Marriage Moats-Snowflakes
Published: Fri, 01/14/11
| Marriage Moats | Caring for Marriage |
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Snowflakes are tiny, lacy treasures that melt away on your tongue on a January morning. I suppose if I had lived my entire life in the Bahamas, and a scruffy looking stranger tried to convince me that yes, little wet flowers of whiteness came wafting down from the sky by the thousands I would be... dubious. But most of us have seen this shift in the seasons often enough to be converted that this too is an Ordinary Miracle.
There is symbolism here. Notice that there are areas in your relationship that could use some paring down.
Criticism, sarcasm, impatience are all gray areas best left on the
editing room floor. You are crafting a fragile thing here, and it is
not a game of the-one-who-finishes-first-wins. As you cut the paper
commit to an effort to cut out some of those shadowed tendencies in your
daily interactions with the person you married. Tell this to each
other, not as ammunition for the other to use later when you fail, but
as a fragile wish to do better. Tape the finished snowflakes on your
window to remind you. One of the surprising things about a snowflake's
gracefulness is not what is there, but what is not there. There would
not be the same wonder in a solid chunk of ice. So too with
relationships, they are beautiful not only for the words spoken, but
for the words not spoken.
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