My tree

I am unabashedly sentimental about my tree.

It is a fir tree and it started as one of more than 125 seedlings, perhaps eight inches in length, that we handed out as gifts to our wedding guests in September 2002.

We planted three of the trees, just days after our wedding, in the backyard lawn of the house that we had recently purchased; the house where we were sure that our dreams would take root and blossom just as surely as our seedlings.

But two of the trees died almost immediately.

And the seedlings that my parents planted at their house promptly died too. And over the next few years as I asked other wedding guests about their trees I learned, to my dismay, that it seemed all our gifts - our symbols of growth and promise - had similarly failed to grow and take root.

It shouldn't have bothered me, but it did.

I started to inquire in earnest and before long I determined that the remaining tree in our backyard is indeed the lone survivor of our marriage celebration, the only tangible evidence of how far we have come and how much we have grown.

And so, I am just a little bit protective of my tree.

I have watched it for almost seven years now. I have despaired about its ability to withstand the sleet and the snow and the rain.

But I have marveled at the way just a day of sunshine has the power to make it seem new and how swiftly nature's warmth and kindness can bring forth tiny, hopeful buds.

But now that my tree is clearly growing big and strong and independently, I worry about how I can possibly keep it close as we move into a new home and a new chapter of our lives.

There is no room for my tree at the new house, but there is no way I can just leave it behind.

Because it is my only one.

And I am unabashedly sentimental about my tree.

Marriage and the art of dance

I was shocked when Rob told me to call the telemarketer back.

I always thought he didn't like dancing, so when I got the call from a local ballroom dance studio offering a free trial lesson I just chuckled wistfully and hung up.

Turns out it's not that Rob doesn't like dancing, it's that he doesn't like not dancing well. He spent a good part of his early adulthood working throughout the Caribbean where dancing is an art form and people seem born with a beautiful sense of rhythm. His travels left him a little ashamed of his typically, rhythmically-challenged, white, northern-European background and loathe to take to the dance floor.

But lucky for both of us he was ready to learn.

I was five months pregnant when we showed up for our first lesson. We bickered bitterly over his imperative to lead and my apparent inability to let him, but were nonetheless hooked. Before we left we signed up for several more classes.

Dance class became our date night and all that summer and fall my stomach grew as did our competence at the Foxtrot, the Cha-Cha and the Waltz.

We deliberately chose to learn older dances - those choreographed odes to compromise and propriety - because we discovered that we both felt they were classic, old-fashioned arts in danger of being forgotten or passed over for the sweaty, sexy gyrating that dominates dance floors today.

One of my earliest and happiest memories involves dancing with my father. I was about six years old and wearing black, patent-leather shoes which caused me to slip and slide most ungracefully as he expertly lead me through the Jitter-Bug, the Cha-Cha and the Waltz.

I remember feeling simultaneously like a glamorous grown-up and an incompetent little girl as he twirled me about and I tried, and mostly failed, to keep pace. I remember feeling exhilarated and happy and proud, aware that people were watching and smiling at the spectacle.

And then I remember retiring to my seat and watching my dad take my mother's hand and lead her through the same steps. It was as if they had been dancing together forever. One day, I thought, I want to dance with somebody like that.

Rob and I have learned that dancing, real dancing, is about so much more than moving to the music.

Before you learn to dance you must learn to respect your partner's space. For women, that means you have to relax and to trust, to be open enough to accept just slightest movement from your partner as your cue to follow them wherever they may lead.

Real dancing is about compromise, about anticipating your partner's needs and intentions. It demands the ability to work together for mutual ease and enjoyment: I can't think of a better time for a couple to learn these skills than as they await the birth of their first baby.

We continued our weekly dance lessons right up until six days before Graham's birth and were back at the studio just three weeks later. Graham slept peacefully in his carrier as we polished a Foxtrot routine to Roger Miller's King of the Road.

Rob and I haven't been back the dance studio for about two years now, thanks to a lack of money and time, those two age-old buzz-killers. We talk all the time about starting lessons again, about adding Swing and the Rumba to our repertoire, but luckily we have already picked up enough steps to be mildly impressive on the dance floor at bars and parties.

And that makes me proud.

Because one day I hope my children, or perhaps my grandchildren, will watch us dance with the same wide-eyed wonder with which I watched my parents.

Look at Mom and Dad, they will say, it's as if they've been dancing together forever.

Not that you asked

I don’t care if everyone under the sun disagrees with my favorite advice on how to stay married: I shall continue to believe that one should always go to bed mad.

I feel compelled to say this because I was at a wedding last weekend where once again I heard someone dust off that old chestnut about not letting the sun go down on your anger.

To which I say: anything that helps extinguish my anger, including darkness, is a good thing!

The worst arguments I have had with Rob have been late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Hurtful words are like dark, foolish thieves that appear under cover of night bent on stealing reason and rationality. They are born of frustration and fatigue and – in my case – a desire to shut the fight down so I can get some sleep.

And we all know that the words that shut a fight down are the words we inevitably regret the next day.

I believe my happy marriage has been preserved on more than one occasion by a conscious effort on my part to bite my lip, stop trying to thrash or shout my way to a resolution and JUST GO TO SLEEP!

And as much as I may toss and turn and mumble bitterly before I drift away, there’s something about the morning sunlight that usually makes thoughts of murdering my husband seem just a touch melodramatic.

There is a certain hour of the night in which it becomes impossible to be logical about anything and despite what anyone says, it’s better to hit the hay, than hit the husband.

My advice to newlyweds out there? Go to bed mad – it’s better than staying up all night fighting.

Of purple cows and husbands

I am going to try to start thinking differently about my husband.

And by that I mean I am going to try and stop being annoyed by the mere fact that he is around.

I am going to remind myself that he is just as entitled to the computer, the newspaper and the remote as I am. I am going to take a deep breath and reassure myself that just because he is breathing the same air as I am, it does not mean that he is hogging my oxygen.

It is not going to be easy.

My husband is a freelancer in a crazy industry. And by crazy industry, I mean an industry that routinely involves work days lasting a minimum of 14 hours. When he works I am essentially a single parent as he returns home only to sleep (usually after midnight) for five or six hours. Last year he worked pretty much full out from mid-June until the first week of December. Although we talked on the phone several times a day, Graham and I only saw him each week for half a day on Saturday (after he got out of bed) and all day Sundays.

Not every marriage can survive this type of schedule, but it works for us. It works because I have always been fiercely independent and I enjoy being alone. When he’s working I follow my own schedule, I make my own meals and after Graham goes to bed, I settle in for my beloved, cozy, solitary evenings.

The problem comes when he is off work. Every time he finishes a show, there is a period of adjustment. All of a sudden there is someone here. Every night. At my house. I have to make conversation at dinner. I have to make dinner!

I am sure people with spouses in the military go through this. It’s hard. As much as you love them, when this person reappears in your day-to-day life, it feels like they are usurping your authority and disrupting your routine.

So when Karen over at A Day in The Life tagged me for the Think Differently Challenge I knew exactly what I was going to write about.

Because I do need to think differently about this. I need to be more understanding of how hard it must be for Rob to fall into a daily routine after enduring the chaos of filmmaking for months on end. I need to realize that his job, as disruptive as it can be, helps provide me and Graham with a very comfortable lifestyle.

I need to count our time together as a blessing and enjoy him more because, God willing, we are destined to spend our golden years together and I do not want to be one of those crotchety retired couples who are sick to death of each other.

But having said that, I do want the damn writers’ strike to end so he can go back to work.

And I want to hear how MBA Mommy, Erin and Jen would like to think differently.

Here are the rules for this meme:

Write a new blog post about thinking differently

State that the post is a part of the Think Different Challenge and include a link and/ or trackback to this post so that readers know the rules of the challenge. Feel free to use the above banner (inspired, of course, by Seth Godin).

Include a link and/ or trackback to the blogger who tagged you.

At the end of your post, go ahead and tag some fellow bloggers. Don’t forget to let them know they have been tagged.

Sit back and enjoy reading peoples’ responses to the challenge.