Wedded Bliss

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

“Sonnet 116” by William Shakespeare

Five years ago, Annie and I joined our lives together in marriage and created a whole much greater than the sum of our two lives put together. A little under two years ago, Alex added to that joy. Even in the most trying, tired moments, I can look at the picture of our wedding day that I keep on my desk and I know that I am truly, truly blessed with the most wonderful lover, companion, and friend I could ever imagine. At times, the love I feel is as magical as anything that Marc Chagall could render in paint, even his Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel (above, from 1918). When I saw her walk up the aisle of the church on that day, tears of joy welled in my eyes. When I think of our “marriage of true minds,” they still do.

I love you, Sweetie!