When Odie and I were planning our wedding, I asked a close friend who could not attend to choose a reading for the ceremony. She chose “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I know. With a name like “Mountain Dreamer,” it has to be some hippy shit, right? Oh, it was. And it was perfect for us.
About three years earlier, Odie and I had attended our first wedding together. The groom was the best man from Odie’s first marriage (the answer to your question is “Yes, awkward as hell). Coincidentally, they had the same reading at their wedding. During our ceremony, which they attended, I noticed them exchange a smiling look of recognition when my sister started the reading. It’s very long, so I edited it. I cut out one part in particular:
“It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.”
It’s a beautiful sentiment, of course, but at that other wedding we went to, there was something about the way the bride said that last line that sounded… Well, let’s just say, it got an unintentional laugh from the congregation. Plus, Odie and I weren’t planning on having any children (says the woman who is 39 and pregnant with her second daughter — so much for plans!).
I bring this up, because V had croup last night. She has been struggling with her two-year molars for a while now, and our nights have been rough. She tosses and turns and kicks. She wakes up and cries. She asks for milk, then screams, “NO MILK! NO MILK! I DON’T WANT IT!” and then begs for it again… And we get up at 5:30 every morning to have her at day care by 7:15 and be at work ourselves by 7:45. So, to say that we are “weary and bruised to the bone” is a very accurate description.
I loved the reading, chosen by my daughter’s namesake. She, herself, had it read at her own wedding. I adored her love story. She and her husband were bicoastal for decades. He on the East (where she was also from), she on the West, where she’d made a life. They got engaged in the early nineties. Many years later, I noticed that the engagement ring was gone. She didn’t talk about it much, but apparently, he didn’t want to live in California, and while he could travel with his work (he is a musician and a massage therapist), she could not. Her clients were all here. So, they kissed and parted. Somehow, though, they found a way to make it work, and they were married ten years after they’d first become engaged. Eleven years later, they are still happily married.
When I read the piece she had chosen to be recited by my sister at our nuptials, I didn’t “get” a lot of it. There is hope there, but also darkness. Now that I have been married for four years and have a child, I get it. Rereading it before I wrote this blog had tears streaming down my face. YES. That is marriage. And though we all chuckled at my friends’ wedding, over her very, er, UNromantic wedding sentiment of dragging your ass out of bed on a dreary night to feed screaming kids, that is a perfect description of what marriage and parenthood require of us. I hear Odie’s heavy sigh as he sleepwalks to the kitchen for the bottle of milk. I can’t go, because V will get hysterical if I leave her side, and we want her to stay as much asleep as possible. I can tell that Odie is exhausted and irritated. But when he hands the bottle to her, his voice is gentle and loving, “Here you go, my sweetheart. Here’s your milk,” he says to her. She grabs it greedily and begins gulping. After two seconds, thrusts it toward him, “NO DADDY! NO! NO MILK!” He sighs, but responds to her kindly. “Okay, honey. No milk,” and takes the bottle back to the kitchen. Weary. Bruised to the bone.
Often, the mornings are not pleasant. We thank the gods for their sweet gift of coffee (I only indulge on weekends), and for the blessing of employment in these hard times. Since we are teachers with fat pensions, we know that we are entirely to blame for the global economic meltdown, so we take our lumps and drag ourselves to work.
For the children.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
I feel you, Nora Ephron
I feel bad about my neck.
Nora Ephron published a book with this title. I have to admit, I haven’t read it yet, but now I have more reasons than ever to read Ms. Ephron’s book, other than thinking “When Harry Met Sally” is one of the best movies ever (I’m sorry “Runaway Bride,” I’m really happy for you, and I’ma let you finish, but “Harry Met Sally” is the greatest romcom of ALL TIME! OF ALL TIME!).
Ephron is a talented, successful, hilarious writer. But she’s also a woman. I watched some interviews with her while she was doing the press tour for her book. She explained that while women can have all manner of plastic surgery, injections, and peels on their faces, there isn’t a lot you can do for the neck. Like the backs of your hands, your neck will tell your real age, no matter what your taut, plumped, lineless face says.
I’m going to be 39 this month. Ephron was in her sixties when she wrote she felt bad about her neck. So, you can imagine my concern. The front of my neck has taken on a wrinkly, tissue-paper-like texture. The irony is, my FACE actually looks pretty good. Sure, I have a trace of the “elevens” between my brows. Unlike Kate Winslet, I will admit that I’ve tried Botox and loved it. Love is actually not a strong enough word.
But it costs hundreds of dollars every four months, and I got pregnant and then there was the breastfeeding, and now I’m pregnant again, so Botox is hardly on the menu anytime soon. It made me look refreshed, like I’d had a great night’s sleep. I could move my forehead easily (I only had one injection in one spot, as opposed to “The Full Kidman”), but I couldn’t easily knit my brows together, deepening the lines there.
I’m at peace with my elevens for now. It’s my neck that has me worried. You should know that I’m always fixating on some particular aspect of my appearance that is “new” and troubles me. Many years ago, it was my crooked teeth. Then I worried incessently about a receding gumline on a few of my teeth. Next followed a fixation on the pores on either side of my nose, and so on, and so forth.
Maybe some of you are old enough to remember the David E. Kelly series “Ally McBeal.” There was a character on the show who was nicknamed “Fish.” He had an obsession with “wattles.” He would do this thing where he would brush his finger up against the loose skin of a woman’s neck and become ecstatic with pleasure. He dated a much older woman because he was obsessed with her waddle. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see a neck only Fish could love.
I hold out hope, however, that in time I will either see it improve through weight loss and creams, and there’s always scarves and good haircuts. Or, like my crooked teeth and receding gumline, I will cease to think about it.
Probably because I will have moved on to obsessing about the unpigmented mole on my chin.
Share this: