flipped through with trepidation, knowing that I'd remember this song forever, for the rest of my life and then some, so I had to pick it right ...

"Whatever it is," he said, as apparently I'd been speaking aloud. 

So I found it, a song that accorded with what I'd been reading—which was all Kafka because of the course I'd be taking with Wolfgang Iser the upcoming Fall in my first quarter in grad school—a song about metamorphosis, about changing from a single into a married person, a song that was this song:

Which is still, I think, still both my and my wife's favorite song by them, but was utterly inappropriate in retrospect.  And at the moment.  Not to mention generally. 

But for me, it was all about the metamorphosis—the changing into something, and someone, else on that day. 

Fuck the smashing into windshields, and fuck being hysterical and useless ... I've done and been that, both literally and metaphorically, and it hasn't changed the fact that as the rain came down and drenched the pastor, my future wife and me, as we were the only ones not under the wedding tent, I had but one thought in my head.  I knew nothing other than, I say, I knew nothing other than:

I want to kiss this woman.

I had vows to say, but:

I want to kiss this woman.

Even as the vows were spoken to me, I couldn't remember them.

I want to kiss this woman.

I was fixated on one thing and one thing alone:

I want to kiss this woman.

A conviction unakin to any I'd ever experienced before:

I want to kiss this woman.

It seemed like hours:

I want to kiss this woman.

Passed before I:

I want to kiss this woman.

Could:

I want to kiss this woman.

And it's burned me hollow every day of the months it's been since I have.  Happy anniversary, my beautiful wife.  Spend it wisely, well, and don't let it let you down ...

Comments

[happyfeet]

happy anniversaries!

that was very intense. Thank God you didn't pick a Dido song or something, huh?

[JaneDoe]

Happy Anniversary and beautiful post!

[tomemos]

Congratulations! May I suggest that you spend your anniversary watching the Mets get swept in four games by my San Franciso Giants?

[tomemos]

Or you would have, if it weren't for a blown call at home today. Call it an anniversary present.

[Wally]

I knew nothing other than, I say, I knew nothing other than...

You did write this in a Foghorn Leghorn voice, right? Because that's how I'm reading it and baby it WORKS.

[alkau]

You know love grows and changes, but once a year we start thinking about that special day and no matter how many years it has been, the day still remains clear in our minds. Your Dad needing help getting dressed because of a shoulder injury from going after a ball and landing on his shoulder(but he did get the ball). Sounds heard and what I was thinking are clearly present as the date comes up. August 4th will be 36 years and there is still love in the air. It has grown and changed by life's events, but it is still what keeps us together. Anniversary's do more then mark time and I hope yours was filled celebrating once Meg got home.

[Naadir Jeewa]

Happy anniversaries!