The Eyes Have It

Yesterday, I celebrated my ninth wedding anniversary with my husband. We dated for around five years before we married, so we’ve been together fourteenish years, and we knew each other for a couple of years before we started seeing each other, so I’ve basically been at least friends with my husband my entire adult life. Neat. Now, we will actually go on a date on Sunday as we had other commitments last night, and it was mid-week. We’ll have dinner at the restaurant where our rehearsal dinner was held and do something else. It isn’t really important what we do, just that we’ll do it together, and I would say that sums up the last decade-and-a-half rather nicely.

I’ve been reflecting on our life together, recently. We’ve had some wonderful times and we’ve had some difficult times, although our relationship has remained strong through it all. I can honestly say that there is no one I would rather have by my side when things look their bleakest and no one that I would rather share my joy with when they are at their loveliest. I sincerely wish this sort of love for anyone who desires it.

All this reflecting has led me to music. Pop music, because it is what I know the best. “Our song” is “Tupelo Honey” by Van Morrison because it is the song my husband played for me when he gave me the necklace he had made me near the start of our romantic relationship. It is a beautiful song. It was the song to which we danced our first dance at our wedding. Ross from Friends also cited it as the most romantic song, so there is that going for it as well. We made each other mix tapes and mix CDs with a lot of great music on it, in our younger days. Now, we’ve taken to sending each other links to Youtube videos via email or Facebook when the mood strikes us. Recent selections have included Adele’s cover of “Make You Feel My Love,” “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol, “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel, and “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds.

One thing all these songs have in common, other than a theme of deep and lasting love, is eyes. Every single one mentions eyes at least once. Granted “Make You Feel My Love” may be stretching this a little because it really only mentions tears, but you can’t have tears without eyes, so it counts. Three of them speak of recognizing the other person or oneself in the other’s eyes. We see our best qualities reflected in the eyes of those who love us. We recognize the souls of the ones we love in their eyes. I know this to be true. I cannot look into my husband’s eyes and miss his lovely spirit, and I see the best of me reflected in his love for me when I look into those wonderful blue eyes. I know he must see something similar when he gazes into my own eyes because I know how I feel about him, we are here, and we are strong.

I will close by telling a story about his eyes. Anyone who knows both of us knows that my husband generally sports a full beard, and has had one nearly the entire time we have known each other. One day in college I was walking home, and I heard someone call my name. I looked around, didn’t recognize anyone, assumed someone else must have been being paged, and continued on my way. Then I heard someone pick up his pace, and call my name again. I turned around, and it was my husband, although at the time we were just friends (that situation would change a few weeks later). He was clean-shaven for the first time in years, and I had not recognized him. I was only really sure who it was when he smiled, and I looked into his eyes. There he was. There I was. And here we are.