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Show PAGE 12 THE ZEPHYR OCTOBER 1992 - Fulghum's "Formula for Marriage Testing" & by Robert Fulghum I "How will I know when to get married or even if should get married?" A who has been living with a man for three question asked of me by a former student and kept right on going through graduate years. Their romance began in college school and into the "real" world of jobs and setting up housekeeping. Marriage was not in their plans because as long as things worked out just living together and taking life one day at a time, why should they mess with a good thing? But she's now. "And .. .well. ..you know... she says, shrugging with eyebrows twenty-seve- n raised in that gesture people use when words can't get at exactly what's on their minds. benefits of having Well, I do know, as a matter of fact. One of the long-terwith people who come along behind me taught school is the ongoing relationship older. And I've had this conversation before. going through all the stages of growing Quite a few befores, actually. Here's Fulghum's Formula for Marriage Testing, as passed on to my young friend: "Heather, give me your first gut reaction to three questions." She's ready. "First, if I asked you to take me and introduce me to the person you've known at least five years and think of as your closest friend in all the world, who would it be?" Her eyes answer. "Him." "Second, if I asked you to take me to where 'home' is for you, where would it be?" Her eyes answer. "Wherever he is." "Third, do you ever lie in bed at night with him, cuddled up spoon fashion, your backside to his frontside and his arms around you and neither of you is thinking of sex; instead you are thinking how content you are just being there like that at home with your closest friend who just happens to be the man you love?" Quiet. She was in tears. "How did you know?" Well, for one thing, I have a home of my own. m There is a tree, at the downhill edge of a long, narrow held in the western foothills of the La Sal Mountains -s- outheastern Utah. A particular tree. A juniper. Large for its species maybe twenty feet tall and two feet in diameter. For perhaps three hundred years this tree has stood its ground. Flourishing in good seasons, and holding on in bad times. "Beautiful" is not a word that comes to mind when one first sees it. No naturalist would photograph it as exemplary of its kind. Twisted by wind, split and charred by lightning, scarred by brushfires, chewed on by insects, and pecked by birds. Human beings have stripped long strings of bark from its trunk, stapled barbed wire to it in using it as a comer post for a fence line, and nailed signs on it on three sides: NO HUNTING; NO TRESPASSING; PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE. In commandeering this tree as a comer stake for claims of rights and property, miners and ranchers have hacked signs and symbols in its bark, and left Day-Gl-o orange survey tape tied to its branches. Now it serves as one side of a gate between an alfalfa field and open range. No matter what, in drought, flood, heat, and cold it has continued. There is rot and death in it near the ground. But at the greening tips of its upper branches and its berrylike seed cones, there is yet the outreach of life. I respect this old juniper tree. For its age, yes. And for its steadfastness in taking whatever is thrown at it. That it has been useful in a practical way beyond itself counts for much, as well. Most of all, I admire its capacity for beyond all accidents and assaults. There is a will in it toward continuing to be, come what may. self-heali- ng Last night, I went out for a walk in the darkness of early autumn to check and see if someone had remembered to turn the Milky Way on and the wind off. Drawn back to the cabin by the yellow glow of a reading lamp in the living room, I stood outside the window for a long time and looked in at my wife curled up on the couch sewing a hem in a new pair of wool trousers for me. For seventeen years she has been my companion, my friend, my Yesterday, we were outraged at one another over something that seems trivial now, but the fire of anger is not quite cooled beneath the surface ashes. Yesterday, I made her cry in frustration. Yesterday, she was mad at me. I know I drive her crazy sometimes. She's not always easy to live with either. Yesterday, old grievances were flung off the shelf where they are somewhat shakily stored. Yet today we walked up the road to pick sweet com from a neighbor's patch and walked back down the road hand in hand in our usual way. We're good at forgiving. We have to be. The weather of love comes and goes, and we must let it. It is a required condition of loving someone and being loved back. And now, tonight, as I watch her through the window, I see her smile as she carefully fixes my trousers, perhaps thinking of making one leg slightly longer than the other in revenge. The gate we passed through to pick com was the one attached to the old juniper. And that tree comes to mind this night as I look in on her. I long for the love we have to always be like that tree. With a steadfast ability to take it a capacity for and growing on, scars and all, come what may. "How was your walk, dear?" she asks as I come through the door. The stars are still there. - self-heali- is calmed. h "And there's still enough light to see trees. . other love stories - The wind ng LUNCH - ,i ' i ' - Well, what finally happened? Don't know story, does it? I'd put money on June. yet Doesn't sound like a short love ( December 31, 1990. New Year's Eve. The end of a year, the beginning of a decade. A full moon a blue moon, as a matter of fact the second full moon in one month, a rare event, especially since it came on the last day of a month and a year. If you had looked for me that night, you would have found me sitting outdoors in the snow in front of a crackling juniper-woo- d fire. Clear sky. Temperature at zero. Still, quiet, windless night. The fire was in front of an unfinished two-roohouse on the side of a ridge in southern Utah. The lady who was hemming my trousers back there at the beginning of these love stories was sitting alongside me on a sawhorse. This little house is ours, and we have chosen this propitious night to dedicate it in some way. To make it special by making memories there. I read somewhere that the Navajo Indians bless a hogan by wrapping a white string around it to ward off evil and protect its occupants from harm. I don't know if the Navajos really do this, but I do know that evil is usually stronger than string. - - m MEALS SINCE 198 4 MOAB. UTAH 259-631- 9 i state liquor license 11AM , - FINE MEXICAN & AMERICAN 801 ' And I told her that if he feels the same way, they're married and just don't know it yet. I pronounced them husband and wife right there. It's only a question of whether or not she wants to have a party to celebrate that. Furthermore, the whole state of Washington, as well as her parents, might want to help her celebrate in their own particular ways a document and a feast. And who knows, her children may be glad about the whole matter someday, as well. "Go public with this news that's my advice." That was the end of the conversation. Because she had to make a phone call all of a sudden. And was still talking on the phone a half hour later when I gave up and went about my own business. DINNER 574 N. MAIN - 10PM WELCOME BIKERS...COME HERE FOR A HI-CA- RB RUSH |