on fetishizing the working class

as has been the habit of privileged people, we collect relics of tradespersons and work-class people. we covet their pickup trucks, and we wear their boots. we play out our feeble notions of their hours, with all of their glory and none of their woe. we identify the social merit of their aesthetic and hurry to adopt it as our own, for awhile, until the flavor is gone and we move on to consume another culture.

on marriage vows

on March 22nd I married Josh Whiton in an intimate ceremony. our vows seemed worth sharing beyond the small numbers in attendance.

Joshua's vows to me:

I promise to help you become yourself and not someone else. To give you the right amount of space for your authenticity to bloom and the right amount of shelter and support.

I promise to respect your deep and delightful intelligence as different from mine, yet complementary. 

I promise to live a principled life and to aim for ever higher purposes, but also to lay all that aside when what you really need is simple animal warmth.

I wish I could promise never to hurt you, but the best I can do is to is to promise to work on and improve myself, to get help for my problems as we uncover them so that I will hurt you less, to do my best to repair any damage I do and to heal any wounds I inflict.

I promise to invite you into my vulnerable places whenever I can muster the courage to do so, to be gentle yet sturdy when you invite me into yours.

I promise to stay mindful of our real needs, physical, psychological, spiritual, and to search out real nourishment for us as we try our hand at living so that we can fully grow.

and my vows to Joshua:

I promise to invite your cares, and make them my mine. I will value your ambitions as if they were borne of my own heart. 

I promise to honor your flourishing as an individual, that it may nourish our growth as a pair; and I will invest in our union, that it may strengthen our unique selves.

I promise to descend with you into cold and shaded places. And when I can, I will climb into the very canopy above and shift the stiff branches to restore daylight to our path.

When the world seems your adversary, I will be your ally. And when our love is held hostage by our own fears and distractions, I promise I will fight to get love back.

I promise to be a helpmate to aid with your load. I will be a playmate, making merry when the world makes a mess. I will be a mind mate, pairing wits to whittle away at the problems of this epoch. And I vow to be your soulmate, your anam cara, to resonate with you in the space between our hearts.