Duet

Greg is the person I love most on this planet but we had a humdinger of an argument about a month ago. Post-argument I threw up all night from what I assumed was food poisoning from a restaurant that shall remain nameless.

Twenty-four hours later we sat facing each other and laid it all out on the kitchen table. I had major concerns. He had major concerns. We were not unified about several things. Before we got to the nitty gritty we said a prayer. Thankfully patience, a lengthy discussion, and listening ears allowed for our loose ends to be tied up in a pretty little bow. We stretched our arms across the table and held hands, got up, hugged, and moved on. My stomach stopped hurting and I slept like a baby that night.

Greg and I have said two things since the day we got married. That divorce is not an option and that together we can do anything.

My favorite movie of all time is Meet Me In St. Louis. The opening scene of the movie portrays the womenfolk bottling their own ketchup in a hot, sweaty kitchen. I watch this movie annually on the first day that I bottle spaghetti sauce, usually Labor Day evening, when my own kitchen is hot and aromatic and the AC can't keep up with me.

I am gaga for this movie and it's not because I was married in St. Louis. It's not because of the simpler times. It's not because of the 1904 Victorian plastered with wallpaper and scrolled woodwork and a porch framed in gingerbread. It's not because of Judy Garland's blue and white striped tennis dress. It's not because of the ice wagon or that family dinners lasted for hours or that children were polite to their elders.

It's because of the duet.

On Halloween night Father comes home from a tiring day of lawyering to the family tradition of cake. The assembly is attired in puffy sleeves and taffeta and anxious to eat the lighter-than-air layered yellow cake with frosting flowers. Father proudly announces that his firm has promoted him and promotion means relocating to Manhattan. Emotional mayhem ensues and all family participants politely decline their piece of cake and retreat upstairs. Mother and Father are left in the parlor to hash things out. (Mother is wearing a tuxedo shirt and bowtie...it still kills me.) Father is stonewalling her and no progress is being made so Mother goes over to the piano and tickles the ivories with a sentimental song that jogs Father's memory.

Father crosses the room to stand by the piano and together they sing the duet "You and I." I am bonkers for this song. As Father and Mother sing about sticking together through years of dark and fair weather the children creep downstairs and grab their china plates of cake. They sit behind their parents quietly enjoying processed flour and white sugar and by the end of the performance the spirit of peace is back to bless their home. As a family they have recommitted to take on the unknown together.

Unfortunately I don't sing or own a bowtie. I also hate yellow cake and most frostings. However, I do believe in the same god Greg does and together we share the same moral values. We both want to do what Jesus would do, as cliché as that sounds. We fight. Then, if there is to be any hope, we turn to God for a peace-instilling third voice. A trio is the only way our marriage duet can achieve marital harmony. Towers are toppled, demons are demolished, and hurdles are hacked with pure love; in our home God is that pure love. Without Him we would be Give and Take tightly tangled in a knot of selfishness, me never taking and Greg never giving, both of us too stubborn to soften or yield.

*I made those needle felted owls. Poking wool roving with needles and creating critters is better than cake AND frosting, the grossest duet on earth.