An Actual Defense of Marriage (Without the Exclusion)

Wow it's been a while. There are so many posts a-brewing and there has been so little time to share it with you. We will get there and keep sharing.

Today, though, I would like to use our blog as a platform to start a discussion that has been brewing for me for some time. Since this is the Crunchy Marriage, you may be able to assume that we are, in fact, sort of Crunchy and usually Married. These two seem to be paired together less and less which is part of why we think our blog is interesting- we'd really like to write about how we are pairing two increasingly unique decisions.

The first decision we've made is to live our values. We've decided to attempt to tread lightly on the earth, to be as self sufficient as we can, to be curious and creative, and to live to be healthy and happy before wealthy and worldly. We made those decisions alone, and it worked out that we have been able to support each other in them in a really great way.

The second decision is increasingly uncommon and uniquely terrifying. We decided to get married. Young! On the day of our wedding, Mark had only been able to drink for two weeks. Much to the chagrin of some of our family and friends who advocated that we see the world, date around, get a bunch of degrees, Mark and I decided to jump in and acknowledge what we still hope will be a life long commitment to each other.

We have lots of friends who would say that marriage is an institution that comes out of mistrust, that people that truly love each shouldn't need a contract or a ceremony to prove it. We also have friends who think that marriage is all well and good in your late twenties or early thirties when you are solid in a career with lots of titles and you own a piece of the world or two and you can hop in. And we have some friends who believe it is hopelessly unrealistic to believe that two people can be committed to each other for their whole lives.  All of these seem pretty popular.

To me, what stands out in the middle of a somewhat anti-marriage climate, is the fight NY went through recently to legalize gay marriage and how many friends- gay and straight alike- stood together to make that right a reality.

We are both from blended families touched by divorce and we have friends and family we love who have made decisions both to marry and not to marry, to commit for life and to commit for now. We love all of those folks the same and offer this post with no judgement on any side. But here is why we got married, its a very personal decision that has worked for us.

We married because it seemed important to us to stand in front of the people we loved and claim one another, to have our families joined, to acknowledge the little family of our own that we were creating with ceremony.  Like many other ceremonies- baptism, bar mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, graduation- nothing felt different about having gone through it. But we had stated our intention in front of the ones we love and who love us, "Hold us to this, we are diving in."

Since then, they have needed to do that more than once. Ministers we know have dived into to offer a pertinent word that stopped an awful decision. My brother has called Mark to tell him to "Knock it the hell off!". Mark's friends have offered hypothesis to help me understand him. Parents have said, "Get with it." And as a result, we've made it through very, very hard times. We invited the community into our commitment through the act of marriage.

What is the point though? Of staying when it's hard? Why marry if this kind of shin kicking takes place?

I believe that it makes us better. I am better. Mark is better. We communicate better, we argue better, we offer affection better, we are better family members and friends. And I think it makes the space we are creating feel more secure to us.  We have both made promises to people we were in love with, but none of them stuck.  In promising to our community, we have at least made it a little more difficult for one dramatic argument to stop us from plowing ahead. We've asked for the community to see us as a couple as well as individuals. And we've created a load of paper work and tons of time to think before any major decision can be made. And I'm very grateful for that. It has been hard. It has been ugly. But in the dust settling, I am always glad to have stayed and I'm filled with love, I am always a better person.

And if I could just run.... I would have.

This also means that as we hopefully welcome a child in the next year or so, that he or she will have the opportunity of hopefully feeling a bit more safe, a bit more secure, knowing that we have made a step toward permanence and a bit more support. And that's the tip of why we think its a good idea at least for us.

Why Blog? Why label?

I've been reading Julie and Julia, the book that inspired the movie with Meryl Streep. You probably already know this, but the beginning of said tale is when the heroine of the story starts writes a blog chronicling her journey cooking her way through the famous Julia Child cook book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The book spends a good deal of time discussing the authors motivations in going forward, stories and things that can be boiled down to the predictable stuff like finding yourself. 

So it got me wondering, since I view myself as mostly found, but growing, what is our reason for blogging? 

It has been a particularly tumultuous weekend in my marriage. The potential arrival of a potential pregnancy is nipping at our heels. It is indeed almost entirely a bundle of the possibility of joy, which is a lot like going to sleep every day having no idea when Christmas is and hoping you wake up to Christmas morning. You can see how this would grate on the nerves. Unlike any other relationship we know, in our house we can tend to be our worst selves when stressed and angry and disappointed. We're terrible people. 

With this fresh in my mind, I contemplate why on earth I'd write a blog about the adventures of two clearly dysfunctional people. I've come to this I guess: 

The Crunchy Marriage is about our desire to be two places at once. We are adults, officially. We have titles at our jobs, they both offer health insurance, we're buying a house, we have curtains in almost every window. And yet, we don't quite fit in adulthood as it comes, standard issue. We got married in our early twenties after a dating span that could most effectively be counted in weeks. We're still young, and even when we aren't young anymore, we just don't particularly want our life to be a recipe from a Martha Stewart publication. 

The other day Mark held my pilates workout ball and we ran at each other full speed across the living room into each other on purpose. Then repeated it. Over and over.  In so many ways, we often feel like we just don't do "adult" very well. So we considered a blog about all our different adventures. But who could choose? Also, who reads a blog about only cheese making attempts? Or only owning a record player? 

We felt on some level that we were doing something unique and interesting by approaching adulthood and attempting to maintain our values. We felt like we were doing something truly authentic by committing to one another in spite of coming out of social scenes where this was not necessarily the norm. And we feel, every day, like staying together and being ourselves is a difficult journey worth chronicling. 

We struggled with a name, but what else can you call an indie-music-obsessed-fixie-riding-tofu-making-candle-dipping-granola-baking-yoga-doing couple but crunchy? And how else to categorize all those activities so that you know what you're getting into by checking us out? Anyway, it's what we came to. And like all things "us" it is imperfect, too slow, too fast, ultimately incomplete yet overdone, and I hope you like it. 

Men are from Mars: Practical Examples from Yoga to Help Your Marriage

I know this may come as a shock, but it is not uncommon that the Mr. and I have a spat. Typically, when I get angry, he shuts up, which makes me even more angry, until several hours later when one of us freaks out and a make up is soon to come.

When I first got married I believed that if I just communicated everything all the time, non-stop that there would be no way that we would even fight, as he would always know every latent expectation of my heart. Apparently, when we first got married, he thought he would try to hide in the woodwork of every apartment until the scary parts were over. Then I think he realized two years in, I am the scary part.

The difference between the communication styles of men and women has long been the subject of silly jokes. For example, for years now, my sisters bottle of Herbal Essence reminds me every time I visit her: The average woman speaks 20,000 words a day, The average man speaks 7,000. While the credibility of facts from a shampoo bottle can be taken to task, what cannot be ignored is this: its funny because most people believe it is true.

This was typified for me today when a sub taught my normal yoga teacher's evening class. I always get nervous with male instructors, since they seem to forget how hard it is to work around a set of boobs and what it is like to only be able to do five push ups. I think this man in particular must have used 6,875 of his words for the day before coming to class because large gaps with no instruction would go by while he took postures completely unfamiliar to me. The name would escape him, and when he realized he was in another position, seemingly by accident, he would say "Uh, next, do this."

While a female yoga teacher typically circles the room and asks if any of us have injuries or sore places, hugging new people and regulars, this fella started with, "My music is different, pretty much I'm a lot like ____ but different. Go faster or slower, whatever." It was pretty evident that this man was a professional in his daily life, successful and well-kempt, and yet, every time he said something like, "Next.... this!" I couldn't help but question his sanity.

A comparison, for your enjoyment, male and female versions of instructions to enter Bridge Pose.

Female: "Vertabrae by vertabrae find yourself lying on your spine. Draw your feet into your body and give them a hug. Carefully lower your left foot, placing the sole of the foot near the buttox. Inhale. Right foot follows, exhale. Shrug your shoulders to align them and then bury them underneath you, with gentleness. Then begin to lift up your spine, starting from the hips, as if it were a string of precious pearls, one by one, feeling the rhythm as you lift yourself into your own expression of bridge pose. Respect your journey."

Male: "And, um, next.... bridge pose."

So while I am not into gender roles, per say, and I don't believe a higher power made us for certain jobs in or out of the home, etc, I will say that being there tonight after a spat with Mark helped me to comprehend a lot about our different temperaments and natural tendencies.

Crunchy Parents, Crunchy Pets

Zoe the day her neighbors showed her
to us. 

Two years ago on July 4th, we welcomed a new member into our family. Today, we highly recommend pet ownership if you can do it in the greenest way possible. Having a dog is like throwing your own welcome-home party every day after work. Nowadays if she spending the day with our friends, it is lonely to come home without such an enthusiastic pal to greet us. But it wasn't always such.

Zoe- our special-blend canine- was about three months old then and had been abandoned, tied to a fence, when her family moved to Tennessee. A pack of problems, having spent a few days there without food and water only as neighbors brought it to her, Zoe had come to us a mess. Found on the fourth of July with no place to hide from fireworks and in a bad neighborhood, she was scared to death. She was not sick or hurt, instead, Zoe was an emotional wreck.

Our landlord had nearly panicked when we told her about Zoe, but she met her before approving our decision and Zoe was still absolutely shell-shocked and panicking. Having a Native American husband, she seemed to have a very respectful view of animals in general and believed the pooch may have been "sent" to us. This did not stop her from dropping off her dogs old kennel on our stair case with a command from on high, "use this, or all three of you can find a new home!"

Zoe and I the day after she came
 home with us. 

Our intentions were for obedience. But, Zoe would not be kenneled, as some dogs grow to love. Each time we left her she would embody the goddess Kali and destruction would ensue. Friends, pet store owners, and websites told us different ideas to try.

Just put her favorite toy in the kennel. (She actually forced the toy out of the kennel, so bent on liberation she was.) Leave her a small bowl of food and she'll be distractor. (She knocked over the bowl, managing to leave almost all food underneath it, as if to say, I don't NEED this!) Cover the kennel with a blanket, so it doesn't look like a fence. (We came home to an apartment filled with shredded blanket strips.) Place a shirt you have worn in the kennel for her to smell. (Same fate as the blanket.) Put it near a window so she can see outside. (She chewed the window sill off and got a splinter in her face.)

She would spend the entire time of our absence reeling in emotional despair, unable to cope with the unfair nature of her rescue, and thoroughly annoying our downstairs neighbor. And the worst part was, even with all of these measures, she was still escaping the kennel (after destroying things only, of course.) We tied it shut with rope, then her thick leash, then clamped it with carabiners, then with chains. Each day, we would return to an open kennel and an absolutely-thrilled-to-see-us puppy. Each day, she seemed to put herself at more risk to get out than ever.

We had tried everything hippies might try as well, Rescue Remedy flower essences, aromatherapy, even a mother-dog hormone scented plug-in. And we'd spent countless hours sitting in the kennel with her. Mark and I would demonstrate sitting properly in the kennel, placing each other in it for her to watch. Each time she just looked at us with a look that said- better you than me.

Weeks had gone by. The crying had upset the landlord and downstairs neighbor, and Zoe had injured herself every day trying and succeeding in getting out of the kennel. Finally the day arrived. We knew it would. Our landlord had needed something from our apartment and come in to find a closed kennel, an excited dog (who instantly peed at her feet), and a chewed windowsill.

Cue the phone call.

Next we tried a kiddy fence, which served only to momentarily confuse the dog. I swear she still looks at it like an algebra problem.

Then we tried something a little bit unreasonable. We put the kennel away. We stopped listening to pet store owners and friends and websites and even landlords. And we let Zoe be herself.

Zoe and Siena, our new kitten, near the Mac book. 

Sure there have been a few moments since when Zoe has made us regret our decision not to kennel her, but we have made a decision to accept some things as they are. She will never be allowed to beg at the table, pee on the floor, or chew up garbage or underwear. But she's never going to be forced into a cage again. Any body who ever said animals don't have a personality is insane. Zoe is her own canine, and to exist with any living creature with unbending rules seemed unfair.

And it turns out it is true- the evil puppy years do end at 2 years old- almost exactly.

Thankfully.

Zoe at two, full of emo-sass. 

People moving and puppy tracking…

Hello world, you haven’t heard much from me. I am the other half of this crunchy duo. Truth be told I am a little bit soft spoken. That is until you get me on one of my many geeky topics. Then my friends, I will talk your ear off and the only way to escape my chatter would be to fake a stomach bug.

Lately, one of those topics has been my fourth favorite mode of transport. Although, circus cannon would be my first choice and fan boat my second and third, these are not all that practical in the city. Which leaves the only real choice, Bicycle. Now, if I could I would have an amazing carbon fiber frame with brand new track hub wheels and the list would continue for miles. Unfortunately, like the air cannon and fan boat this too is unreasonable.

Like so many other things these days most bikes are made to be replaced in a few years. If you even begin to use them more than the casual ride they begin to give in. I will save the whole cheap crap monologue for another day and get to my point. This leaves a whole lot of partially broken and old bikes in the hands of a general public that would rather go buy a new one and really has no idea how to fix them.

Enter (stage right), Buffalo Blue Bike and Green Options Buffalo. This group is devoted to making Buffalo- a city that more than embraced the automobile so many years ago- bike friendly again. Blue Bike is one part bike-sharing cooperative, one part pedal powered advocacy group, one part bike shop and approximately ten parts amazing. The bike shop is where I tend to find myself at least once a week.

The shop is filled with all the tools and know-how you could ever need to fix a bike. It also has something even more amazing, two large rooms filled with old and new bikes to be rehabilitated or mined for parts. A large majority of this bike will see the road again as a complete bike. Nothing goes to waste here. If a whole bike can’t be used, parts from it can.

So I spend a few nights a week in this amazing place learning the finer points of bike maintenance, repair and building. Before venturing into Blue Bike to buy Nikki a bike, I had never dreamed of repairing more than a flat tire. I now get my hands dirty and learn a lot each week. Plus, I have rebuilt a beautiful gift for my lady. She hasn’t seen it yet. There is nothing more fulfilling than learning with your hands. I won’t go into what mistakes I have made. I will say there has been a lot of them and some frustration too. But it all makes it more fulfilling in the end. Maybe one day I will get my carbon fiber frame, but it would seem at this point I would probably build it my self. No really, I already have plans for it. I will keep you posted.

On a slightly bizarre note I tracked a fluffy lap dog through my neighborhood tonight. Only to be lost as it scurried into a yard. I couldn’t let the guy wander the streets all night alone. He wanted nothing to do with me. Oh well, I was just trying to help.