Anniversary

Five years ago today, K. and I got married.

Like most couples I know, we agreed ahead of time that we were not going to exchange gifts on our wedding day -- I mean, other than the rings and the wedding itself and the large number of gifts that other people gave us and, oh yeah, a legal and spiritual commitment of half of everything we owned or ever will own until the end of time -- and, like most couples, we did in fact exchange gifts. K. gave me a very nice watch inscribes with something mushy, and I gave her a set of windchimes.

OK, that sounds bad. But they were nice windchimes. And K. had often discussed her fantasies of having a house with a yard and a front porch where we could sit and listen to windchimes. Of course, little were we to know that the vagaries of the academic job market would have us spend the first four years of our marriage living in big city apartments without a porch or even a yard so those very lovely windchimes stayed in a box in a closet somewhere (meanwhile, I got to wear the watch every day, although interestingly the lack of windows in one of said apartments made the solar-powered aspect of the watch a little difficult to deal with).

But now we have a house. And a yard. And, after several long weeks of work, a very lovely grapevine-covered arbor to hang them in:



It may have taken us five years to have an appropriate place to hang them, but they've been a wonderful five years. And I hope we have many more of them together. Happy anniversary, honey.