The wedding was, well, a wedding. The I do-s, great lunch, dancing, then a post-reception gathering and my aunt and uncle’s house. I got to see my extended family and all their progeny, even if it was only briefly with superficial conversations. I approve of the man my cousin married; he melted when she started coming down the aisle and his lip quivered through his vows. It was sweet.

The very best part of the vacation came when we headed back 101 on Sunday and camped right out on the beach. We found a little county park named Clam Beach at McKinleyville where we could drive the truck out on the sand, unload our gear, and set up a somewhat private, quiet campsite amongst the sea grass and the gulls with a never-ending view of the ocean. It was heaven.

Well, it was heaven after we got the truck out of the sand. See, this truck is A’s baby, his Tonka toy. It’s a 2000 Nissan Frontier and it’s bright yellow. My man is a truck man, through and through. And this baby of his had never been ‘frodin, as he calls it, and this was his first chance to actually use the 4-wheel drive as it was intended.

In short, the 4-wheel drive wasn’t working properly and he got the truck stuck in the dunes. He dug it out, lowered the tire pressure and tried to jam it into gear. I stood by helplessly, knowing he’d figure something out, because he always does, but wondered if this was going to be a long night. Just then, the 4-wheel drive engaged and the front wheels started spinning, although the truck still wasn’t moving. So, I decided to push. I thought that either this was going to make something worse and I’d get yelled at, it wouldn’t do anything, or it would help.

As soon as I started pushing the truck inched forward to the firm sand and was freed!

“Dude!” I squealed. “I just pushed you out! I pushed you out of the sand!” I jumped around and landed in a Mary-Catherine Gallagher “Superstar” pose.

A climbed out of the driver’s side and looked at me with a little smile.

“You did that?” he asked, a little incredulous.

“Yes! I saw the front wheels spinning and figured it wouldn’t hurt,” I bragged, which wasn’t exactly true, as I said, but whatever. “I am such a stud! I am The Queen!”

I was pretty proud of myself. A was properly grateful. Now he wasn’t going to be the asshole begging some other dude with a big truck to pull his Tonka toy out of the dunes. His wife did it for him!

***

The rest of the evening consisted of preparing a dinner of clam chowder and veggies on the Coleman stoves and drinking a nice, cheap Chardonnay. After the sun set and all was dark and we’d had just enough wine to make us giggly, we padded barefoot down to the water, pointing at the stars, with me trying to identify all the constellations I had memorized when I was 12.

Even though it was dark there was only the faintest of breezes and the air was still warm. “I want to just get naked and run down the beach,” A blurted out.

“Let’s do it!” I stripped right then and there, to A’s amazement, throwing my sweater, skirt, bra and panties into a heap.

“I think we’ll lose our clothes,” he said. It really was that dark, which is why it was the perfect night to run naked down the beach.

“No we won’t,” I said and pranced off, leaping like a drunken ballerina (which had nothing to do with the fact that I *was* drunk, I am simply not known for my grace).

It’s funny how you don’t feel naked if you yourself can’t see your naked body. Not for a second did I feel exposed or self-conscious. It was just me and the great, wide ocean that roared with applause as I leapt and twirled and splashed in its waves. Me, the ocean and my sweet, beautiful husband who followed after me, naked now himself, and carrying my damp, sand-soaked clothes with his own, grinning at me and shaking his head.

***

The next morning we packed up and moseyed back up 101, making notes in the camping books of places we’ll want to stay the next time. Mostly we were quiet, lost in our own thoughts, the worries never far away, but when we did talk we joked and teased and sang along to the bad oldies on the radio.

“Isn’t it great that we’re so in love?” I asked him.

We will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary at the end of the month. We were together three years before we married. There’s barely a day that goes by that I don’t think about the fact that I never expected to be this happy, to feel this loved, to feel so…blessed. There really isn’t another word for it. Sure, there were months, almost years, when I wondered why the hell I’d married so young, when I blamed A for all the things I couldn’t do with my life. Eventually, though, I realized that there really isn’t anything I can’t do and that he actually made many things possible that wouldn’t be otherwise.

“Yes,” he said trying to smooch me and keep one eye on the twisty road at the same time. I leaned over and met his kiss.

I thought about my cousin and her new husband who so clearly adores her. I thought of my friend Beverly in her loveless marriage of “security” and wished I could make her see there’s no lasting benefit to that arrangement, only a slow death of the soul. I thought of my friends Kim and Clay, sweethearts since high school, who have chosen to share their lives together with their own private commitment apart from a traditional marriage.

And I thought about how I had suddenly found myself an evangelist, an evangelist for the Institution of Marriage, however it’s defined, or not defined for that matter.

And I thought back to the 19-year-old girl who sat with her baby-faced boyfriend in the Dancing Goats Café in Olympia, Washington back in the fall of 1993. This girl who thought marriage was pretty pointless unless two people were going to raise children together (why I made that distinction, I don’t remember), and listened to her boyfriend tell her what marriage meant to him, the kind of committed relationship he wanted to create. I’m sure that girl wrote down his words and they could be found in some musty journal in the attic. But I don’t have to try very hard to remember how I mulled over those words for a few days, weighing their logic against my heart, seeing how the two really didn’t conflict, and, finally, probably for the very first time, making a leap of faith. Choosing something I didn’t really understand, couldn’t plan or predict, completely trusting another person with the care of my heart.

And I think about how that one simple act of trusting him with my heart, which, in truth, would take me several more years to complete, seemed to change who I am, but really allowed me to finally become myself, taking chances, practicing bravery (even if I don’t feel it). I can’t imagine a more precious gift.

Happy anniversary, babe. I only hope I can return a spec of what you’ve given me in this life together.

- august 8