Amy Loves Books

I have never lived in a place where I could not hear the distant whistle of trains. I live now in the only house I have ever owned; from the front porch, the trains are visible. They are double-stacked now, graffiti-covered. They are the color of blue that Silly Putty would be if it were not pink. They are stamped in large white letters : China Shipping.

One month ago, I sat on the football field during graduation ceremonies at my high school. The stands were filled with balloons and families in t-shirts and jeans. When the sun went down, the breeze was still cool enough to feel like spring, but there were no stars visible in the sky, only the lights of airplanes.

Sitting on the field in the faculty section at graduation is a surreal experience. I am behind the graduates, and the flatness of the field obscures my ability to view the stage. The PA equipment is made for indoors, and the names and speeches drift into the air, audible but not comprehendible. My mind wanders. Teachers around me bring cell phones tucked into the folds of their academic robes, and as the ceremony drags on, they surreptitiously check their messages. I play games with the program: Count the Names Based On Liquor. I find a Pinot this time, which is one I'd never seen. I don't know the kid in question, and I wonder if it's pronounced like Pie-Not.

One-third of the way into the ceremony, a kid has a seizure on the field and everything stops while paramedics are called. They push the careful rows of folding chairs out of the way for an ambulance and clusters of robed girls stand near the fence, their heels of their best shoes sinking into the dirt. By the time it is determined that the boy that had a seizure can stay and walk and receive his diploma, and the chairs are replaced, and the calling of names begins again, it is solidly dark outside. The ceremony started late to begin with: it always does.

I assume that it is this delay that runs graduation directly into the train schedule. Right around 9pm, a freight train makes it's slow, rumbling progress on tracks just on the other side of the fence. Before school began last fall, I went to lunch with my department head - a thirty year veteran who taught in my school before it was given a new building and a new name. She told me that one year, a group of boys were taking a shortcut across the tracks, between two stopped trains. As the last boy climbed between the cars, the train lurched to life without warning. While his friends watched, he was knocked down and crushed under the slow, deadly giant. I think about this nameless kid, who should have been older than I am.

It is impossible to hear anything over the grating steel and thunder of wheels on tracks. The boxcars roll by. China Shipping. I imagine the blue boxes being unloaded at port. I think of them on ships, surrounded by water. I realize that they were once in China, they will be emptied here and then returned. Those boxcars, I think, have been more places that I have ever been. None of my students, I think, will travel as far as these trains.

The owl painting was a gift from my husband, who is not the most sensitive or thoughtful gift-giver in the world. Early in our marriage, he was an absolutely horrific gift giver - so bad that I can win any worst-gift-ever-given-contest hands-down - but he has improved with time and tears. For our first anniversary, he gave me a vhs copy of his favorite movie. Last December nineteenth, he gave me the owl painting. In the gift-giving department it was the best he has ever done.

At the time, however, I did not blog about it. I've been wanting to write something about marriage for awhile, and I had it in the back of my mind that I could do it as an anniversary post, but then the actual day came and I realized that I do not like this particular anniversary. It makes me uneasy.

Over dinner, with my beautiful painting wrapped and in the trunk of the car, I confessed to my husband that I would be happier next year on our anniversary. I don't like saying I've been married thirteen years, I told him. It feels ominous; it feels like tempting fate. I wish it was fourteen years instead. Twelve felt safe, and fourteen feels safe. . In thirteen years, he has learned that I am not always a rational creature, so he did the right thing, and just listened.

There was a time when I was much more comfortable giving advice about marriage. I've become shushed with time. Since I've been married, my brother married and saw his marriage end, my husband's parents divorced, and every one of my best friends have either divorced or had their marriages rocked by infidelity. I've gone from thinking weddings were beautiful to attending them with a sort of dread - I carry in the back of my mind the images of the brides and grooms I've known and the betrayals and bitterness that dissolved their unions and contradicted their vows. Weddings would be nice if they lasted, I think.

In the midst of all of this, I have remained married. I can honestly say that I have never even given serious consideration to straying. I am happily married. There are some evenings when it's been a long week, and the stresses of children, and work, and money, cause fatigue and annoyance settle in our bones -- on those evenings my husband and I probably look like the dining dead to a casual, critical observer. Yet, if that critic were to observe us a week later, he would inevitably see us laughing and flirting like a couple new in love. This is the nature of marriage: it ebbs and flows. Some days, I am tired of the physical work of marriage - the dishes and laundry and grocery shoppingness of it all. I'd like to have things stay put. I'd like to only clean up after myself. But more often than not, I am a woman in love. Not exactly a domestic goddess, but contentedly domesticated. My husband and I tell each other we are glad we married one another, and we mean it. Truly.

I started writing this post in December. I am now halfway through the dreaded year thirteen and, so far, the sky has not fallen. In the past year more people than usual have sought out my husband and/or myself for advice about marriage. Should they get married? How did we know? I am terrible in conversations like this. The truth is, you don't know. You just commit. My marriage has lasted not because I am kinder, or more dedicated, or holier. I don't pray more. I was only twenty-two when I married, and not particularly wise. There is nothing special that I do or don't do, and I know that there are a number of things that have caused friends to divorce that would have been deal breakers for me as well. In the end, if people push me for an explanation, the best I can come up with is that I got lucky.

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is not like this:

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vacation time - back on Friday.

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