Marriage | Cookie Cawthon | product of a tenacious grace

July

City Legs

I am well aware of the fact that I am not a City Girl, but I always thought I could hang in the city – at least for a short stay. Chris and I have always wanted to live in an upstairs city apartment over a downtown storefront or office, and that is still something we would like to do in a different season of our lives. But Charlotte and Greenville and Charleston are more my speed, I discovered…

On our vacation, Chris and I drove in to San Francisco about 6:00 pm on Sunday evening. It had been a big weekend in the city, and people were everywhere. They were walking in front of the car as we were scrambling to find the hotel and avoid driving the wrong direction on one-way streets. Fortunately, there were no pedestrian roadkills, but it was close more than a few times. The city was immediately noisy and busy and crowded and loud and impolite, and I was overwhelmed. I think I experienced sensory overload where I just crawled into myself and decided I hated it! It was overcast and gloomy (I couldn’t even see the top of the Golden Gate Bridge as we approached because it was cloaked in clouds). We had a quiet – almost despondent- dinner in Sausalito.

This place was foreign to me – not so much because it was a new setting. Foreign because there was nothing familiar about the people. How I live my life couldn’t be more different than that of a city dweller: the pace, the noise, the hardness. For the first time during our trip I was constantly aware of being outside the Bible Belt, outside of the South, outside of my world. When I traveled to England, I expected to feel like a foreigner. I did not expect to feel that heightened sense of alien”ness” that I did in SF.

I require my morning 20 oz DP (Diet Pepsi) as close to my awakening as possible, so the next morning, on our walk to this awesome breakfast place, I stopped in to the corner Walgreens and something very unexpected happened. I was washed in the comfort of being somewhere familiar; I realized the hilarity of it but I just stood in the front of the store and breathed in the familiarity of it. I silently staked out that place as my retreat for comfort if that city threatened to crash in on me.

Then another funny thing happened; I got my city legs. I enjoyed my DP, had some phenomenal pancakes at a legendary restaurant, and I was ready to dive in. I got my city legs, and Chris and I proceeded to do it up. We could walk to any store imaginable; we walked to some fantastic meals; we rode trolley cars and brushed death with every turn in the backseat of a taxi (I happen to think that’s the most death-defying stunt you can do in any city – take a taxi). I put on my hard self and smiled less; not because I was unhappy – I was having a ball.
That’s just how you roll in the city. I bought some sunglasses that cover most of my face, put on my loud yellow jacket and my black wedges, and I enjoyed being City Cookie.

The moral of this story is that I am too sheltered in my own little life. SF is a great city, and we had a fabulous time. And I was genuinely surprised by my initial reaction to it.

So if you see me ridin’ through Flo-town in a blindingly yellow jacket, with enormous sunglasses, and I keep angrily blowing the horn at other motorists, just know that I’m still decompressing from the trip.

And if you see my loitering in local Walgreens, just know that I may be reminiscing about our trip…

And the truth of the matter is that City Cookie would love to get her nose pierced, but Flo-town Cookie could never pull that off…

July

Hotel California

We’re back!!!! And thankfully so. We had an amazing trip, but we are tickled to be home. We spent two nights in Carmel (in a dog hotel), two nights in Napa (in a “green” hotel – not the color), and three nights (in a Union Square dead-middle-of-the-city hotel) in San Francisco. And I’ll try not to bore you too terribly with trip details, but I really had some neat experiences and made some interesting observations (mainly about myself) while we were there. So there may be a couple of vacation posts to follow… Here are some of my vacation superlatives:

Biggest blessing: The flights were mind-blowing. Thank you to those of you who prayed for our travel, especially given my high, high, high state of anxiety. Our flight to California was amazing. I was desperately searching for the barf bag before we took off, but once we began to taxi down the runway I was totally okay. I had asked specifically in my prayers to enjoy the flight, and I internally whispered Isaiah 26:3 over and over again. He showed up. Right on time. As always. Large and in charge. The flight home was a little more turbulent than I would have preferred; we ran into a bit of “weather” which threatened to leave me totally unglued. But – as it turns out- my fear and a little weather were no match for Him.

Biggest surprises:

I got my nose pierced.
California is cold! At least the parts we were in. It was 59 degrees when we landed in San Francisco. It was pretty overcast and even borderline gloomy for most of the time that we were there. There’s a popular quip that I found to be totally true – “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”
The people we encountered in Carmel and Napa were so nice (The city’s a whole different story for another post…). The South definitely doesn’t have the monopoly on kindness and hospitality.
My hair liked California.
We very much enjoyed the dog hotel in Carmel. It was this ultra-super pet friendly hotel, and there were dogs everywhere. We are not dog people, so we were prepared to cancel our reservation if it was too over the top when we got there. BUT, and this doesn’t usually happen to us, we were pleasantly surprised. The dogs were beautiful, and well-behaved, and so varied (lots of unusual breeds) that we so enjoyed the dog aspect. We even decided that we might be dog people as empty-nesters.

Biggest deer-in-the headlights moments:

We went into a clothing store in Carmel where Chris picked out a shirt he liked, and we dropped our jaws when he flipped the tag to see that it cost $365 (as opposed to the $11 Old Navy shirt he was probably wearing and the $4 one I was wearing). This was not a singular experience; I picked out a $125 white t-shirt. Chris picked out $600 shoes. Needless to say, those items are still hanging out in Cali…
We used hotel points to pay for our stay in SF, but it cost $50 per day to park there. It only cost us $24 to park for the entire week at the Charlotte airport; we were rejoicing to be back in the South!! The SF hotel also charged us to use the business center and the fitness center (which we are not accustomed to paying for). As slow as I am, it would have cost me a fortune to blog there (they charged in time increments).
A Diet Pepsi cost $1.89, and a gallon of gas was in the $4.50-$4.70 range.

Things I missed the most:

OUR GIRLS! By Monday it was almost unbearable trying to go to sleep on the other side of the country from them. All four of us slept together last night until about 4:00 am (when it became unbearable to be that close).
Water pressure!
Brewed tea
Driving without traffic
Being in a place where 20 oz. bottle Diet Pepsis are plentiful!
Clean clothes – because the weather was colder than we expected, we had to keep rewearing our warmer clothes. It was totally disgusting by the end of the week. That’s gross, I know.

Things I learned:

New word: patisserie
New kinda food: Asian fusion
You gotta be gritty in the city.
There aren’t as many convenience/gas stations around but there are a gazillion Walgreens everywhere.

Biggest fish tale:

I didn’t get my nose pierced but I really want to! Gotta think about it and research it a little more…

More to come I’m sure as my brain and body rhythms catch up with the three hours we lost yesterday. If you’re ever heading that direction, I would love to share some of our faves and some things we would do differently.

As lame as it may sound, The City Girl, on her 35th birthday, couldn’t be happier to be home doing laundry and washing dishes with the sound of shrill little girl screams in the background…

June

Unity

This is the last post of my little anniversary series. It’s actually something I’ve been thinking about for a while; it just makes the most sense when framed in the context of marriage.

Chris and I were not similar creatures when we started dating. He was driven, disciplined, calm, and level-headed. I was driven and the similarities seemed to stop there. Discipline and self control have always been huge weaknesses. I was emotional, volatile, and sometimes irrational (sound like a barrel of fun, huh?). We did have fun, so I think we have always had the same sense of humor and adventure and family. But there were some glaring gaps in our personalities initially. And so when the pastor read in our wedding Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh,” nothing magical happened to fill in those gaps. We came into our marriage bringing a lot of differences, which made for some fiery evenings, to say the least. But God’s first mention of the institution of marriage in the verse above emphasizes unity and the notion of becoming one flesh – and I happen to believe He means more than the obvious and literal here.

Over ten years of marriage, we have kinda morphed into the same person. We like to do the same things, eat the same things, listen to the same things, go to the same places. I am much more disciplined than I have ever been, and he’s a better communicator than he once was. It’s this very interesting dynamic of retaining our own identities while becoming one flesh – same goals, same values, same passions, etc…

Recently I came across this concept in a different context in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah (8:1) in the Bible (also appears in Judges 20:1). Ezra 3:1 says, “When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled as one man in Jerusalem.” A nation, God’s chosen people, assembled as one man. Not as one tribe, but as one man. What in the tarnation does that mean? I think it means just what I explained about me and Chris. They were a nation compiled of many differences: preferences, occupations, how many sheep they owned, etc…, but What united them was so big that it allowed them to show up to worship as one man. Same goals, same values, same passions.

We see this same sentiment in Acts 2:44, “All the believers were together and had everything in common.” This is shortly after Jesus is crucified, and the Church is brand new. What unites them is so big that it allows the believers to have everything in common.” Same goals, same values, same passions.

So, what’s the takeaway? God can bring people together in such unity that whatever is still different no longer matters. He did it for me and Chris. He did it with the Israelites. He did it in the new Church (the Bride of Christ, mind you).

He has not changed. He still wants to do it in our marriages, in our nation, and in His Church. And I thought the unity candle was just a sappy illustration for a wedding…

June

Wedded Bliss (and Not So Much)

In keeping with the anniversary theme we’ve got going, I (with the permission and assistance of my dear husband) have compiled some memories from our dozen years together:

Best surprises:

His proposal during dessert on my 24th birthday. We had actually gotten into a really dramatic fight the night before because I thought he was never going to ask me to marry him.

He planned a surprise weekend away in Wilmington for our sixth anniversary. He arranged childcare, made reservations, and had all of the logistics completely squared away. I did find out a little in advance, but that was through no fault of his own.

Worst surprise:

For our first Valentine’s Day together I hired a barber shop quartet to serenade him at my apartment. I thought that was so cool, and I would have loved it but he was not so much into four older men dressed up in period costume singing turn of the century love songs to him. I get that now…

Best gifts:

Both of our girls were born close to Mother’s Day (April and May), so on each of the Mother’s Days immediately following the birth of a daughter he gave me a nice big-girl piece of jewelry. In both cases we were both still very sleep deprived and shell-shocked, so that may explain it, but I am grateful nonetheless…

Worst gifts:

He gave me a rolling desk chair (not even leather) and the plastic mat that goes under the chair (with the spikey things on the underbelly) for Christmas. In his defense, I had said that we needed to buy each other practical, inexpensive gifts that year. I have not ever said that again.
I gave him a basketball goal and a martin house on two different occasions. They apparently were the worst gifts because they are still in the boxes in our garage. I have come to understand that it’s not really a gift to him if he has to work for it. So from here on out I’m going with no assembly required. In my defense, I think he asked for the martin house.

Best vacation(s):

St. Simon’s Island, Georgia: We are always in the mood to go to St. Simon’s. This vacation had a dubious beginning (see below) but turned out to be life-changing, seriously. We were in the worst spot our marriage has been in to date when we took this vacation, and that was only two years into it. During this trip, God literally grabbed Chris’ attention and that has made all the difference for the both of us (if you have the chance you should ask him to tell that story – he kinda had a Jonah moment). We have been back to SSI once since then (my best surprise for him) and had another grand visit. I’m thinkin‘ it’s time to plan another trip, and I highly recommend you consider the same. It is charming, to say the least.
New Orleans, Louisiana: We went to New Orleans to celebrate the completion of my Master’s, and we researched it for months. Chris interviewed every person he ever encountered who had been, and I read months and months of Southern Living to compile a list of restaurants. There was some kind of convention there during our stay which made finding a room quite impossible. We went through a roomfinder service and stayed in a carriage house behind a local’s home in a primetime location. We took a class at the cooking school and feasted at all hours of the day on beignets and cafe au laits at Cafe Du Monde. Aside from the fact that it was absolutely 463 degrees every day we were there, it was a so-fun trip.

Worst vacation:

Clearwater, Florida: Chris and I planned a vacation to Clearwater, and we were so excited. We left Flotown like at 6:00 in the morning and drove a gazillion miles there. As we drove into Clearwater, we hated it. When we arrived at our hotel, we hated it. We ate at a place on the beach, and I spent the rest of the night sick. We woke up the next morning, checked out of the hotel, went to Busch Gardens in Tampa, and drove all the way back to St. Simon’s Island, where we had the best vacation ever.

Worst mistakes:

We got married and instantly decided we had to buy a house. We were big boys and girls then, and we couldn’t live in an apartment and be a real married couple. We caught the house bug worse than any case I’ve ever seen. So we found this FSBO and it was too cute and it was on a quiet street and it was owned by this sweet widow and her daughter and we just HAD to have it. Foolish, foolish, foolish! So we left our very adequate $385/month apartment to pay more than this cute hunk of home appraised for. Did you hear me? MORE THAN IT APPRAISED FOR! It gets better. We sold it nine months later for quite the substantial loss. Gotta love that! I do have to say that we took that beating to heart and pledged not to lose another dime on real estate. Thankfully, we have made much wiser choices since then.
While we were in our cute over-priced starter home, we needed a pet. Oh yes we did! We became the proud parents of a beautiful cat I named Hunter. She was a sassy cat, a little on the mean side, but smart and bossy. Anyway, during the transition of our move, Hunter died. I am glad I am so much smarter than I use to be. I decided that if we got another Burman it would be similarly tempered. We could only find a male and he is not-so-much like Hunter. We had Hunter for about eight months, and we have now had Samson for eight and a half years. Lest you worry, he is very well taken care of, but he is the most annoying cat on the face of the planet.

So, thanks for indulging me the trip down memory lane. Anybody willing to share…

June

Perspective

I’m waxing philosophical these days (I can’t say that without thinking of Daniel-son, “Wax on; wax off…“) about the past decade at the occasion of our wedding anniversary. We hired a babysitter for this past Friday night so we could go to dinner to celebrate. I desperately needed to straighten the house before the sitter arrived, so I thought the girls might enjoy watching the wedding video. My plan had been to let them play and watch the wedding while I ran around the house putting things in their correct places. Well, … we all got sucked in. I stood in front of the TV and watched the entire thing. The girls flipped and wallowed and climbed and somersaulted on the couch while keeping their eyes glued to the screen.

Campbell kept screaming at her daddy to look at her (she could only see the back of his head at the beginning). “Momma, Daddy won’t look at me.” And, of course, both girls wanted to know where they were.

And I kept pointing out my big, cheesy grin, exclaiming how excited I was to marry my prince. “Why isn’t Daddy smiling?” Carson wanted to know. Good question, I thought. They both pounced on him with that one when he got home. Carson was enthralled with the whole princess aspect of it. Her favorite part (and mine I must admit) was when the music was playing (dueling trumpets from the choir loft and balcony, the chiming of the hour, and the traditional wedding march – I can hear it now!) and everyone was standing – awaiting and honoring me. Isn’t that every bride’s favorite part? Honestly, that’s my favorite part even as a witness to the occasion. Carson loved that and declared that she would not have all those blasted songs if she did in fact change her mind and decide to get married (in her mind the best man is already taken and she is perfectly content to live with him for the rest of her life).

I did well up with tears several times. It was the sweetest day of my life, and it was so fun to be transported to that place again, sharing it with my two precious daughters and all of those people I love. The most striking observation this time around was how much has changed in a decade. I was able to look into the faces and hear the voices of many dear people who are no longer here: our wedding director, a fantastic college friend, a grandmother, the mothers of two of my bridesmaids – one who read a poem in the wedding. Marriages that have dissolved; criminal hairdos that have been rectified; weight gained; weight lost; health that has deteriorated. Friendships that have thinned due to time and distance, so what a joy it was to be there again! Not sad at all – a nice trip and a healthy reminder that time moves faster than I really care to grasp. By the grace of God I am given this moment, may I live it well…