What we lost in the fire...

A few weeks ago, right around the second week of the month, I had this grand plan to write a blog in honor of Thanksgiving. You know, something slightly cheesy but heartfelt about the people in my life that I think about and am thankful for. Like the elderly woman who worked at the daycare my daughter attended, who made her beautiful dresses and did her hair, like she was one of her own. Or to my first editor who made me cry but also taught me to be a writing Jedi.

That's how the blog was going to go. But then, on Saturday, November 10, while I was snapping risque photos of burlesque performers and the kids were at home with my gentleman friend (most likely full on corn dogs), there was a raging fire just down the road. It only took an hour for the flames to engulf the entire house and everything in it, every piece of clothing, every precious painting, every bed, everything. Not so long ago, I lived in that house. That was the house that me and my then-husband decided to raise our children in. That was the house where we struggled as a young family, made strides, took steps back, and ultimately, it was the house that I fled, taking very few of my things, so that the kids wouldn't feel the sting of the imminent divorce. Everything, their whole childhood, right down to the little figurines lining my daughter's bedroom walls, burned up in an instant.

My ex called me from the road, he had been visiting his father in New Hampshire, when he learned that his (our, the kids') house was a giant bonfire on a quiet road.

"The house is on fire," he screamed. "Our house is on fire."

We only chatted for a moment and thanked god that the kids were with me that weekend, in our little rental in farm country. There was no sleep to be had that night, wondering how we were going to tell the kids that the house had burned. How their toys were just melted plastic and ash. How their winter coats, the new ones, were blackened and stank of smoke and flame.

That was a Saturday night. On Sunday, as luck would have it, we had planned a small birthday party for my son (at the rental). That morning, looking at the kids' faces, I felt so guilty not telling them the news. But me and their father agreed that, best to tell them after the party. We didn't want to ruin their day. As if...

I went to the house before the party, under the guise that I needed to go to the store and get balloons. I could smell the smoke and char from the road as I parked the car. The police were there, fire men, my ex-husband, his girl friend. But I didn't really see any of them when I got out the car. All I saw, all I saw, and it will haunt me truly forever, was the charred remains of my daughter's bed in the driveway. Tossed, flaming, out of the second floor window. A whole had been cut in the side of the house where her bedroom was, and that was as black as the bed. All of the windows were broken and glass crunched under my shoes. Everything, everything was gone. Of course, I had the mother moment, I went there in my head. What if the kids had been there? It made me sick inside, to think that the story, through one turn of events or another, could have been quite a different one, one that no one would be able to write.

We told the kids after the party. Anna cried, Lucian said nothing. It wasn't until we took them to the house, a week later, when Anna's room had been cleared from the driveway, that the reality set in, for all of us. We knew, between the sobs and the thankful praises, that we were looking at a coffin. The coffin of our lives, laid bare and burned to dust.

Now, all that remains is a burned out shell of the house. The baby pictures, the foot print cards, the locks of hair, the videos of their innocent first steps, the oil paintings I did of Anna's first ballet lesson, the wedding albums, the amazing school art projects, the custom-sewn dresses from Anna's sister in Africa, all are gone with the house. Buried in a violent pile of ash and peeling paint.

It's been a few weeks now, the house will be rebuilt, my ex has found an apartment that the kids will call "home" for at least half the time. But the air is heavy here. Still. Nightmares plague me every time I try to sleep. Anna cries anew whenever she realizes that yet another treasured thing is lost. Lucian kicks the dirt a lot and shows little interest in the trampoline. At one point, at dinner, Anna spoke out of nowhere.

"Oh no, Ma, my flower girl dress from your wedding..." Her voice trails off.
"It's OK, baby," I say, trying to keep my composure. "It's OK, because we still have the flower girl."

When I am old, and the children are grown, there will be no albums to look back on to remind me of their faces when they were young. There will be no videos to show my grandchildren of their devilish parents and their first steps.

I keep those memories that much closer now, filling in details so that I won't forget a single thing. It's a bittersweet inventory.

Some day...

I don't care how humble you are, when someone compliments your kid it is a blessing, and an affirmation that you (and I) might be doing something right in a world that is seemingly filled with wrong. Yesterday, I picked Anna, my tween, up from an after-school art class. Actually, by the way the girls are talking, it's an art therapy/scrapbooking class (which, thank God, I don't have to teach). The girls were upstairs getting their soccer gear on, because yes, soccer season is still in full swing and, yes, practices and games continue to rule my life like a colicky baby rules a mother's nights. So they were upstairs donning their stinky-ass shin guards and cleats (which will be summarily burned after the season is over) and us moms were downstairs chit-chatting with the art teacher.

I was looking at Anna's creation, a photo negative of her (the 'fro looked amazing, btw) with giant white wings spreading like milk behind her back. Against the black background of the negative, they were fantastical. Just so noble, and so fitting, here was my angel, my true angel. Not a Precious Moments figurine, mind you. No blonde head encircled by a halo. No white robe and big blue eyes and tiny little wings. Nope, that little Aryan angel was nowhere to be found in Anna's rendition. If anything, the portrait/collage was a little sinister, made more so by the one word she had scrawled above her head using a silver pen: Unleashed.

Unleashed, indeed. She has been unleashing for the past decade! I have watched, with amusement and some concern, this astonishingly beautiful girl transform from a stubborn, ragingly independent toddler (her catch phrase was always "by myself!")to a hyper-intelligent, moody third-grader to what we have a now; a tall, athletic powerhouse with an amazing smile and too much going on in her head. The art teacher has noticed.

"I just have to tell you, your daughter is an amazing person," she said. I wanted to say "I know" but thought that might be taken the wrong way. So, I said simply, "Thank you."

"I'm serious," she continued. "She is so intuitive. It's a little scary. She knows people before they know themselves. And she is so kind to her friends. It's like she knows they need the kindness more than her."

I thankfully did not actually cry at this last line. I just looked down at her monumental angel collage and wondered when had I turned into such a f***ing sap. I thanked her for saying so and pretended to be interested in a glue stick on the table while I spoke. Eye contact would mean tears.

"It's so hard, you know," I said. "You have this perfect person, you raise her up in a bubble basically, trying to instill good values and kindness and confidence. And she's perfect, at least to me. And then, you send her out into the world and you just don't know how it's gonna go. Somebody goes and f***ks up your perfect person and I just wonder if she'll still come home with a smile on her face and the world at her fingers."

Clearly, Anna has bigger plans than mine. A smile on her face, nah-ah, this girl's got wings. I sometimes see clear into the horizon of her future and she is so strong and so inspiring and so goddman funny! At least, at least she has my humor (or some form of it). That was made clear in the car, after art, when the conversation was dominated by fart jokes and giggles. The angel fell to earth thanks to a little bathroom humor.

I did notice something, though, before we left the teacher's very spiritual home. On the way to the car, the art teacher's son, a handsome kid with an honest face, about 18, came running out of the house with a small green sweatshirt in his hand.

"Wait, somebody left this," he said. The sweatshirt was Anna's. She ran to the meet him in the middle of the yard, saying,"Oh, that mine. Thanks!" Flashed him a smile and grabbed the sweatshirt.

I swear to God, she looked like a woman then. The boy, at least to my eyes, seemed struck and stood on the lawn watching her run back to the car. I was looking at him looking at her.

Angel, indeed. Killer angel. At least for that moment, he didn't have a chance. None of us do, not with her.

Captain of an empty ship

I put the 'gone fishin' sign up on Thursday afternoon and headed north with "the boys" to Lake Ontario. My goal, of course, was simple. To catch fish. Salmon, to be exact, and whatever else the lake would provide. Secondary to this main goal was to have fun, relax and enjoy guy time with the rest of the crew. From the get-go, everyone seemed at ease with the fact that a girl had infiltrated the ranks of the male bonding collaborative. After all, I have developed a reputation for being VERY serious about fishing (and able to hold my own, even against 25-pound stripers in the deep Atlantic) and for being low maintenance. I will eat with my fingers, wear the same jeans for weeks, pick my teeth with a matchbook and smile the whole time, especially if there is water and a boat involved. I have even been known to chew tobacco in desperate situations. And I use my mirrors to back up vehicles. The badge is pretty solid, at least in my mind.

So, we drive four hours (almost straight through) to the Lake, and arrive at the Captain's house, where we will crash at night for the two days of our fishing trip. The captain is an old fella', nearly 75, with 60 years of fishing under his belt. He is grisled, a little forgetful, but clearly patched over with wisdom. We are not in his house more than 7 minutes (I counted) when he tries to entertain the group with a racial joke.

"A black man walks into the welfare office..." he starts. I can feel myself shrivelling and don't stick around to hear the rest of the joke. I am outside, unpacking when one of our crew, let's call him Big J, steps outside to get his suitcase.

"Don't mind him, Nic, he doesn't even realize he's saying it."

Thanks for the advice. Just curious why I am the one that needed the talking to?

Anyway, I was a porcupine by the time we got on the boat the next morning. What I didn't realize was that the joke was not the end of the Captain's short rope. He went over the basics of the reels and the different weights and downriggers and pointed to a particularly sturdy rod with a disc or "dipsy" attached to it. He looked at me pointed.

"Now, that's a dipsy rod. You can't fish from that one because you're small. That's for the big men."

I honestly thought he was kidding. That was, until he started talking about this girl he'd met, some 30 years younger than him, who he was smitten with. Totally smitten, like a 17-year-old boy, not a seasoned ex-fighter pilot and ship captain.

"Tell you what, I'm gonna be with that girl. She's my idol, boys, she really is."

We all nodded, feeling a little awkward over his dewy, far-off face.

"Imagine if she were here now, just imagine. Pancakes and eggs for breakfast every morning, no joke. Wouldn't that be something? Wouldn't that be something, boys?"

That's when I knew that he wasn't kidding about the "dipsy" and that I was in for a fight. When my line was up with a nice-sized lake trout on it, I pulled and reeled and pulled and reeled like he instructed me. It was a steady pace, made tough by the wind, the heat, the fish and my burning bicep. But the fish was comin' in nice and when I had about 20 feet of line left, apparently I wasn't reeling it in fast enough for the Captain because he jumped down on deck, put one hand over mine that was on the reel and started pulling the line in. I became a marionette trapped between a madman and a pole. The moment he ripped the pole back, the trout spit the hook with a triumphant "pooffft" and my line was weightless, fishless. I was hopping mad.

"What the hell," I said, half-joking, "I was doing just fine."

"Did you see the size of that trout," he said. "You let out too much slack on the line. That's why you lost him."

What the ....?! I lost him?

"With all due respect, sir, this ain't my first rodeo with a fish."

I sat down and fumed. The next time I was up, another trout hooked the dipsy line and I was on it, reeling, my arm burning. And before Captain could "come to my aid" I growled.

"I got it. Step off," and pulled the beauty in. The gents I was with, the ones who know me, wouldn't have dared come near me, let alone touch me while I was pulling one in. I had the whole rest of the day on the boat (with my period, no less. Yes, that's right, I managed to bleed and fish and not whine) I thought about those pancakes and eggs.

"He's f***ing delusional," I whispered to myself.

Day 2 with the Captain came in windy and cool. There was a storm brewing on that Lake. Big J was up. The fish spit the hook. Captain said "Take another turn." The next hit, again a spit hook. "Try again" the Captain yelled. Three turns, Big J got three turns to snag a fish.

By this time the Lake was rocking and the rain was blowing sideways. My gentleman friend was up, and he snagged a good-sized salmon. My turn was next. I could feel my hands tingling in anticipation. They were jumping and I was ready, crossing my fingers that I'd get something.

I was ready.

While the Captain screamed in my gentleman friend's ear, a second line got hit. It was my turn! Woo-hoo! I jumped from my perch on the little chair and went for the line. Out of nowhere, the Captain screamed.

"No, no, somebody bigger get that one. Not her!"

Reluctantly, and I mean with fear and hesitation, one of our crew of 4 snagged the line and started reeling it in. Before you could blink, in under 7 minutes, we had two 25-lb salmon on deck. Big, fat beauties, slick and silver and noble. The Captain put his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry, Nicky, you'll get your turn."

F*** you, old man.

Needless to say, I didn't get my turn. The 60 mph wind did us in and we putted to shore practically sideways. My friend who was "forced" to take my turn spent a good part of that ride back telling the Captain that I caught the biggest striper, a good 25-lbs at least, on our last trip. And that yes, I had even reeled in two bluefish, that's right, two, on the same goddamn hook. All with giant ocean reels, all by myself, no man required.

It's been a long time since I've come up against this kind of ridiculous sexism. A looong time. And I am burning still. With rage, indignation, you name it, I got it. I don't need you to hold the goddamn door for me, although that's just a common courtesy. I don't need you to hold me or coax me while I'm reeling in a fish. I don't need you to chop wood, start the woodstove, earn a paycheck or paint the bathroom. What I do need, and this is something that I am clearly going to have to take on my own, by force, is for you to step the f*ck off my uterus and let me do my thing. There is no room for chivalry in fishing. Only equality.

But you need me to make your pancakes and eggs. Good luck with breakfast, Captain.

To my ego, with love

Ahh, Woody Allen. You pervert, you. And yet, despite your pedophilic, incestuous personal life, you make me think.

Sometimes, I don't want to think, Woody. Ever think of that? Sometimes I just want to watch a film and be done with it. But, it's my own fault for choosing you last night. And I draggeda friend into the fray with me.

So, there I was, watching "To Rome, With Love." And there is this character, Monica. She's petite, kind of chaotic-looking in jeans a loose shirt tucked into the front of her jeans, messy bun, about mid-20s. She's an aspiring actress, she has complex disastrous relationships with men...etc.

And I couldn't stand her. Not for a second. She was the kind of woman who knew just enough about everything to sound like she was smart. She would roll off lines from poems (not whole poems, mind you, but lines), she knew all of the "famous" names of architects, artists, writers, philosophers, and she could fake passion about these people and topics in order to impress whomever was around her. It was painful to watch (very well done by the actress, I have to say). It grated on my nerves. She had that whole college freshman "cool" that, although it is a right of passage for most people, just irritates the shit out of the "veterans" who have seen what's on the other side of the Yeats ode and the Chekov play.

I am sure, that if my grandmother were writing a blog right now, she would be writing this very thing about the mid-30s set. So, grain of salt.

What pricked my skin the most about Monica is that I tried that hard for awhile. Really, really hard to be the intellectual rebel. The one who knew the greats, the one with the Che poster, the one who "studied" the Greek tragedies and who refused to wear high heels and who wanted so badly for people to be impressed by my "native wisdom." It was laughable, really. And it didn't help that I had this much older, philosopher boyfriend. He used to take me to parties and dinners hosted by college presidents and wealthy professors. I pretended to know all of the art on the walls, I wore linen, I spoke easy with the wives, all of whom were older than my own mother.

And then, I had a weak moment. Or, I should say, a real moment. Out on the back patio of a gorgeous brownstone, on a beautiful spring day, while wearing capris and espadrilles and pretending to sip chardonnay, I accidentally let the demon out.

Professor Big Man (name changed, obviously) was intellectualizing his experience as a crack addict, swear to god, almost nostalgic as he relayed stories of leaving his 5 million dollar Cambridge brownstone and making a run to Springfield to get his fix. I think he liked the look of shock on everyone's face. He waved his wine like a magic wand and leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, but I'm here," he said. "I kicked it. And I'm so much happier."

I stared at him. Hard stare. The dog stare that I had been trying to hide for the last three years of my Ivy league education.

"Just like that, eh?" I piped up. "Just like that," I waved my glass. "You make it sound so easy. Just had an epiphany, read some Machiavelli, and poof, addiction gone?"

The patio got really, really silent.

"Well, Nichole, it seems you know a little bit about the subject." He smiled through his teeth. I saw my status deflating from wanna be grad student to f***ing punk.

"Well,"I said, feeling my face go crimson, "I'm sure you don't want to tell everyone about the sleepless nights in rehab. You know, the ones where you're puking on the floor, crying for your momma every five minutes. Wishing you were dead but not having the energy to actually do the job. And god forbid anyone should see you on a Wednesday night, crawling down the stairs of a church basement to a meeting filled with junkies and winos. I mean, 'cause clearly you don't belong there."

He stared at me, open-mouthed.
"Clearly," he said.

"Yeah, good times," I said, waving my wine glass. "And it kills me that I can't have a sip of this right now, because I know it's good shit, but I'm still a little green around the gills. My sponsor would kill me."

I set the glass down on the white tableclothe and stood up.

"I need a cigarette."

I sat on the front steps of that beautiful mansion and puffed away. Miserable. I wasn't fooling anybody, not even myself. Eventually, the front door opened and Prof. Big Man sat down next to me. We were an odd pair, a tall, skinny undergrad and a short, 50-something black man. Both slumped over a little, staring at nothing.

"Can I bum a smoke?"

I already had the pack out. He put the filter to his lips and I lit the end.

"It's a shitty life sometimes," he said.

"Yup. But you've got a nice house."

He laughed, and stood up, flicking his cigarette into the street.

"I'm going to make some coffee. Want some?"

"Does a bear shit in the woods?"

"Last I heard."

The coffee was delicious. You can always count on an ex-junkie to make good strong coffee, that's a bit of knowledge you're not gonna find in the Phaedrus.

Of mice and mermen

Rarely do I sit. Even as a writer (like full-time, meager bread and butter writer), my ability to sit still for long periods of time evades me. It is backlash from all of those 3-hour seminars in college. Put the hungover kid with adult ADHD in an ancient history class, conducted solely in Mandarin, yeah that's a good idea. Good thinking on my part, too.

So, for me to sit, to actually sit down and be engaged is rare. Books are the lone exception. Books and Legos. Now, imagine my reaction to television...

So, there I was, sitting on the couch, completely engrossed in a documentary on the Discovery Channel. I mean completely engrossed. Like, don't get up to pee, get popcorn, eat, drink, smoke--that kind of engrossed. No, it wasn't about the meth trade or dangerous-ass gold mining under the ice in the Bering Sea (people will do anything for a buck, I swear to God).

Mermaids, people. I was watching a show about mermaids. Not the folklore of mermaids, or the symbolism, or mermaid depictions throughout the centuries (although there was a lot of that stuff, too) but about the ACTUAL supposed discovery of a mermaid corpse along the coast of South Africa. And sightings on the Washington Coast. A team of scientists and their discovery and the subsequent confiscation of all of the samples and specimens and evidence (by the government, of course). All that research and hope --gone. A big conspiracy, really. According to the "film" or whatever you want to call it, the government is blasting the shit out of sea life using sonar blasts that riddle holes through every creature within a certain radius. And the theory, according to these scientists, is that the sonar blasts are being directed specifically at these humanoid sea creatures in order to kill them. All of them.

I know what you're thinking. I know. It's ridiculous. You will now boycott this blog because the author has clearly lost her f***ing mind. Or you will continue reading for the sheer joy of tracing my descent into madness via the internet. Or, you might be thinking really hard right now about mermaids.

When I was a kid, back when, as my brother would say, "Shit was different," I dreamed of being...a marine biologist. Swear to god. I read a few Madeline L'Engle books and learned to hold my breath for a long time and swim as fast as I could and studied up on dolphins and whales and squids. I even remember having the thought that, as NASA was sending shuttle after shuttle into the unknown, that the real undiscovered country was in the sea.

"What morons," I thought to myself. "They're gonna miss everything."

The mermaid thing has got me thinking. Hard. What if it's true? What if they are there, what's left of them, deep in the sea, knowing to hide from their land family because, well, apparently we'll kill them. I mean, look what happened to the Native Americans, and to Black Africans and to Jews and gypsies and gays and lesbians and women and poor people...Can you imagine having a f***ing tail and webbed fingers?! I shudder to think. And yet, it makes me so sad to realize that there are creatures, amazing creatures out there that to see them would be a spiritual experience beyond all knowing.

And yet, I hope no one ever spots them. Ever. History speaks for itself. And fear reigns over history. I have seen enough inexplicable things in my lifetime to know that anything...I mean anything...is possible. Just read the Bible if you doubt me on this one. Risen from the dead? Belly of a whale? Parting of the sea? Mermaids aren't far off the mark.

But if you see one, don't tell a soul. Definitely take a picture with your iPhone. Keep it, and maybe tell your grandkids while you're dying. But not a moment before.

What I need to know...

I just got an e-Blast from Oprah a few days ago. Yes, I do get the magazine every month. For the record, it was a gift subscription and I like reading the book reviews. I would not ever, in my friggin' life, however, pay $845 for chandelier earrings, which have somehow made it into the "Steals and Deals" section of the mag. Unless they mean I'd have to steal the cash to buy the fashion and than cop a deal with the po-po after I got arrested for armed robbery.

So, yes, the book reviews are great. And I did discover some great cajun recipes and a story about a 50-something trapeze artist who likes going to the farmer's market. That was cool.

Back to the e-blast. The piece that caught my eye was entitled "8 Life Skills Every Person on the Planet Needs to Learn." That's a big claim. On the planet? Like every man, woman and child, even those living in poverty-stricken, war-torn nations? OKaaay. I read on, expecting the list to at least include how to find/make clean drinking water, how to perform CPR, how to grow sustainable food, how to not get hit by a hail of gunfire when travelling to Syria, how to quietly kill your abusive husband/boyfriend...anyway, you get the point. You can imagine my complete disgust and disappointment when I read life skill #1: "The ability to listen to what you least want to hear."

I don't know about the rest of y'all but I hear shit every day that I really don't want to hear. For instance, how much these presidential campaigns are costing, how women the world over are being ravaged in one way or the other, how drought is killing farmers. And on a more personal note, which is what I think this rule means, yeah, I listen to what I least want to hear from my kids. "Ma, your arms are jiggly in the back." Or "I'm almost as tall as you," Or, my personal favorite, "You look like hell in the morning." Do I cry? No. Do I scream and yell and deny? No. Just quietly sip my coffee and wait for the little fly to flit away and tell me something I don't already know.

I think #3 on the list was supposed to be a cute little foodie quip. Sadly, "the ability to cook one thing with cheese" isn't, in my book, an abiliity, let alone an essential one to get you through friggin' life. Can you imagine being a young woman in Afghanistan reading this swill, hoping to find something of value? Cheese?! Where? We don't even have schools or shoes at this point! As for me, who lives in rural America, cheese is a staple. I have never struggled with how to use cheese. EVER. Get a grip. Now, if you can make cheese, I'd be impressed.

Oh my god, the list goes on. Something about the "power whisper," and some vaguery about listening to one's inner voice. I listen to it all right, and I usually tell it to "shut the hell up! Can't you see I'm trying to write?!" It was all so cheesy, so shallow, so, well, it'd be perfect for Pinterest.

There is one skill listed that I agree with. "The abilility to whistle with your fingers." The author's justification for this is simply because "it's sexy." Um, yeah, honey. It's really sexy when you've just screamed your head off through the window trying to get the kids to come in for dinner then break out the whistle. Or when you've tried everything short of heroin to try and get the attention of a room full of teenagers. Nope, this whistle is a necessary part of life. It is a warning, a call for help, a powerful tool for negotiation. Everybody on the planet should know how to whistle with their fingers. And laugh at themselves. And stage a protest. And physically defend themselves against violation. And roll a cigarette. And figure out due North. And sharpen a knife. And treat an infection and a broken heart. And to take help and give help.

And to swim. Everybody should know how to swim.

'Til the photographer does us part

While I have not become completely addicted to Pinterest, it does give me a certain amount of joy looking at unique cactii, delicious meals and other strange, one-of-a-kind delights. I am not the crafty sort, so seeing what other people do with, say, painted pebbles and wine corks is pretty inspiring. Basically, it's girl porn. It also saves me a lot of money because I can get my fix just looking at the pictures of food and beautiful dresses and torquoise platform heels and call it a day.

I still want a huge cactus garden on my porch, but that's gonna be awhile. Maybe when I finally make the move to Taos, and my house is surrounded by a sea of sand and scrub brush. For me, paradise. My mother doesn't understand the whole dry, hot, landlocked thing.

"I would move to the ocean," she said. "Right on the beach."

"I like the ocean, too," I said. "But it's not scrappy enough. Nobody builds an adobe on the ocean. And what sense would a cow skull make hanging above the door on a seaside cottage, or on a skiff?"

More quizzical looks.

While I am waiting to find my desert house and live my independent Georgia O'Keefian life, complete with leathered skin, motorcycles and white, button up shirts, I will continue to drool over Pinterest images.

Yesterday, I ventured outside of my usual categories of Travel, Gardening, and Food and peeked at the "Wedding and Events" category. I can't say that it was a big mistake, but it 'got me to thinking.' The pictures were gorgeous, everything from elaborate, drapey cakes to soft light boudoir shots of the bride under her veil. Herringbone braids and big tropical flowers in the bride's hair. Slate gray bridesmaid's dresses, over the top cream-colored, gilded shoes for the bride, beach weddings, snazzy adorable invitations...you get my drift. It all looked so fun and pretty and happy. But what struck me the most, were the pictures of the actual "proposal." That seems to be a trend right now. The groom-to-be hires a professional photographer to be there when he proposes to the unsuspecting bride (maybe). Wanting to capture the moment, I guess?

It's all so staged, even from the first humble moments of the proposal, it seems to me that the current trend in marriage is not focused on the marriage itself, but on the "big day." And, of course, the amazing photography. Let's capture this moment together while we picnic in Central Park (smooch, smooch). Look how happy we are on this rooftop when he proposes. Look at my ring, look how much he loves me. Look, look, look...

The camera eventually gets put away, the pictures are stuffed into albums and posted on Facebook by the hundreds. And then what? It's over? Not quite. Then you actually have a marriage on your hands that is as real as the sun rising and setting. Is that one photo albumn of contrived memories gonna carry you through the sleepless nights of parenthood? Is that image of you two on the picnic blanket gonna keep you from leaving in a fury of broken dishes when you have your 1000th knock down, drag out in the kitchen at 2 a.m.? How about the ring? How much ground do you think that will cover when you find a pair of margarita glasses in the sink and you've been away for two weeks...

Where is the photographer then? Oh, right, you don't want to capture those moments.

Shouldn't the focus be more on the marriage itself. Not planning, necessarily for the day, but for the rest of your lives? Perhaps the camera should start flashing when the crappy car dies on the highway and you discover that your "man" doesn't know how to change a tire, or when you both wake up with a stomach flu and still have to make breakfast for the kids.

I have a lot of memories of being married. Many of them good, many of them bad. I choose not to sort through all the mental photographs and frame the ones that are pretty and burn the others. That's not how marriage works. A picture is worth a thousand words, only if you get the shot.

Sifting through the years, I don't need a photo to remind me of how he proposed. It was before 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning in August. I was hovering by the coffee maker and he said, out of the blue, "I think we should get married." I nodded my head and pulled the cream out of the fridge. "Sure," I said. "Sounds like a plan. Let me tell my mother."