Assisi: An Online Journal of Arts & Letters Volume 4, Issues 1 & 2 | Page 66

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Marriage as I envisioned it, as a seamless storyline of enduring passion,
emotional security, and checkmarks on a To-Do list, is a myth. We don’t expect
childlessness, devastated finances, more sex, less sex, sex with imperatives,
illness, monotony, or the sedative effect of familiarity. I didn’t predict that I’d
write this from the suburbs where the silhouettes of hundreds of homes are
identical to mine, where my joy rides on the flying ears of my dogs released to
chase the birds from our feeder, or echoes in the sound of distant children
playing at recess.
The cover of Alanis Morissette’s follow-up album, Supposed Former
Infatuation Junkie, shows an overblown photo of Alanis’ mouth, superimposed
with text from The Eight Precepts of Buddhism. I remember looking up the
precepts back then, and grappling with the meaning of one: “I undertake the
precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.” That which is not given …
the dynamics of give and take generate such confusion.
We assemble our families when we are naïve enough to handle the
existential output. Then the yield hurls toward entropy, subject—like everything
else in the universe—to chaos. We enter our domestic pacts shackled with gender
differences, personal baggage, racial and cultural narratives, arriving at either
harmony or impasse.
My brother and I sit talking about the years since the summer of 1995—our
own marriages, roadblocks, our aging parents, and how we finally forgive them. I
sweep my selections from the box into a haphazard pile, spinning certain artifacts
with the tips of my fingers, examining others, seeking insight. My brother
unconsciously sorts the piles by type and size. I watch him and see my father in
his gestures. My husband and his father are not physically similar, at least three
inches differentiate their height, yet in shadow I can’t tell them apart.
We empty our drinks to lube the razor’s edge of memory. My brother tells
me for the umpteenth time that my father intends to call me, wants to make

!!Assisi!!!60!