Next weekend, Tim and I will be in Atlanta for the wedding of two friends. The ceremony is set for July 9th which, as it happens, will be Tim’s and my 35th wedding anniversary.
I love thinking about that bright, breezy day in 1988, when Tim and I stood at the altar of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church (pictured above) in Belvedere, California, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. (I was serving as associate pastor of Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco, but the sanctuary was too small for our ceremony.)
Tim and I met in 1983 as seminarians at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. I immediately loved the kind, unconventional way about him. Raised in Hawaii, Tim oozed an untroubled sense of Aloha. Our friendship deepened until it dawned on both of us that we were meant for each other. We became engaged at Yosemite and married eight months later.
Through the years, Tim and I have written poems for and about each other. I wrote this one for my beloved a few years ago and share it with you here. Yes, the title is ironic. ㋡
I Have Regrets
That first perm comes to mind,
followed by twenty years of frizz
and fuzz and photographs I'd like
to bury in the backyard.
And all those summers at the beach,
my pink, immortal skin glazed
with baby oil.
That was a mistake for sure.
Also, I should have listened to my
father who said beware of credit
cards and check the engine oil
now and then.
There are of course darker offenses:
affirmations undeclared,
encouragements withheld,
angers unleashed.
Yes, I have regrets.
Not among them, however,
is the perfect afternoon by the bay
when the pastor said Do You?
and we said You Bet—though
how could we have imagined then
all that our vows would supply
and demand?
Even so, all these years later
as I consider this life we have made,
my prevailing regret
is that this blasted thesaurus
doesn’t contain a word
coming anywhere close
to the relief I feel in knowing
you and I belong
to each other.
The great Mary Oliver ends her poem, The Place I Want to Get Back To, with these words: “I live in the house near the corner, which I have named Gratitude.” What a coincidence—I live in the same house.
