St. Valentine

"There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God's finger on man's shoulder."
- Charles Morgan"You don't marry someone you can live with - you marry the person who you cannot live without. The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands."
- Alexandra Penney

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction."
- Saint-Exupery

"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."
- Ingrid Bergman"To love another person is to see the face of God."
- Les Miserables

"Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time."
- Lawrence Durrell"If you love someone, let them go. If they return to you, it was meant to be. If they don't, hunt them down and kill them slowly."
- Chief

"True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away."
-Alicia Barnhart

Horseshit, Alicia. Lust and love are fire and fuel, fuel and fire, that joyous bonfire made when Love's strong Arts (of such noble individual parts) makes one fire of four flaming eyes and of two loving hearts. You couldn't be wronger.

It will be ten years ago this October, but I still yearn for you, my love, like I did when we first married; to talk with you, to work beside you, to make love to you, to make a life with you.I love you. Happy Feast of Valentine.

Missy's Annunciation

Kiddos are funny little creatures. Our little one, for example, has become fascinated lately by her parents' anniversary (which was last Wednesday, BTW).

This has manifested itself in several ways, including repeated requests to look at the wedding pictures, conversations about the day, and, most recently, several pictures by the young artist celebrating the wedding and showing her parents in various guises.This was her work from the actual anniversary morning. In case the symbology is hard to understand, I have included an annotated version below. The figure on the left is Mommy, with bridal crown and flower "because it's pretty". You will note that her big brother is present in utero, since an essential part of the story is his presence at the wedding in Mommy's tummy.Daddy is on the left, with his hair standing out like he is licking an electrical outlet. The curlique at my neck is a combination of a bowtie, which she has seen in the pictures, and a ribbon, "because it's pretty".

Overhead Missy herself descends like an angel in a Renaissance painting, complete with widespread dress at the bottom, which I understand is a tutu.At any rate, I thought you'd enjoy this glimpse into the Little Girl's mind. She loved drawing it, and considers it among the finest Western artwork.

I tend to agree.

But I might be biased, mind you.

...and the bronze medal goes to...

...my bride, and I.

It was eight years ago today that we gave in and became a legally recognized domestic partnership in the State of Oregon. Since then there have been Chinese orphans, diverticulitis, cat yack, about a cubic kilometer of filthy diapers, and hard choices about music and where everything goes in the china cabinet.

But through it all, you have ever been my strong arm, my clear voice, my encompassing mind, my open heart. What I am, as good a man, as loving a husband, as giving a father, I owe to you as much or more than to myself.

These have been good years.

In the words we spoke on our wedding day, Donne's words,

"Now, as in Tullia's tomb, one lamp burnt clear,
Unchanged for fifteen hundred year,
May these love-lamps we here enshrine,
In warmth, light, lasting, equal the divine.
Fire ever doth aspire,
And makes all like itself, turns all to fire,
But ends in ashes ; which these cannot do,
For none of these is fuel, but fire too.

This is joy's bonfire, then, where love's strong arts
Make of so noble individual parts
One fire of four inflaming eyes, and of two loving hearts."Happy Anniversary, love.