Cheers to 30 Years…

August 12, 2024 marks 30 years of marriage for Charles and I. We are celebrating quietly. We are planning trips in the future and adventures to come, but for now, we are just enjoying a quiet summer of poolside relaxing, biking, golfing, sewing, reading, thinking and enjoying sitting in our gazebo.

Over 30 years you experience a lot – for us, our two boys and our lives together are pretty simple. We worked hard to get to a point in our lives where we can enjoy being generous and living our life comfortably. We have had our moments of fear and joy, and we have survived life-threatening and life-changing events. We have learned to accept joy with pain and understand that moments of joy are to be savoured. We can celebrate quietly and trust in our circle to bring us joy. We have learned that we can just live – we don’t have to always be striving but, we can sit back, make good decisions and always look for ways to give back.

Caring for our health and always trying to grow and learn has helped us to be better people every day. We love each other and it is simple. Love means just simply living day-by-day being grateful for the sound of each others’ voices and the touch of a hand. Figuring life out together and practicing grace and gratitude in each moment. Trying to be encouraging first, challenging each other to be grounded and flexible. We have chosen to grow together and make a life….just a simple life in our little corner of the world.

Love, you are my hermitage,
my dwelling forever.
Just as a happy bachelor
may aspire to be a hermit,
so as your husband to a dream
of being more married.

Your body is a path leading
through a golden wood;
your love is a clearing
in the center of the forest.

Here have we built our home,
here in you alone,
With you, I know a solitude
deeper than my own.

One table, one rocking chair
by the hearth of you –
and in your face a window
brighter than the sky.

When you smile I’m warmed
like earth in the sun.
Your laugh is the brook
at my doorstep

Your words are quieter
than my thoughts.
Gladly shall I spend my life
in the cool, still hush of you.

Gentler are you than breath,
stranger than death.
Just to touch your hair
is more peaceful than sleep.

Surely all my wandering
finds its end in you.
In your brown eyes
may I safely die.

Love, you are my hermitage,
my dwelling forever.

-from The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason (read at our wedding in 1994)

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