What Matters: Vows, Promises, Truths

Before we got married Mike and I used to take long walks in the Berkeley hills arguing, I mean discussing, what we were willing to commit to forever and evah in our wedding vows. We did a lot of talking about our vision for what we wanted our marriage to be all about, which sometimes, okay frequently, annoyed me because I just wanted to talk about DJ’s versus bands but Mike was pretty clear that he wanted a roadmap before tying the knot. I’d say things like, “Babe, whatever! I love you, you love me, let’s do this thing!” And he’d be like, “I don’t want to be one of those couples who spends so much time planning the wedding and no time planning the marriage.” And I’d think, “Sheeet, that’s a good point.” But be bummed because talking about strawberry shortcake versus chocolate ganache is way more fun than talking about … well pretty much anything else and certainly better than talking about, “What are we going to do when stuff’s going down and we’re really into this thing and we want to bail-proof,, bullet-proof, lock in, and keep going?”

And we were pretty old and I for one never thought I’d get married, or have a kid, because neither of those things seemed to be such a great deal before I had them. I mean before I met Mikey. But now I have them and it’s a really great deal but for sure I’m glad we put some thought into the rules of our game, our marriage. And since Ax was born we’ve shown him our vows and he says he’s on board with taking them on, so now they are family vows. Which is cool. Here they are:

I promise to take care of myself so I can take good care of you, our relationship, and our family.

I promise to stay in conversations with you until we both feel complete, no matter how long that takes.

I promise to work with you as my partner to make the world a better place.

I love you.

And then we were pronounced and the recessional played, which I think was Grateful Dead, “They Love Each Other.” We were at my friend Marilyn’s 16-acre estate on a cliff overlooking the Pacific and after the vows we all had a drum circle/Madonna/Grateful Dead DJ’d daytime dance marathon.

Marilyn told me she loved hosting weddings because it brought joy into her home. She also told me that though she’d hosted and been to many, many events over the years, our wedding was her first drum circle and she thought it was quite a lovely and invigorating addition to the festivities.

So that’s Plan A for today. The roadmap: Giving more love, receiving more love. Repeat.