Tuesday, May 17, 2005

What I Want to Say About My Wedding Ring

It’s really dirty; murky, cloudy, bottom of the pool, lose a child during a birthday party dirty. Let’s just have another glass of wine dirty. You can look at porno and I’ll take a hit of smoke dirty. Seedy apartment complex dirty. Hang your bras off the balcony dirty. Walk around in your slippers and a wife beater t-shirt dirty. Yell at your kids and leave greasy pots on the stove for days dirty. Send your kids to school with Cheetos for breakfast dirty. Don’t open your bills dirty. Blame other people for your troubles dirty.

It’s even more personally dirty

It’s dirty like I’m so bummed you didn’t make a bunch of money in the last few years dirty. And how come you’re still in debt dirty. And no, I don’t want to gaze into your eyes and go down to your studio and make art with you dirty. And how come you never say thank you for all the laundry I do dirty. And I don’t know if I can handle you having a girlfriend on the side when I don’t have a boyfriend dirty. And why is the house such a pigsty when I come home from my meditation weekend dirty. And does the dog have to sleep under the sheets with us dirty.

Sometimes I feel so evil

In the beginning it was a really pretty ring

We bought it at Macy’s in San Francisco fourteen years ago. We’d decided to get married a month before because he was leaving California for a year-long artist-in-residency and we knew that we wouldn’t stay together if we weren’t married. The ring cost $400 and he had to sell his motorcycle to pay for it. It’s a topaz, a Cinderella blue topaz surrounded by eensy weensy diamonds, and in the beginning you could see right through it because it was so clean and so clear and it held so much promise that it was like gazing straight into the Mediterranean Sea.

Marriage is so promising

It has to be that way or no one would do it. You have to be a believer. You have to suspend all your intelligence, everything you think you know about how independent you are and how well you think you know yourself. You have to suspend all your feminism and your ideas about equality and how merging won’t make you mushy, and you have to believe that this union is going to bring you home to yourself and turn loneliness and turn sadness and turn darkness on it's head forever. You have to believe in a very abracadabra way that marriage is going to take all your troubles away. Even if you know better. Intelligent people still have to believe this. We can’t help it. Marriage is so full of promise.

And so what?

Exactly. Let’s get on with it

Here’s the thing

I bought some jewelry cleaning solution about a year ago and it’s still sitting in the cupboard un-opened. I have nothing to lose, I mean it. Abracadabra, I’m going to go clean my wedding ring. Because I’m a believer. In my litle dirty heart I’m a believer.



***Abracadabra: Someone recently told me that its literal meaning is: with these words make it so.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Muy Bien Chica,

Clean that ring and look to tomorrow with fresh eyes. Your writing and life are flowing and that's good.

snowsparkle said...

Some phrases of yours grab me by the neck and hold on for days ...Send your kids to school with Cheetos for breakfast dirty... I swear, you and your writing make me truly happy to be alive. Happy to know you. This piece of yours echoes my theory that whatever we believe in, we call into being. Here's to the believers. Snowsparkle

Anonymous said...

i hear what you are saying with more volume than i care to acknowledge. good lord = you hit it all right on the head...keep up the honesty...in the end you will be able to find your way cuz you get it. i feel your pain baby.

SquirrleyMojo said...

that's one of 150 reasons why i won't wear my ring--implict and explict reasons to be sure!

Anonymous said...

Just found your site and am so in love with your writing! Especially this post. Can't wait to read more.