One of the main reasons I started this blog in the first place was to talk about getting married for the second time, and what that felt like.  Except the whole wedding process has sort of swept me up and I haven’t been doing much of that.  Easier to look ahead than look back, I suppose.

The other weekend, in the middle of our great refinancing efforts, the man I love asked me why I had bought the house with my ex in the first place.  I explained: My ex and I had bought the house when we got married because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time: we needed space, real estate prices were still lowish, we had the opportunity, etc.  Fair enough.  But as I was talking through all of this, a great fear came over me.  Here I am, about to get married to the man I love, and it also seems like the right thing to do at this time.  But what if it is not?  Why if I have no judgment/am wrong/am fooling myself/am about to make a terrible mistake?  Because I was wrong once before.  Why should I trust myself again?

Building faith with yourself in regards to your romantic choices is an interesting process.  It happens over time.  I definitely gave myself that time to relearn who I was and think about who i wanted to be with.  I am currently with the man I love, not only because I love him, but because we work.  I believe we can build a life together; I want to.  I do trust that.  But, occasionally, something will trigger the great fear.

One of my favorite books is A Room with a View.  I also saw the film at an impressionable age and consequently ended up spending a year in Italy—thank you, Merchant-Ivory.  For those of you who are not familiar with the plot, the year is something like 1908.  Lucy Honeychurch goes to Italy with her spinster aunt, has a transformative experience, and falls in love with a freethinking fellow Brit, George Emerson.  She returns to England where she is about to marry a stuffy Londoner, when George shows up and messes up the plan.  One of my favorite parts of the film, perhaps not surprisingly, is when Lucy is completely wound up and confused.  Fortuitously, she runs in to George’s father who says, “Frankly, my dear, you are in a bit of a muddle.”  He then tells her how she feels, she admits it, and everything is better. 

There have certainly been times in this relationship, and past ones, where I have been in a muddle.  No doubt you have, too.  I wish that I could go find George’s father and he could tell me how I feel.  But in lieu of that, I do try and have a cup of tea with myself (or with a friend) and as soon as I can admit how I feel—no matter how inconvenient—I do feel better.  

And here’s how I really feel about all this, right now:

My romance doesn’t have to have a moon in the sky

My romance doesn’t need a blue lagoon standing by

No month of May, no twinkling stars, no hideaway, no soft guitars

 

My romance doesn’t need a castle rising in Spain

Nor a dance to a constantly surprising refrain

Wide awake, I can make my most fantastic dreams come true

My romance doesn’t need a thing but you

I guess one could way to know if he is the one, or at least to know if you are in love, is when you start really feeling the standards.  With that, The Nearness of You:

It’s not the pale moon that excites me

That thrills and delights me, oh no

It’s just the nearness of you

 

It isn’t your sweet conversation

That brings this sensation, oh no

It’s just the nearness of you

 

When you’re in my arms and I feel you so close to me

All my wildest dreams come true

 

I need no soft lights to enchant me

If you’ll only grant me the right

To hold you ever so tight

And to feel in the night the nearness of you

In that same optimistic vein:

I never cared much for moonlit skies

I never wink back at fireflies

But now that the stars are in your eyes

I’m beginning to see the light

 

I never went in for afterglow

Or candlelight on the mistletoe

But now when you turn the lamp down low

I’m beginning to see the light

 

Used to ramble through the park

Shadowboxing in the dark

Then you came and caused a spark

That’s a four-alarm fire now

 

I never made love by lantern-shine

I never saw rainbows in my wine

But now that your lips are burning mine

I’m beginning to see the light

When I was feeling a little more hopeful, I sang this song to myself.  Note: I used to feel that it was a little awkward to be comparing some guy to Helen of Troy, but then I decided I couldn’t be bothered.

Looking at you

My troubles are fleeing

I’m admiring the view

Cause it’s you I’m seeing

And the sweet honey dew

Of well-being settles upon me

 

What is this light

That shines when you enter

Like a star in the night

And what’s to prevent you

From destroying my sight

If you center all of it on me

 

Looking at you, I’m filled with the essence of

The quintessence of joy

Looking at you, I hear poets tellin’ of

Lovely Helen of Troy

 

Life seemed so gray

I wanted to end it

Till that wonderful day

You started to mend it

And if you’ll only stay

Then I’ll spend it looking at you

When I was really depressed about my romantic situation, I would sing this song to myself.  Occasionally I would do this with other people present; looking back, clearly I had very tolerant friends.  I was not a singer, but I had a friend in high school who was—she had the most amazing voice.  She’s the one I watched a million musicals with, and she used to sing a bunch of these songs to me.  That’s why I was that weird high school student that went around humming “I have a crush on you” instead of Def Leopard or something.  So I have always loved the standards, and it brings tears to my eyes when I hear them sung live.  So when you are not feeling it—the love—here’s a good one.  And the lyrics are so clever.

Down with love the flowers and rice and shoes

Down with love the root of all midnight blues

Down with things that give you that well known pain

Take that moon wrap it in cellophane

 

Down with love, let’s liquidate all his friends

Moon and June and roses and rainbow’s ends

Down with songs that moan about night and day

Down with love yes take it away, away

 

Take it away, take it away

Give it back to the birds and bees and the Viennese, please

 

Down with eyes romantic and stupid

Down with sighs, down with cupid

Brother let’s stuff that dove

Down with love.

Baby, down with love.

Yeah!  I love it when Cole Porter suggests that you should stuff that dove!

But then, on other blue single days, aren’t there are the times you feel the opposite?

I need it.

Gimme that thing called love.

I want it!

Here I am, St. Valentine!

My bags are packed; I’m first in line!

Aphrodite, don’t forget me,

Romeo and Juliet me!

Fly, dove! Sing, sparrow!

Gimme fat boy’s famous arrow!

Gimme gimme that thing called love!

Romeo and Juliet me, indeed!

My friend Ann sung an amazing show that I saw recently called “Like Some One In Love.”  Here’s one of my favorite songs that she sang:

What a day this has been

What a rare mood I’m in

Why it’s almost like being in love

 

There’s a smile on my face

For the whole human race

Why it’s almost like being in love

 

All the music of life seems to be

(Just) Like a bell that is ringing for me

And from the way that I feel

When the bell starts to peel

I would swear I was falling, I could swear I was falling

- It’s almost like being in love

This made me remember how much I like standards about love.  They are awesome!  And optimistic!  And really powerful.  

Gene Kelly \”Almost Like Being in Love\”

What I have been struck by the most, reading wedding blogs, is the single minded, admirable optimism.  It seems that, despite the slings and arrows of wedding planning, no one has the least doubt about the man they are marrying, or marriage itself.  Does anyone ever look at their man and go, have I lost my mind?  Or, when thinking about the enormity of marriage, think screw it, dating isn’t so bad?  Or perhaps that was just me, not enough in the right spirit of things the first time? 

The funny thing is, ever since I decided that I do, very much, want to marry the man I love I haven’t really had any doubts either.  

Titian's 'The Triumph of Love'