Anniversary Date Night (AKA: I pink puffy heart Thai food)
“M-a-g?” She says, leaning closer to me, the book, the words. Her goal to be conquered for this moment within fingertip’s reach.
I slide one finger beneath the letters, noting its lack of polish, its need of shine. She pushes my hand away with her own smaller version – glitter tipped and tanned and six-year-old small.
Kayli swoops in and reads ahead. “Magnum Opus?” She asks, titling her head to the side. Her chestnut locks brush the pages in my lap.
We’re reading Charlotte’s Web. Charlotte has just laid her egg sac and is explaining that it’s her Magnum Opus, her life’s Great Work.
You just can't make this stuff up. Love.
I watch their eyes breathe this in. Different versions of Jason’s and mine mixed and blended and smudged and edged until they’re each their very own shade.
After a moment of rare quiet, the conversation begins about the brightest of paintings and the prettiest of poems and the most plentiful of gardens.
Their imaginings of their life’s work as perfectly big as they are.
“What about you, Mama?” They ask, their eyes wide, their bodies bookended to mine.
I sink into the yellow couch, my feet tucked beneath me, and really think about my life, my work, and what is great within it.
Couples that share chocolate together, stay together.
My teaching, my writing, my once upon a time painting, my children, of course my children.
These are the threads of my story. And throughout different heartbeats, they’ve each felt like my greatest work, my biggest accomplishment, the most I’ll ever do.
But wrapped around each of these – the lessons I’ve learned, the chances I’ve taken, the farthest I’ve fallen – is my marriage.
Not because its been easy, and certainly not because I’m good at it.
(I’m stubborn and moody and an emotional over thinker.)
But because it’s my lift and my grounding all wrapped into one.
June 23, 2002
My marriage is where I learned to love recklessly, and to let that kind of love in.
It’s where I learned to fight for what’s worth it, and let go of what’s not.
That the ending of an argument doesn’t necessarily mean a resolution. That difficult doesn’t mean bad.
To value quiet. To open up. To trust. To care more for someone else than I do for myself.
That there are many versions of together. That patience can be learned, and practiced. That kindness is not meant to be kept track of. That gratefulness changes how everything looks.
That stories weave and fold and change and tell themselves. That holding hands through risks feels scary-sweet.
So this right here – this ten years of together – is my life’s greatest work. It’s where all of the greatness of my own imaginings is seeded and grown and bloomed.
(Happy Anniversary, babe. Hand in hand.)
What is your Magnum Opus? Is it what you thought it would be?
***
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How lovely! Happy Anniversary!
Oh Galit,
this is just so much of you, your soul, your heart. One of the things I love about your writing is that I FEEL it, in every fiber of me. I laugh with you, I cry, I notice with you. Plus you are so honest, about everything and I love that…that you can share this with us and be you.
I wish you and Jason so many years of love and happiness, laughter and compromise, fingers entwined.
xoxoxo
My family is mine! It truly has been more than I dreamed!
Happy Anniversary! I adore how happy you look together.
I can really relate to the things you said about your marriage. I share many of your characteristics that make us superduperawesome but superdupercomplicated (such as the stubbornness and emotional overthinking.) Having a much more even-keeled husband has helped me to really understand the value of taking risks and the joy of a safety net and everything in between.
Happy Anniversary to you both! I love that this is your Magnum Opus. Your words always touch my soul in just the perfect place.
This? This made me cry.
So beautiful Galit.
My son is mine for sure.
Growing a family of love and support.
Oh my, gorgeous post, Galit.
Also, I love the wedding picture. It’s so you. If you know what I mean.
Happy anniversary! May your magnum opus grow by chapters and volumes in the years to come.
I hope that when little man is older the husband and I are spending our anniversary the same way – reading and loving together!
You were a blonde!
m.
Such and beautiful couple, inside and out. I love the things you list that you have learned from marriage. It really is an amazing give and take and a different kind of amazing love. Happy Anniversary!! xoxo
Beautiful! I love this so much. It makes me so happy to see other couples realize that their marriage is the foundation for their children and all that comes after. Just wonderful. Happy anniversary!
Gorgeous pictures! I especially love the wedding shot.
And oh—love—”So this right here – this ten years of together – is my life’s greatest work. It’s where all of the greatness of my own imaginings is seeded and grown and bloomed.”
Oh Happy Anniversary dear!
I feel like the gut response is my children, but I don’t feel like that is what my greatest work is. Not yet, I guess. They are still growing, changing, becoming. I am so not done yet. Not with them. Not with my life. It feels so endlessly unwritten still. Perhaps I’m getting too old to still be thinking this way, but I feel like I haven’t quite become yet what it is I am to become.
Happy Anniversary to you both! Marriage is most definitely a place where we stretch, grow, and become.
I absolutely love this. So very sweet. And that picture? Beautiful.
Happy Anniversary, my friend! xo
Oh yes. Exactly. 22 years at the end of the month and it is by far my greatest accomplishment.
Oh, Galit, your words really move me. What a beautiful testimony of your marriage, your magnum opus. (I love that, by the way.) Marriage and certain, significant parts of our lives deserve a title, don’t they?
My memoir..holy moly it’s terrifying, but, like you said, it’s scary-sweet…is my magnum opus. It’s what went into that book. The recovery, the fight, the surviving that makes it so.
You brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for making me look at my life in a different way today.
Omigoodness. Swoon. That kiss. That kiss. Yes, loving recklessly. You have it. A fierce heart. I am not sure of mine. I think my son. I felt itvatbhis bar mitzvah. He is everything I wanted in a child. And G-d saw fit to lend him to me for a while. Lots of posts coming on the bar mitzvah. Am wiring furiously before I forget.
*writing* furiously. The electrician does the wiring. Oy.
Oh so beautiful. And Happy Anniversary!
Beautifully written.
Happy Anniversary!
This made me cry. How beautiful to see into your heart and into your marriage. Happy Anniversary. I wish you guys many more beautiful years together.
This post is so beautiful and moving, and it’s something this emotional over-thinker needed to read this week. Thank you for sharing it!
My magnum opus is still a work in process. I don’t know what it will be — I have a symphony inside me. I have a novel. I have two kids that I’m raising and a wife that I love. There’s a musical that I, truly, think, if I can finish it, can win Tony awards.
Alas, when all is said & done, I don’t know what will be at the top of the list, what I’ll be most proud of . . . everything is a work in progress (though, I think for most anyone, everything in their life is a work in progress . . . I’m sure, even if you asked Charles Dickens, in the days before he died, which of his works he felt were “truly done,” he’d have said “none of them”)
Our anniversaries are a day apart. Well, six years and a day apart. I love this post. I always thought I’d struggle being married…I am stubborn and moody to a fault and yet, I am happily married after 16 years and like you, it isn’t because I am good at it…it’s because we choose to work at it. My family, I suppose is my life’s greatest work at the moment. Maybe because with the curve balls we’ve been thrown, it is the hardest thing I have ever done. Rewarding but hardest. I love the pictures…they are gorgeous!
Happy Anniversary!
This is just beautiful. Happy anniversary, you two love birds. And yes, chocolate is the tie that binds.
Beautiful, Galit. Happy Anniversary to you. And lots more chocolate cake
This is so sweet. I love every photo you chose to include, every description and every truth. I am going to think today about what is my magnum opus.
Just beautiful …
Tomorrow I get on a plane and fly to Nicaragua … a different step, a journey in another direction … maybe mine is there.
Gorgeous, gorgeous post. And I love that you’re reading Charlotte’s Web with the kids. I just read it to my little one. We finished last week. I couldn’t stop crying as I tried to read the end. It’s such a beautiful, yet sad, book. And I love that you took Charlotte’s Magnum Opus to talk about your own Magnum Opus.
It’s a very very interesting question. I am not sure what it is for me.
I also feel like most of the things you learned in your marriage, I learned through motherhood. And then I’ve gone back into my marriage and tried to apply them there. I’m just more willing to put myself out there for my kids. It definitely makes me wonder where we’d be if we had chosen not to have children.
I can NOT get through Charlotte’s Web without crying big, choking tears. I think I made my son a little nervous once. It just gets to me.
I saved this one until I was ready to read it. And wow. Breathtaking.
What you don’t say, but what is so very true, is that it’s more than you and Jason. It’s also those around you who benefit from this life’s work. What an example and a legacy for your children, too.
We are both asking hard questions this week
Love this so much….and I think you are spot on. Amazing tribute to something that is so hard to maintain over so many years. Happy anniversary!:)
This was a wonderful post on so many levels! I just LOVED LOVED LOVED the photo of them reading. How sweet is it that Brody’s arm is around his sister’s shoulders? {Memory Captured
}
Happy Anniversary, I believe we are 2 days a apart on our anniversaries
Really like this, Galit! And so good to meet you! That Mark certainly has his way with us!!!
My Magnum Opus would have to be my husband and dog, then my siblings. You ‘read ‘so well. I’ll be sticking around.
Oh yes, Happy Anniversary!
Beautiful and a great reminder on how marriage shapes and molds us. It really has been where I’ve realized so much about myself and grown and it’s allowed me to not just be a wife, but a mother and a better person as well.
Absolutely gorgeous. This line: “To value quiet. To open up. To trust. To care more for someone else than I do for myself.” I love.
Happy Anniversary you two! My neighbor reminded me that marriage should truly take precedence. I never thought of it that way, always thinking kids come first but reading this made me think the same way. I am so happy for you.
Such beautiful pictures! Happy Anniversary.
I agree my family is my greatest accomplishment!
So very sweet. Happy Anniversary to you!
When I read your posts my head always goes to what your children will have to reference their childhood and their mother’s and father’s hearts for not only them but each other. These posts are a piece of your Magum Opus. Thankfully, we are all able to share in it is as well. Hope you all had a wonderful anniversary!!! xo
You are so so so so SOOOOO right.
Good for you for putting to words this truth:
That none of the other things you mentioned would BE if it weren’t for this first Magnum Opus.
I love it. And my husband.
First things first…
XO
Happy 10 years to you. I have never thought about my Magnum Opus but I suppose it’s to care for my children and to love my family. Maybe more, not sure.
This is lovely, Galit. Happy ten years to you. Lisa
You always take my breath away
This- “That the ending of an argument doesn’t necessarily mean a resolution.”
Is perfection
I love this, Galit. It’s a beautiful tribute on your anniversary. Congrats to you both on finding such a great partner!
What a really special tribute. You know, I often read your stuff and picture you writing it from your 80 year old self. You have a great grasp of wise perspective that usually comes from being an old woman.
I love it.
You are so good at expressing how you love. The people you share that with will one day have a wonderful something to look back on and know just how you felt about them. That’s special. Congrats on your 10 years!
OMG, I’m trying to hold it in but I just can’t…
SQUEEEEEEEEE!
I love this post. It makes me so incredibly happy to hear you are so very much in love with your best friend. What an incredible Magnum Opus that is.
I haven’t thought about this book in ages, which is quite rare, since you can imagine with a name like Charlotte, I’d hear references to it all the time. Will have to think about what my true great life’s work is, too. Love LOve LOVe LOVE this, momma. XOXO
WOW! Look at that picture! And you were blond!
Gorgeous.
I feel the same way about my marriage – so grateful. My Magnum Opus.
It was very touching. The post is just honest and has a very positive perspective. Congratulations on your anniversary.