Breathing Words

I lay in bed this morning–planning our day in my head, wondering how our pre-marital counseling session will go, excited in picking up our wedding bands, satisfied in booking a photographer yesterday–when I realized that I shared the quote I chose without sharing why I chose it. Which, for some of you, might be the more interesting aspect of the quote adventure. A serious blogger’s mistake, if there ever was one. I mean, the point of this thing is to be personal right?

In my defense, I was stressed and restless when I found the quote, barely able to sit at my computer for longer than twenty minutes. Seriously, it was so bad I wasn’t even playing WoW! Plus, when I found the quote, I immediately had the “Ah, Shakespeare saysit all,” reaction. 

But I forget that not everyone reads Shakespeare this way. Now that I think about it, I don’t even have T’s reaction to the quote I chose. He just deferred to me as the literary “expert” in this relationship, but don’t misunderstand that for him not caring and letting me choose whatever I want. He ”vetoes” my ideas quite often (usually not literary related), even though I think I’m very clever, if a little weird and untraditional. For instance, I thought it’d be nice to use our Transformers figurines as wedding cake toppers, but he said no, and I guess that makes sense since there’s only Arcee and she’s not nearly awesome enough to marry Optimus and T couldn’t be anyone BUT Optimus so I thought it’d be interesting for Megatron to represent me because I always love the villains but I don’t even have to suggest that to him to know he’ll say no because Optimus and Megatron aren’t exactly buddies and it would probably be a bad omen or something and, even worse, an insult to his beloved show. Hmm… maybe we can put TWO Optimuses, gluing a little veil to one of them! (He’s asleep now, but when he wakes up later and reads this, he’s going to say “NO!” *sigh*)

Well, at least I had unrefuted power in the literary aspect of our wedding planning. So the sonnet I chose to represent us was (again):

116

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 wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his highth 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.

I’m not going to explain the poem to you, sorry. If you don’t understand it, read it aloud. Then do it again with gusto. The meaning is obvious once you let your inhibitions go and belt it out to the room (packed or empty). But I will explain how and why I chose it, because that’s why I started this post to begin with.

First, the how: My first instinct was to choose a quote from the Bible. The task was too daunting. I read through Psalms and Song of Solomon and scoured the internet, but nothing seemed right. So then I piled my poetry collections on my bed–Byron, Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Yeats, and two poetry anthologies–and scanned the indexes for titles with “love” in them. Then I recited all the ones I found, aloud. (It’s really the only way to enjoy poetry.) But still, nothing fit. Shakespeare, oddly enough, didn’t immediately occur to me. It wasn’t until I was putting my books back in the shelf that I spotted my beloved tome of his collected works. “Duh!” I pulled it out, opened it, smelled it (the paper for these large books is always wispy and fragrant–divine–my King James Bible is the same), flipped to the sonnets section, scanned for three minutes, and there it was.

Now, the why (in a very condensed way): Forget the high school favorite, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day.” We’re not young lovers, enamored by each other and blissfully swept away by each others’ presence.

Sonnet 116 is heavy in tone and words, honest and raw, not hidden behind flowery words or the blush of a girl’s cheek. Shakespeare conjures images of struggles (with “tempests”) and the finality of death (with a “sickle”), making the love that endures a “marriage of true minds” that will, nay, must, overcome it all. And though I said I wouldn’t explain the sonnet, it seems that I have… just a little.

T and I are not Romeo and Juliet–passionate, spontaneous, and angst-ridden, ready to die for our love. That’s stupid. That’s not even love. We are old friends, laborers, companions of mind and spirit. We’ve suffered together. We’ve celebrated together. We’ve endured and will continue to endure.

Through my father’s passing, my sister’s illness, our mothers’ needs, his father’s traditions…

Through career decisions, supporting dreams, spiritual beliefs, and wedding planning…

Through the Barrens and Midgar and Cybertron…

We’re odd, but normal together. And so, to “the edge of doom” we go, armed with maps, a spare gallon of gasoline, an armful of teddy bears, and much, much laughter.

Is it any surprise that it’s Shakespeare?

Sonnet 116

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 wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his highth 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.