Epithalamium
Let me not to the
marriage of true minds admit impediment
Shakespeare says - and maybe it is something to
do with minds.
Or there again, something to do
with everything else
you can think of; going to
the shops, sitting in a bus together,
who you want
to waken up beside in the morning,
And who you
want to go to bed with - for the rest of your life.
Who you're going to have your most important rows with
who you want to share your silences, who you want to share
your money with, if you have any. Who you want to
share
your poverty with, if you don't. Who you can
share your poverty with,
and still get on when
there's no fancy stuff to occupy your minds.
It's
maybe being thirty with somebody, being forty with
somebody,
being fifty, being sixty, getting used
to ways of doing things
with the same person,
getting used to not doing things with them
when you have to go your separate ways to raise the dough
for a house. "The trouble with marriage," I used
to say,
"is you have to stop living with
each other." All this up at
the crack of dawn
stuff, out to your separate jobs,
who's first home
at night, who makes the dinner, if anybody
makes
it. And all the account business, joint or separate. And
the
usual list as to who does what, ironing,
hoovering, washing
the clothes. Who does what.
Who's got lousy habits. Who thinks
their farts are
funny. Who's the most incomprehensible, opaque,
wrongheaded pain in the arse you could ever find, and
you've
found them living with you. But give it an
hour. Or a day.
And watch out for the wisecracks.
There's Chekhov:
"If you can't stand loneliness
don't get married" and there's
no shortage of
busted-up couples out there who won't bust
a gut
with grief if you join them. You stick your own way. To
hell with them. It's not a sentimental thing, it's a
serious thing
the most serious thing you'll ever
do, if you're doing it properly
as you are. Saying
it to others, before others, this is who I want,
this is where it ends and begins with me. And uniquely so.
So here's to you, Stephen and Lucy, standing at
that old portal:
here's to a good road before you,
and a long one,
and the two of you walking
together happily, down it.