Not my usual monthly update… (got married)

Yeah, so… biggest news of the week is that corwin and I got married.

You might be surprised to find that, given all the romance I’ve written, I considered myself “anti-marriage.”

I’ve never been anti-love, of course. I’ve always been a fan of soulmates finding each other. It was just “marriage” that made me itch.

When I was a teenager I rebelled against most things that required me to perform femininity. So I never fantasized about wedding dresses or diamond rings or being a bride. (I fantasized about swordfighting and bonding with dragons and piloting a starship.) By my twenties, I didn’t want to participate in any institution that my same-sex coupled friends were barred from.

By my thirties, gay weddings were becoming fashionable but not yet legal, and I was against the state having a say in my relationships.

But then same-sex marriage was legalized here in Massachusetts, the first state to do so, in 2004, thanks to a decision by our supreme court. My city, Cambridge, flung open the doors to City Hall at midnight, sat a marriage clerk right in the lobby, and started welcoming couples in. Hundreds of people gathered outside to cheer every time a newly married couple emerged from the building.

That’s the City Hall where corwin and I got married this week.

Because this year was the 20th anniversary, the lobby and hallways are decorated with photos from that historic night in 2004, with accompanying text.

We booked a 15 minute ceremony and were allowed to bring 10 guests. We brought nine. Two of them were longtime friends who were among that crowd who cheered outside. They told me that night was when they first talked about getting married. Years later, I was at their wedding. Their wedding (which took place at a local science fiction convention, Arisia) and mine were not historic in the same sense as those that took place on May 17, 2004, but the threads of connection are there.

corwin and I considered ourselves married after a public scene we did at a BDSM play party where we exchanged vows of a sort and I flogged him with tails of leather I had braided into his own hair. (This was also at Arisia, either 1992 or 1993?) A few years later we bought a house, and we put on the invitations to our housewarming party “this is as close to married as we’re going to get, so bring the gifts now.” (We were quite broke after buying the house so the housewares were quite needed at that point!)

Over the years, I mellowed my stance on marriage. Lots of friends have had lovely weddings, and when our financial guy recently suggested that we should get married when we turn 64 for the Social Security benefits, I found I kind of liked the idea. But some folks are probably wondering… why did we do it now? Well, after election day, when I literally spent a day in bed crying, the only thing that made me happy all week was when corwin suggested we get married. Every time I thought about it, I felt a little less sad and despondent.

And now here we are, married. We decided to order our rings from a company that makes chef’s knives (but who have a little section of their website about their damascus steel wedding rings). Since they wouldn’t be ready in time for our City Hall ceremony, I decided it was time for a callback to a joke I made around 1996.

A typical interaction between the two of us involves me doing something baffling like a silly dance move or hand gesture, and then he asks what it means, and I reply with something like “the dance celebrating the swapping in of fresh kitchen sponges” (or whatever other nonsense I have dreamed up). Sometimes there is a pun involved. Other times it’s just surrealist hilarity.

So we were in the kitchen cooking, and I took the bands off of two bundles of banshu somen (noodles). I put one on corwin’s finger and one on mine and he asked, “what’s that mean?” And I replied, “now we’re noodle married.”

And then we laughed our fool heads off so hard we couldn’t even explain to our house guest why we were laughing. So, when we needed temporary rings, I went and got them off of two bunches of noodles to bring to city hall. We didn’t write special vows: we let the city’s Justice of the Peace read the ones she had, which, it being Cambridge, were non-denominational and mostly non-gendered. I had given all our guests heart-shaped chimes and they rang them celebratorily. (Partly an obscure Babylon 5 reference…)

And then it was over. The whole ceremony took less than 5 minutes, but you know, the buildup took 33 years. 🙂

Speaking of rings, I know I said I didn’t dream about having a wedding ring as a little girl. But I do love symbols and symbolism—especially in writing. I think the first character I can remember writing who really wanted that gold ring on their finger was—don’t laugh—Draco Malfoy.

I wrote a Harry/Draco fanfic in 2006, and there was a magical plot device involving a ring in the story… and next thing you know I was like, oh, and of course, it has to end up on his finger at the end. (No, I am not linking to it…. IYKYK.)

Those of you who read Daron’s Guitar Chronicles also know there is a very extended plot arc (more than two whole books long…) that ends up at a jewelry store. I’m sure I can come up with other examples in my books and stories.

I really don’t think these were me trying to express my subconscious desire for a ring of my own. But now that I’m going to have one, I’m so happy. Not because of the ring per se, but because of what it represents. We already have each other, we already had our bond and our partnership, but now it’s official in a way it wasn’t before, with a visible marker. It’s a partnership that has withstood a lot of changes in us and our lives. I don’t know what the year 2025 will bring exactly, but I know we’ll be weathering it together.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll include an actual marriage in a romance novel one of these days…?