Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Belated 9th Anniversary Post

"Come to Hatteras," they said, and I didn't want to go with you. It had gone bad between us, again. Nine years married, and there's been more bad than good, more hard than easy. We are weary.

I worry about what our children have learned about marriage. We have taught them all we know about it, but our understanding is a bag with holes. We've prayed, read articles and books, watched videos, met with a counselor; yet, we can't seem to get it together.

I've been an excellent learner all my life, but I can't seem to learn this: can't seem to break our painful cycles that are, in many ways, similar to the ones I witnessed, growing up. Sometimes, I'm tempted to blame my parents; other times, I'm tempted to blame yours. I've asked you to imagine throwing my daddy and yours into a sack and shaking it; what would be the outcome? Not good, and I'm not always sure who is who in this scenario; regardless, the truth is that we're the adults (the ones influencing children), now, and aren't we responsible for the choices we make?

It doesn't feel like it; I know. Our behaviors feel innate, primal, beyond the capacity of our excellent brains and kind, Jesus-loving hearts. I live with the fear that, down the pike, our children--our daughters, especially--will choose this: not because it's happy or healthy or normal, but because it's familiar.

We long for respite. We found it, for a few days, in Hatteras. With lights and nets, one night we walked to the sea to hunt ghost crabs.


I'd never hunted ghost crabs, before, and in truth participated this time only through the lens of my old camera, a T3i, which has limited ISO capabilities. It has a flash, but I wanted to see what I could get with ambient lighting. The resulting photos are blurry, but I love them; I think they capture both my wild excitement and my disorientation.






 

They also capture Charleigh's trepidation.



I took many beautiful photos while we were in Hatteras, but these are the ones I've studied over and over. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that night: the dark air so thick with salt that, licking my lips, I could taste it; the beams of the flashlights and lanterns; Charleigh's eyes, wide with concern; the delighted laughter of the other children and shouts of the adults ("We've got one; bring the bucket!"); the surf's occasional lap at my flip-flop-clad feet. Again and again, I have played the movie of this--the ghost-crab hunt--in my mind, until I could not doubt that there was something more I was supposed to see in it, write about it.

So I did the thing I do, sometimes, in which I force my spirit open like a pistachio nut left in the bottom of the bag: one of those we pick out and toss back in because it has an ungenerous gap, because it must be either pried open with something other than our fingers or cracked with a snap between our teeth.

After days and days, this is what I found.

Hunting ghost crabs is a perfect analogy for our marriage. We are haunted people. We are together but alone. We each carry a little light and benefit from the (little) light of others; still, we are severely limited in what we can see. It's dark, here. There are ghosts, here, but good on us if we're committed to capturing them: to seeing and accepting them for what they are and, ultimately, to setting them free.


Your beams illuminate my ghosts; my beams illuminate yours. Our power in one another's life is this and only this: illumination. Not eradication. Eradication is deeply personal. We have long been distracted by one another's ghosts. If there is to be peace and progress, each of us must commit to dealing with his or her own ghosts, also to giving the other space and time to do the same.

May we stumble ever closer to a better and brighter place; may we find one another there. This is nine years married. Hear me when I say: I love you, still.




8 comments:

  1. :-)

    Loved this!

    Marriage, like life, is messy. But, by the grace of God and each other's patience, we can find love there.

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  2. This is a real love story, this loving still, when it's a hard season.

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  3. Happy Anniversary!!! (reminded of the Little River Band song of '92)

    Great nighttime B&W beach pix...so surreal! (and must have been a blast for the kids!)

    Take care.

    :-)

    -Andy

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  4. I am glad you for your respite...and the analogy-learning that came with it. It is not easy and at times seems an ever stumbling forward. Sometimes it is hard to know what change...and of course the humility of knowing what to sacrifice. A good friend of.mine has spent the last year struggling to save her marriage and they seem on the ups. I cried and prayed with a guy Wednesday night whose marriage is over as of is week. It's all around us.

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  5. I read this. and I read it again. while I enjoyed every word, this is my take away
    "Your beams illuminate my ghosts; my beams illuminate yours. Our power in one another's life is this and only this: illumination. Not eradication. Eradication is deeply personal. We have long been distracted by one another's ghosts. If there is to be peace and progress, each of us must commit to dealing with his or her own ghosts, also to giving the other space and time to do the same." what beautiful prose to express your heart <3 I love you

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  6. I'm sorry to hear you all are in such a difficult place together. Good for you for continuing to fight, with every good means available, for your relationship. May your next anniversary find you growing toward healing in your marriage. I heard Beth Moore say once that the key to a long marriage is the willingness to fall in love again. May the Lord give you both that willingness, always, and that experience, as many times as you need.

    Cool photos! Landlocked as my hometown is, ghost crabs are new to me.

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  7. There was so much good and sad and hope in this. You are so good at creating these images (with your words and your camera) that I think about long after I've seen them. I know this is your heart, and I feel almost insensitive to comment on your talent. Know that I will pray for you and your family! That is not lost on me, even as I sit stunned by all of this beauty.

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