Long After Valentine's Day

 Donis here, writing onValentine's day, a couple of days before this entry appears, since I'll be busy for the next couple of days. It seems like I'm leaving my house more lately than I have in the past two years. I hope that signals the beginning of a return to something like normal in the world. 

Speaking of beginnings, I've enjoyed reading my blogmates' entries on finding the beginning of your novel. I relate very much. I usually write at least three beginnings for every novel, and they're hardly ever at the front of the manuscript. They're usually buried somewhere later in the story, and after I finish the MS, I have to go hunting for each one, pull it out, and in the end decide which is the very best way to begin. It's not an efficient method, but thus far it's worked out for me.

Donis and Don, 1974

...and speaking of even bigger beginnings, today, Valentine's Day, marks the anniversary of my first date with Beloved Spouse, an event that occurred long ago, in the misty past. He and I have never really celebrated Valentine's Day since it's all commercial, etc. etc., but I do think of that first date every year.

We met when we were in graduate school. We had a class together, and later ran into one another at a Christmas party where we talked for a long time. He asked me out several times and I turned him down each time. I was NOT looking for a relationship (a story for another time). 

He was persistent.

I liked him. Damn.

Finally I decided, what the hell. He invited to me go to a Feminist Film Festival with him. I thought that sounded safe enough, so I said I would go as long as we met at the theatre. Afterwards, we walked to a nearby cafe for coffee and talked about modern American literature. 

He knew more about modern American authors than I did. I had never dated anyone who knew more about literature than I did. I literally broke out in flop sweat. I knew I was doomed.

We were married exactly nine months later. I wasn't looking to get married, either, but we graduated and he got a job in Texas before I got one somewhere else. These days I might have gone with him without getting married, but this was the 1970s and neither of us wanted to offend our families. So we went to a Justice of the Peace one Friday after work and tied the knot.

My mother was thrilled. However, I didn't change my name, so that gave her something to be unhappy about instead. After we had been married about 20 years, she got used to it, more or less.

Forty-seven years later I still think about that beginning. Before that Valentine's Day I considered myself mistress of my own fate, but there are tides in our lives we are helpless to resist.