Marriage Moats-Black Out

Published: Sat, 08/27/11

Marriage Moats

Caring for Marriage

This little boy threw a bottle at the fountain in order to fill it up. Interesting tactic, but I am not sure it will work.

Clearly it is a hot day and people are enjoying the chance to get cool. The water is willing to oblige, as the supply of spray power is apparently endless.

Marriages get parched too. We feel dried up from the demands of the day and ache for a feeling of refreshment.

This week we had a ferocious thunder storm. Benjamin came unglued, and we tried to calm him down with ear buds, covered with ear phones playing loud music. It worked, kind of. When the lightning finally ebbed, though, the electricity went off. I felt hot and irritated about the whole situation. John and I found some candles and placed them around the house, and tucked... make that shoved kids into bed.

He suggested I go upstairs and sing to the twins. Too much effort. He handed me a guitar, and I started to play right there on the couch. My fingers fell into familiar chords, and the words came without thinking, as they do when your mind quiets down. We sang songs we wrote together, long before children usurped the unclaimed pockets of time, and the good feelings came spraying out in abundance. We crooned by candlelight, instead of our normal routine of each of us staring into different screens across the house.

Was the affection there all along, but I was trying to get filled up the wrong way? I can sit with John any night of the year, but it took a power outage for my whole neighborhood to get me to do it.

Sorry, residents of Alden Road, if the cause of the blackout was actually me.

Photo by Andy Sullivan

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