Life as a Honeymoon

A few weekends ago I had the pleasure of meeting the sweetest couple who had been married just a day or two before. They were such interesting young people, and bubbling over with joy—not necessarily joy of being married, but just plain joy of being in existence in the world on a happy, hot Saturday in June. I asked them where they were taking their honeymoon. “Oh, we aren’t going on a honeymoon,” they shrugged, beaming. They had everything they wanted, what was the point of spending a lot of money to “get away”?

This struck a chord with me because Martin and I didn’t take a honeymoon either—not particularly because we didn’t WANT to take one, but because he wasn’t able to get time off from work, and we had no money for travel anyway. We didn’t declare that we weren’t taking a honeymoon, rather we just kind of put it off for sometime later. We planned to take one eventually. Maybe for our first anniversary. Maybe for our tenth anniversary. Maybe, maybe, well… now we’re at 18.5 years married and the intention to take a honeymoon has dissipated. We have reached the same conclusion that the wiser newlyweds of last month already understood: what’s the point of getting away from a life that is already so good, and all around you, right where you are?

My family loves to poke fun of me for not traveling. I used to like traveling! I used to fly in cute little planes to visit people I loved. In my past life there was nothing better than waking up one bright fall morning with a newly purchased CD (that’s “compact disc” for you young’uns, you can find the definition on Wikipedia) and a page of freshly printed MapQuest directions. But somehow, somewhere along the line that my life has walked, the open road lost its luster and travel anxiety took over any remaining desire to go a-wandering far from home. I really don’t care for travel anymore (as you have likely read here on this very platform,) which some people find deeply bothersome. I do understand the feeling of “but you will never visit me!” which is not quite true, as I still do travel, even though it’s not something my heart craves anymore. But still, I understand where they’re coming from with that feeling. Instead, I try to make my home an oasis for others, a place with an open door and listening ears, and, just like a tropical honeymoon, lots and lots of plants and animals!

But my lack of traveling is not the point. In fact, an argument could be made that “Life as a Honeymoon” consists entirely of travel! Oh, that would be really nice for some people. Hopping from exotic resort to exotic resort, cruising the coasts on big, all-inclusive ships, or Jack Kerouacing over the American highways. Life as a Honeymoon, Life as an Adventure!

But, no, that’s not what I mean; that’s not what is right for me. I’m meaning capturing the feeling of that time of honeymooning and letting it envelope every day of your life. That blissful, happy newness that comes with embarking on a life with your beloved, the idea that nothing bad could ever happen (or if it does, you can handle it together,) and everything is perfect and golden and good. Harnessing that sentiment day after day is my idea of a honeymoon life, and I really think it’s doable. I’m not a complete success yet, but I tell you what, I think I’m not too far from honeymoon mastery. I can think of one particular person who seemed to have achieved this simple contentedness in the mundane: Mary Oliver. Ah, Mary Oliver! A long favorite poet of mine whose death instantly made her into everybody's favorite. And not undeserving! Mary Oliver was one of those writers who understood humanity. Mary Oliver took the mundane and breathed an attainable joy into it, then published it for the rest of us to read and realize that she was directing that attainability toward us—a promise that we could live and feel the same way (maybe with some help from her poetry collections) seeing a miracle in each unspecial moment. I feel like I have this in common with her—not being a poet (my poetry is pretty terrible,) but being a wonderer. A noticer. A miracle finder. Often in my day to day life I feel very stupid. I feel like I’m not really doing anything worthwhile outside of raising my children. I don’t aspire to change the world, I’m not going to cure diseases, I will not win prizes for my achievements, I won’t save lives. I’ve never really wanted to do big, impactful things. I’ve always just wanted to share music, meet people, have conversations, and marvel at the blue sky on a September day—the sky never is as blue here as it is in September.

This is a simplistic way of living that I presume sounds pretty unappealing to some people! What a lofty goal: to be a Nobody who enjoys turning back her bed at night to find a little bee crawling among my sheets, evidently wanting to watch a movie and have a cup of tea with me! But in this sad, broken world, I have discovered that finding magic in the little things keeps me in practice of combating the despair that so steadfastly lurks just outside everyone’s mind-frame. There is magic in things like goldfinches eating the seeds out of a sunflower’s center. There is magic in unusually large snails spotted in a creek with my daughter, where we stay and watch for longer than necessary because it’s interesting, and because we can. There is magic in flowers growing wild out of a city sidewalk crack. There is magic in all my daughters and myself breaking into “Part of Your World” in the kitchen while we’re getting ready for bed. Oh, there is so much magic in a garden! The slow reddening of tomatoes under eager, greedy eyes, as well as the sudden appearance of a zucchini out of thin air there on the vine. Other magical things: watching bees at the hive, seeing ants march, taking children to play in water, a baby eating a plum. I use the word “magical” because I like it, but just as much as magical, so many of these bits of life are simply miraculous.

It’s all encompassed in Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese.” I challenge you to read that piece of hers, then step outside your door and notice something beautiful, something magical, something miraculous. The initial noticing is the first step toward living a honeymoon life.

Once when I was walking with my mother-in-law at night, we passed along a chain link fence and the parking lot lights shone on it in a way that situated its shadow in a very interesting way on the sidewalk. “Look how pretty that is,” I said to her. She smiled and commented, “That’s something my children would notice, too.” She wasn’t my mother-in-law at that time, but I married her son, and without a real honeymoon trip we have gone along our marriage road noticing things like September skies, how cute hummingbirds are when they perch, and beautiful fence shadows. It’s in these blissful little noticings that we have managed to make every day our honeymoon.