My wife and I are celebrating twenty-five years together this winter. God, that’s three impeachments ago. To place it in even more sobering perspective, the January morning we’d met for our first date at the AMC on Third Avenue at 86th Street, I’d never in my life sent an e-mail. At best, I had peripheral awareness of the “World Wide Web”—whatever that was—and certainly no idea how to access it (not that I’d ever need to). I definitely didn’t have a cell phone—which, admittedly, would’ve come in handy, seeing how I was running late to meet her.
But we met that morning just the same; in those days—don’t ask me how, for this secret, like the whereabouts of Cleopatra’s tomb, is permanently lost to history—folks somehow met up at a prearranged location without real-time text updates. It’s true. We met many more times over the month that followed, in many more locales around the city: Theodore Roosevelt Park on the Upper West Side; Washington Square Park in the Village. (Public parks are a godsend for penniless students at commuter college.) It was cold as hell that winter, but I never cared; I was happy to sit outside in the bitter temperatures for hours—and we did—just to be with her. By February, we were officially inseparable—and have remained so ever since.
A lifetime has passed since then, one in which, hand in hand, we’ve graduated college, traveled to Europe on several occasions, moved across the country (on September 11, 2001 of all cosmic dates), weathered the deaths of a parent apiece, eloped in Vegas, cared for twenty-four different pets (mostly fosters), consciously practiced patience with and developed deeper appreciation for one another during this indefinite interval of self-quarantine (we haven’t seen our immediate family on the East Coast since Thanksgiving of 2019), and have perennially quoted lines from GoodFellas to one another… because, well, GoodFellas might be the only thing that’s aged as well as we have.
She’s certainly aged preternaturally well in her own right. She was the prettiest girl at school—no minor triumph, given that there were almost 20,000 students at Hunter College at the time—but she’s impossibly more beautiful today. When I glance in the mirror, however, I in no way recognize the kid that fell in love with her all those years ago. This is a good thing. I think—I hope—I’m a much better man today than I was then. Kinder; more compassionate; more sensitive; more patient. Certainly wiser. And hopefully more deserving of the love she’s given so freely and steadfastly. Indeed, hopefully that above all else.
All the best ideas to grace my life over the past quarter century have been hers, without so much as a lone exception. Long before I took up blogging, she’d encouraged me to do so. I was such an incorrigible Luddite, however; furthermore, I reasoned it would be a distraction from my “real” work: screenwriting. Now I wish I’d swapped screenwriting for blogging years earlier. The former—my bright idea—made me miserable; the latter has allowed me to better know myself unquantifiably. I am an exponentially better writer for this continuing project—the one she had the wisdom to suggest years before I could see the value in it myself. She didn’t hold that against me, though; she even set up my WordPress domain. Now you get to read all about the esoteric bullshit she alone used to entertain over dinner.
She introduced me to the concept of minimalism, which has been nothing short of life-changing. Among (many) other benefits, I have been cured of sentimental attachment to material possessions. A few months ago, in fact, while absently yanking a shirt off her dresser, she accidently dragged a porcelain jewelry box—the first gift I ever gave her—over the edge; it hit the floor and shattered into a zillion ivory splinters. I was present when this happened and, without even considering our reactions, we locked eyes and simultaneously shrugged, Eh… so what? We swept up the shards, tossed them in the trash, and never gave it a second thought. You cannot imagine the emotional and spiritual freedom that comes from understanding—really understanding, on an unconsciously instinctive level—that things aren’t the things that are important in life.
Such a mindset frees up the three forms of currency at our disposal—money, time, and attention—to invest in what really matters, like, for us, neonatal kitten fostering. That was her idea, too. I would’ve never been so thoughtful or selfless if left to my own devices, but when she suggested it, I couldn’t think of a reason to object (which only demonstrates, I fear, my lack of imagination over any innate sense of ethical opportunism). The lessons I’ve learned from that ongoing venture can in no way be accurately counted or measured, but here’s an FAQ we often field: How do you give the kittens up at the end? Don’t you want to keep them?
Of course we do! We’ve loved every one as much as the pets we’ve owned. When they reach eligibility weight, we are bloodshot, nervous wrecks from the point we drop them back off at the city shelter to the moment we receive word they’ve been adopted. And then, with room in our home and our hearts once again for new fosters, we start the cycle all over. Because our job isn’t to keep them in our family forever; rather, it’s to usher them safely through that developmentally precarious stage of their lives so they might find their forever families. Fostering isn’t about what we want; it’s about what they need. Bringing them back to the shelter—invariably a shitty day—is the parting act of love we show them.
That’s the embarrassingly elusive lesson those neonatal kittens, each in their own special way, taught this middle-aged man: Love isn’t about what you get out of a relationship; it’s about what you give. Be willing to do the latter, and the former takes care of itself. I hope that epiphany has made me both a more compassionate person and a better husband.
On that point, I cannot imagine it’s easy being married to someone who disdains movies and television (particularly now, in pandemia, when there’s little else to do). Among other commonalities, she and I bonded over our love of the movies. In the college years, we were both game to see anything, and surreptitious theater-hopping was a great way to pass those frigid winter days on a shoestring budget. Hell, on one of our earliest dates, we took in what surely amounts to the oddest double bill of all time: From Dusk till Dawn followed by Leaving Las Vegas. (Grindhouse meets arthouse?) And when those movie marathons were over, we’d find the nearest Pizzeria Uno to discuss what we’d seen over a brownie bowl.
See, the thing they never tell aspiring young artists is that when you turn your hobby into your vocation, you better be prepared to find a new hobby. But I’d never nursed a passion for anything save movies and television—certainly not sports. My wife, however, a Queens native, was born wearing a Mets cap, and assumed an active interest in the Dodgers once we were here in L.A. (She’s assured me that were my Bronx credentials ratified by Yankees fandom, our interborough romance would’ve been doomed before it started.) Through her work, she regularly scored Dugout Club tickets to Dodger Stadium… and I went along for the free all-you-can-eat hotdogs.
But there are only so many of those you can squeeze down your gullet before there’s nothing left to do but pay attention to the three-hour game itself, and after the collapse of my screenwriting career in 2014, I was eager to invest my attention in anything unrelated to showbiz (no easy feat here in Tinseltown). Through those recurrent ballpark outings, my wife did for me in midlife what my late father could never accomplish when I was an impressionable boy: She imparted her enthusiasm for the game to me. Being a Dodgers fan—especially these past few seasons, during which time they’ve made three trips to the World Series—carried me through my professional implosion, as well as the ensuing corrosion of my personal interest in cinema. For the first time in adulthood, I had a pure hobby again—one she and I could share and enjoy together.
All of the above—minimalism, fostering, blogging, baseball, and a million other little things—have made me a better, more complete person. There’s simply no speculating on the life I might’ve had without her, being that we transitioned into adulthood together—I never dream about the roads not taken, though I’m sometimes visited by nightmares of having missed the onramp to our life together—but the aforementioned are at least a few of the ways I have been enriched by the wisdom of her magnificent instincts.
My instincts, on the other hand, suck. If I’ve evolved as I hope I have—emotionally, intellectually, morally, and otherwise—it’s only because I learned the hard way to stop trusting my gut. It’s possible—no, dispiritingly likely—I’ve had exactly one good idea my entire adult life: meeting her on 86th and Third that morning over a quarter century ago. Hell, in that way, I’m almost like one of those writers that hatched a single creative brainchild, but it was so successful and/or culturally impactful that it managed to sustain them the rest of their lives—and sometimes even beyond.
I’m not talking strictly about authors that, for one reason or another, only published a single novel in their lifetimes—Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind), Marcel Proust (In Search of Lost Time), Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights), Boris Pasternak (Doctor Zhivago), Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)—but also those who instinctively produced a particular work so commercially and/or culturally resonant, they couldn’t—or simply didn’t know how to—replicate that runaway success. Authors in that category include Stephenie Meyer (Twilight) and Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones’s Diary), both of whom keep returning to the well of those long-concluded narratives.
That success trap is especially common amongst screenwriters. Chris Carter never emerged from the long shadow cast by The X-Files; ditto Gy Waldron and The Dukes of Hazzard. (Contrast their careers with TV hitmakers like Stephen J. Cannell, David E. Kelley, and Shonda Rhimes, whose magical Midas touches were never tarnished by the occasional inevitable misfire.) Dirty Dancing didn’t do a damn thing for the screenwriting career of Eleanor Bergstein, though that single multimedia sensation has probably bankrolled a pretty comfortable life (one would hope, anyway).
Kevin Williamson, on the other hand, has enjoyed an enviably prolific career—on both the big and small screens—owed to the staggering commercial and creative success of Scream, but nothing he’s written since that debut script has been even a scintilla as clever or engrossing (and most of it, like The Following, carelessly traffics in the virulent genre tropes Scream so deftly subverted). No surprise, then, Williamson’s forthcoming project is a fifth Scream movie titled… Scream. (Part of an inexplicable recent trend, along with 2018’s Halloween and 2019’s Shaft, of simply christening straight sequels—not remakes—by the same unamended title as the original entry. Huh?)
I used to live in fear of becoming one of those writers—the kind known for but one good idea—though nowadays I mostly just envy them. Good ideas are hard to come by; harder still is good luck. A long time ago, I had the good fortune to meet a great girl, and somehow the wisdom to recognize that we were a good idea—one built to last. It’s carried me through the intervening two and a half decades, and made this life—our life—one worth living.
Gee, is this what a quarter century feels like? Didn’t pass nearly as glacially as I would’ve imagined. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the next one. I can’t speculate as to what challenges the years to come will bring—though our next big adventure, which I’ll blog about when the time is right, is currently in preproduction—but I’ll heed the advice I’d offer that young man sometimes glimpsed in the mirror to not take a moment of them for granted. The rest of my time on this earth with her by my side? That’s the best idea I’ve yet heard.
What a beautiful piece and tribute to your (better?) half 🙂
Thanks, Jeff! Yes, definitely my better half! Though my half of our union is appreciably better — not merely better off — for having comingled with hers. Love can do that, if we’re open to it: make us the best possible version of ourselves. To quote Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a personal favorite: “The luckiest man who walks on this earth is one who finds — true love.”
I think your wife and I would get along well. I agree about blogging–would also have encouraged my writerly husband to try it. I too am a minimalist–and love the idea of getting by well on what I have on hand. And I am in love with pets. You got a good one there, Sean.
I laughed at “It’s possible—no, dispiritingly likely—I’ve had exactly one good idea my entire adult life:” It’s possible you mixed up ‘gut’ with ’emotion’ but maybe not, too.
Loved this post, Sean.
Aw, thanks, Jacqui!
Yes, blogging has been a godsend. I mentor a number of environmental activists, several of whom have recently sought my advice about starting a climate blog. Though I hardly profess to an exemplar of blogging success, I’ve encouraged them all to treat their blog as an intellectual incubator. I’ve become a better blogger by learning to listen to myself — to recognize when I’m preoccupied with something, and then use that as the basis for a blog post. As E.M. Forster once said, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” Many of the themes that have become essential to this blog’s identity — like toxic nostalgia and socially conscious storytelling — were developed over a series of posts in which I expressed some vague ideas, experimented with them, and received feedback from readers like yourself.
Minimalism has been a godsend, too. Like any practice that challenges us to alter our lifestyle and/or worldview — it isn’t, as many misunderstand it to be, merely an “epic spring cleaning” — it is easier to accept, adopt, implement, and sustain when done as a team. The gift my wife gave me was suggesting it, and in return I gave her the gift of being open to it. So, while I don’t particularly have an instinct to conceive good ideas, I’ve developed the skill to recognize them.
Thanks for joining our celebration, Jacqui!
Sean
Great post, Sean.
People with lifelong romances often take them somewhat for granted; I’m glad it sounds like you don’t. And I love it when they’re shared. It gives everyone else hope.
I’m not really a fan anymore–watching games on TV just isn’t the same–but when I was a kid growing up in LA, we used to go to Dodger Games. We’d sit in the cheap seats and I’d especially root for Ron Cey and Steve Garvey, who were my favorites. The games had a whole atmosphere, which was something I loved about Angels in the Outfield–they showed the action in the stands, and that brought back some happy memories. Singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, standing for the anthem, Dodger dogs on a blazing hot day, cheering home runs wildly with everyone else, watching the foul ball coming your way–breathlessly hoping you’d be the one to catch it (but alas, that never happened), and listening to the play-by-play from Vin Scully; well, all that became part of the tapestry of my preadolescence.
I’m personally okay with the One Great Idea thing–look what Tolkien did with his–but it does annoy me when people go to the well too often. That’s one thing I love about self-publishing: I get to decide when an idea is done. I don’t think I’ve had a truly great one yet, but I live in hope.
Glad to hear you’ve got something good coming soon; I look forward to hearing about it. : )
Thanks, Cathleen! You know, I am an incurable romantic: I absolutely believe in true love at first sight, and I get bummed when I hear news of a breakup. But I also know that true love, once achieved, isn’t a self-sustaining condition per se. It has to be appreciated, and cared for — and even sometimes then people grow apart for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with bad-faith overtures on the part of either individual. So, I don’t take it for granted that she and I crossed paths all those years ago, and that we had chemistry then and still have it now. Our relationship challenges me to be a better man, and that’s a challenge that keeps life interesting — and makes life worth living in its own right.
Thanks for sharing your Dodger Stadium recollections! It’s a special venue — really the last midcentury stadium in existence in the United States. It’s a place of many happy memories for me. It’s possible I may never again get back to it — I take nothing for granted anymore — but it was there for me when I most needed it, so it will always be hallowed ground as far as I’m concerned.
As for artists who’ve milked a good idea dry: Unfortunately, there’s tremendous corporate incentive these days to franchise a successful IP indefinitely. There’s no question Chris Carter left The X-Files open well past its expiration date, and the Scream franchise is a case study in diminishing creative returns. When even the writers themselves are aware there is nowhere left to take the story, they resort to prequels (J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts), “sidequels” (Stephenie Meyer’s Midnight Sun), or they just sell the rights to someone else (as George Lucas, who had no Star Wars stories left to tell after Revenge of the Sith, did with Lucasfilm).
The new millennium has been a period of tremendous sociopolitical tumult — from the Digital Revolution and 9/11 through Trump and the pandemic — and, accordingly, folks have looked to entertainment for comfort, familiarity, and nostalgia. This is evident not only in all the endless Star Wars sequels and 1990s TV revivals, but even in the by-the-numbers holiday movies Hallmark cranks out on a weekly basis. I think storytellers have a responsibility to challenge us once again with new visions, and I am hopeful we will learn a new appreciation for art, and the ways in which it differs from entertainment. There is, should be, and will be a place for “comfort fiction,” but I for one would like to see popular storytelling rescued from the clutches of the nostalgia-industrial complex. We can’t move forward if we insist on only looking back.
Sean
And a btw comment, since you mentioned watching movies and TV shows lately. I’ve picked up a couple that I haven’t seen in decades. They were the only two westerns I ever liked: Legend, and Alias Smith and Jones. They’ve held up very well, unlike some other things I used to watch (the original Battlestar Galactica comes to mind). And they’re cheap on DVD. Just in case you’re running out of things to watch. : )
Hey, thanks! I never saw Legend, but I recently read a fascinating book by the man who created the show, Michael Piller, about his experiences writing the screenplay for Star Trek: Insurrection. It a must-read manual for aspiring screenwriters and Trekkies alike. (Here’s my review.)
I never caught Alias Smith and Jones, either, though that show was created by the late Glen A. Larson, who, like Stephen J. Cannell, was a TV hit factory in his day, creating (among other series) Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Magnum, P.I., The Fall Guy, and Knight Rider. (I very nearly included him alongside Cannell and Kelley above before deciding I’d sufficiently made my point.) I haven’t seen the original Battlestar Galactica since the early ’80s, but I can in no way imagine it’s aged well. Some things, I’ve learned, are better remembered than revisited.
Over the past few months, I’ve been catching up on Doc Martin (2004–present), a show I’d never seen before, and just this past weekend I watched the first few seasons of Search Party (2016–present), a show I’d never even heard of! Loving both of them. Part of being a minimalist is learning to invite fewer things into your life, but to invite those things mindfully, and intentionally. It’s about living a curated life, in a way. Such is the reason I reject all those open-ended superhero franchises, which ask not for our intermittent audience, but rather our habitual obedience.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations, Cathleen! Feel free to share more ideas like this any time!
Of the two, Legend has much better effects, and the production is better (the soundtrack can be somewhat intrusive on Alias S&J.) Also the protag of Legend is a writer, so that gave it an edge. S&J is mostly a comfort watch for me, although the two shows do have something in common. Both have a Buddy Love theme running through them, and I’ve found that particular story line resonates with me. And both have basically ordinary characters striving to redeem their lives in some fashion. So, dude with a problem as well.
But despite the genesis of S&J coming from Glen Larceny, it did have some remarkable chemistry. And it’s such a welcome relief from the constant parade of superheroes, paranormal romances, and magic users, although that last is aimed more at the book market. Everyone seems to think they’re going to be the next JKR.
Personally, I think it’s better to zig when the zag is getting so tired and worn-out, but I’m hardly famous, so weight that accordingly. : )
As a genre, the Western is such a fertile creative canvas to talk about so many subjects, from friendship to manhood to the American experiment itself. (Before crime fiction became our preferred mode of self-mythologizing in the mid-20th century, the Western fulfilled that function, a point I addressed in “Forget It, Jake, It’s Tinseltown.”) As kids in the ’80s and ’90s, my pals and I always operated on the (unfounded) bias that Westerns were boring, yet every time I saw one — from Dances with Wolves to Unforgiven to Tombstone to 3:10 to Yuma — they would take my breath away.
And, of course, the Western never really went away, it just merged with science fiction. Everything from Star Trek to Star Wars to Mad Max to Escape from New York (listen to this music cue and tell me Carpenter isn’t making a Western!) to Firefly. Hell, Larson’s own Knight Rider was a Western! The only thing high-tech about Knight Rider was the car; otherwise, it was a remarkably low-tech series about an itinerant loner who would wander into town, chase out the bad guys, and move on. Classic Western narrative paradigm.
Ditto your point about superhero sagas and paranormal romances, and I completely concur re: the oversaturation of contemporary fantasies like A Discovery of Witches, which are more concerned with their own internal magic systems and sprawling mythologies than meaningful storytelling. Characters in those types of “stories” seem to spend all their time and energy on being vampires (or witches or werewolves or whatever), talking about vampirism, and engaging in the humorless politics of their secret supernatural coven — a conspiracy that everyone else in the world has somehow overlooked! (The Underworld series of movies falls into this genre, as well.)
I hate shit like that. The reason we invoke magic or the supernatural to tell stories isn’t for magic’s sake, but rather to say something about human nature. Speculative fiction like A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, Interview with the Vampire, The Exorcist, The Club Dumas, Carrie, Frankenstein, The Sixth Sense, The X-Files, and Mexican Gothic all give us some profound insight into human nature we wouldn’t otherwise have without their magical/supernatural conceits. But, as I’ve argued elsewhere on this blog, these days storytelling has been supplanted by worldbuilding. The “magic” isn’t invoked to help make sense of human nature; rather, making sense of the magic itself is the entire point of speculative fiction. That’s an essay I’ve been meaning to write for a long time… but haven’t yet gotten around to because I’m too busy writing my own (old-school) speculative fiction!
These days, if you’re a storyteller and you want to do something truly subversive, just tell an old-fashioned story with a beginning, middle, end, and a point — like what Seth MacFarlane has done with The Orville — rather than some open-ended horseshit that only exists to comment on itself. We need more storytellers with the courage to be corny.
What a wonderful story, Sean. Life’s a journey. You make it so clear that it’s not about where you’re going. It’s about who’s sitting shotgun with you in the front seat. Congratulations!
Thanks, Diana! Indeed — the quality of a person’s friends is in direct correlation with the quality of their life. How many true blues do we really find in a lifetime, let alone true loves? In that respect, I’ve been luckier than most. This essay is my way of saying I don’t take that for granted.
Happiest of anniversaries to you! Ken and I started out the same, in a university town with an art house cinema. On our first date, we saw a film called “The Wizard of Loneliness”—we both loved going to the movies and the rest is history (31 years and counting). Here’s to both of you!
Thanks, Suzanne! Yeah, in Manhattan, we had multiplexes on the Upper West and Upper East Sides, arthouse cinemas in the Village, and there were a pair of second-run theaters in Midtown that — at the time — only charged $2 a ticket! I couldn’t possibly account for the hours we spent in the cinema back in those days. It was an exciting time to be a cinephile, too, because it was the mid-nineties, when the independent-film scene was giving voice to all these new filmmakers like Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith. As you are well aware, I don’t really get nostalgic — I’ve (mostly) cured myself of that, too — but if I could climb into a TARDIS and revisit any period of my life, it would be that one. It was the most magical time.
It’s nice to have shared an entire adult life with someone, isn’t it? It’s a rare privilege both you and I have known.
You’ve a lot to celebrate in hitting a quarter century, and I hope for continued happiness through the next quarter and beyond. There’s nothing like good luck, but no one makes it to 25 on luck alone. I bet you have had at least one good idea kicked around and brought to life, much to your wife’s delight and contentment. Cheers to you both, Sean!
Thanks, Wendy! Agreed: A good romance, like a good story, is a bit alchemical — who knows what conditions or circumstances seeded it, exactly? — but how it develops speaks to the care and interest that’s consciously and purposefully invested in it after the point of conception. I always advise people who are thinking about writing a story that they have to choose one that will sustain their passion over the long haul — after the endorphin rush of the “honeymoon period” subsides — and that’s just as true of a romantic relationship. You have to work at it even — especially — on the days you’re not necessarily inspired to. But the right person — like the right project — is always worth it.
Mazel tov!
Thanks, pal! Thanks for partaking in the celebration!
What a super, heartfelt, and ROMANTIC post, Sean. Happy Anniversary. Enjoy and appreciate every day for the next 25 years. They go by fast and yet they’re the fodder of a life lived well. Sending much love and good wishes to you both. <3 <3 <3
Bless your heart, Diana! Thank you! They do indeed go by fast, and I’m kind of horrified to think what the past 25 might’ve been like without her. I’m glad I’ll never have to know. Perhaps because I was so young when we got together, I’ve been through periods when I didn’t appreciate us the way I should’ve, when I didn’t try as hard as I might’ve. That hasn’t been the case for a while, I’m glad to say, and will never be the case moving forward. What can I say? In exchange for youth, we gain wisdom — an even if involuntary trade. I’ve been offered way worse deals than that.
Many thanks again! Wishing you health and creativity in the waning days of winter…
Lovely post, Sean. We all need to remember the loves of our life and the paths we have taken together. Hugs, Lennie
Thank you, Lennie! I think it’s important, every so often, to show appreciation for those we love — even if that means merely private rumination. By considering, in concrete terms, what another person means to us — and certainly by expressing that in words — we deepen the very appreciation we hold for that loved one. And since, as practicing minimalists, my wife and I don’t exchange cards or gifts, this post is my ode to a quarter century well lived in her company. To paraphrase Elton John: My gift is my blog, and this one’s for her.
I hope you’ve been well during this trying year, Lennie, and that you are looking forward to health, productivity, and good times with great friends in the months to come…
SPC
“Love isn’t about what you get out of a relationship; it’s about what you give. Be willing to do the latter, and the former takes care of itself.”
Sean, you have hit the target on something so essential and yet so misunderstood in our society. We are fed such self-serving delusions about love and relationships from so many sources as we grow up that it is truly rare to find people who have been able to see through the fairy tales to the truth about love and what it takes to make a relationship last. Your sentence that I’ve quoted here is the closest I’ve found yet to what I believe is a truly accurate definition of love. Dr. M. Scott Peck, psychologist and best selling author of “The Road Less Traveled” (and other enormously successful and important books) put it this way:
“Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth……Genuine love is volitional rather than emotional. The person who truly loves does so because of a decision to love. This person has made a commitment to be loving whether or not the loving feeling is present.”
Contrary to popular belief love is not an emotion. It is a decision. It is what causes you to choose kindness toward each other. It seems, from your beautiful retelling of the story of your very successful 25 year marriage, you have both understood this. And there are 24 foster kitties that will agree!
Happy Anniversary, Sean!
Wow, thanks for that lovely comment, Tara! Thanks for adding so much to this conversation.
I think so many of our cinematic and literary love stories — and don’t get me wrong: I’m a sucker for a good romantic drama (A Star Is Born) or comedy (Long Shot) — miss, for the most part, an essential truth about love, because a successful romantic pairing at the climax of a fairy tale is often treated as an end unto itself. A love affair as long as the one my wife and I have enjoyed is a project — one, like a garden, that can continue (and even prosper) indefinitely with proper care and attention. A true love story isn’t a closed narrative, in that sense, so much as an open-ended adventure. The age-old coda “… and they lived happily ever after,” then, isn’t a promise so much as an opportunity. And opportunities by their very nature are choices that require decisions, as you so astutely observe.
An ongoing romantic relationship is an endless series of decisions, each one an opportunity to show kindness, or consideration, or to honor — or dishonor — one’s vows to their partner. That requires effort. I think many unions falter or fail not when one or more partners do something actively malign (like infidelity, or physical or emotional abuse), but rather when they stop putting proper effort into the relationship. They let it coast on autopilot, you know? That’s especially common after years and years, when familiarity sets in, and the romance of youth gives way to the daily utilitarian realities of careers and mortgages and young children and aging parents.
As I mention in the piece above, she and I are practicing minimalists, which means more than merely living with less stuff. It means living intentionally, and understanding that everything you bring into your life costs you in (at least) one of three ways: through money, time, or attention. We funnel some combination of money, time, and attention into everything we do, everything we own, every favor we agree to, every phone call we take, every hobby we indulge. This blog, for instance, costs me money, time, and attention. Baseball costs me time and attention. (The tickets to Dodger Stadium are free and I don’t collect merch, so the money output is minimal.) Climate activism also costs me time and attention. (For those unaware, Tara and I serve together on the leadership team for the San Fernando Valley Chapter of the Climate Reality Project.) Kitten fostering costs me money, time, and attention.
But I have made the conscious decision that all of those things are worth the price they exact, and I have the resources to expend on them because I have banished from my life anything that demands either my money, my time, and/or my attention without providing some commensurate value in return. (Hence the reason, for instance, I no longer watch Star Wars or superhero movies; they were becoming a joyless — and endless — obligation, so I did what we should do with any bad relationship in our lives and ended it.) By living intentionally — by carefully choosing how I spend the only three resources I have — it’s fair to suggest that I’ve invested more time and attention into my marriage in recent years, as well, which is why (and I think my wife would agree) we are in a stronger, more candid place now than we’ve ever been during the past quarter century.
Early on in the pandemic, we made an explicit decision — decisions again! — to express when we were feeling frustrated, and to articulate what it was that was frustrating us, so that we’d never wind up in a situation whereby we took out our frustrations on “false targets”: i.e., one another. Consequently, we have been talking even more openly and honestly with one another since the shit went down, and I think that’s what’s strengthened our relationship during this interminable period of self-quarantine, whereby we are in each other’s company 100% of the time, with no chance to blow off steam either on our own (off with friends) or together (a Saturday-night date or something). Because every time I am anxious or frustrated, I express it — and I make sure she knows that I know what’s bothering me, and that it has nothing to do with her. And she appreciates the effort I put into doing that, as I appreciate her efforts likewise, so we’re in a place right now of deep appreciation and zero miscommunication. And I’m so grateful for that I thought it worth celebrating here, with this post.
And I’m grateful to you, Tara — for your friendship (in general) and your kind words (here and now)! Thank you! I would ask everyone reading this to pop over to Tara’s Thoughts and say hi!
Sean
P.S. One day I’ll do a post devoted exclusively to my kitten fostering. I am currently writing a novel in which the protagonist is an animal control officer, and I have incorporated many of my experiences as both a neonatal kitten foster and a shelter volunteer for L.A. Animal Services into the fabric of the narrative. Many of the lesson I have learned along the way have been expressed through the hero of the story.
Sean, Your insights here about the investments necessary to create and maintain healthy relationships, and a well-lived life, are so very insightful and valuable. I, too, am so very grateful for our friendship and for the guidance you give so generously to so many. Thanks also for the plug to my blog. I am excited about your upcoming novel. As soon as it is written and available I will be first in line to buy a copy!!
Aw, bless your heart!
As fate would have it, at the recommendation of my wife — another good idea! — I just listened to an excellent episode of The Michelle Obama Podcast this past weekend called “They Do: Talking Marriage with Conan O’Brien.” The First Lady and Conan share some excellent insights into what it takes to sustain a long-term romance, and why so many marriages are doomed to failure because we don’t properly condition young people for the challenges the institution entails — we don’t prepare them for the inevitable hard times that arise during the course of a shared lifetime, and we don’t counsel them to work together as and in the interest of the team they have formed. As my wife commented this past weekend: “I think we have a good marriage, and that we’re in a very healthy place, but it’s a lot of work. But even with that, I rather be in it than not in it.”
Amen.
Your wife sounds like a wise woman, and hey, it’s never too late to start taking her advice. Lovely tribute to your other half. 🙂
She is, Debby — she isn’t just smart, she’s wise. Always has been. In the past, I’ve ignored her advice at my peril! If I’ve gotten any wiser myself, it’s evident in my sharpened capacity to override my own (always wrongheaded) instincts and do what she prescribes — verbatim!
Thanks for reading and commenting, Debby. Hope you’re in good health and good spirits!
This is so romantic. That’s a rarity these days. Your wife sounds so sweet. She was right about the blogging. I love your posts, read them all one at a time although I don’t always comment. But after a long day it is so relaxing. As for the kittens – that’s just a soft spot.
Oh, thank you, Lena! And what great timing: She and I just celebrated fifteen years of marriage last week, so the sentiments expressed in this essay have recently been at the forefront of my mind once again. I have a hard time imagining there is a luckier person on this earth than me.
And very kind of you to say such nice words about the blog; I don’t take your time and attention for granted. I was just telling my wife the other night that this little “side project” she suggested is arguably the most important creative endeavor I’ve ever undertaken. By writing formally and regularly about all the things that were happening in my life as I was entering my forties — my midlife career transition from screenwriter to author; reading the work of Douglas Rushkoff; learning the value of moral imagination from Vice President Gore; adopting the practice of minimalism; nurturing an interest in MLB; volunteering for L.A. Animal Services — I was able to synthesize all of those varied influences and experiences into a cohesive worldview that has fundamentally changed who I am as both an artist and a person.
Blogging about those things and drawing connections between them allowed me, outside my conscious awareness at the time, to intellectually process all of that; it rewired my brain in a way that I’m not sure would have happened nearly as efficiently had I not applied so much thought and ink to these matters. Far from being a diversion from my fiction, the ideas and principles workshopped on this blog have made me a much better, more morally imaginative storyteller. I never imagined this project would yield such creative dividends! But, then, I didn’t know I’d met my one true love at eighteen years old, so life is full of wonderful surprises — we just need to be open to them.
Thanks again for reading and commenting, Lena. Your contributions are most welcome.
I think you are both lucky to have each other! Congratulations and cheers to another 15 x 2 years of marriage, at the least! You wrote it beautifully – straight from the heart.
I love your blog. For me, it’s like a candy store; I don’t know where to start first! Your wife had a brilliant idea.
I created my blog more than six years ago on a friend’s advice. But there was always something else to do and I didn’t think I’d be any good at it. But here we are. Love it for the same reason: it rewires the brain, plus you can share it all with others. It makes one’s writing much more powerful. Like you said: life is full of wonderful surprises!
Wow, at the age of eighteen! That’s amazing!
I read every day! And thank you for your support as well- I appreciate it!
Thank you, Lena! Yes, as of this winter, we are celebrating 15 years married and 27 together! It would be impossible to honor every positive influence she has had on me — and there are some things I consciously keep private, because certain shared experiences should remain the exclusive knowledge of the couple — but “One Good Idea” covers what I consider to be some of our “greatest hits,” if you like.
With respect to blogging (a topic I’ve addressed elsewhere on this blog): It can be something like an intimate relationship in that it becomes more defined as it develops. When you start blogging, same as when you start dating someone, you don’t have to necessarily know why you’re doing it or where it might lead; in fact, it’s best to be open to all possibilities at that point. But the more you blog, the more comfortable you get at it, and the more apparent its creative identity — or brand, in influencer parlance — becomes over time.
I started blogging after my screenwriting career irretrievably cratered, and my earliest posts are dispassionate pieces on the subject of narrative craft. But the more personal I got, the more value this project seemed to have. I began to recognize patterns in my own writing that suggested I was wrestling with certain intellectual preoccupations: about our culture of commercial nostalgia and infantilization; about how stories and storytelling have changed dramatically even over the course of my (relatively short) lifetime; about the social responsibilities we have as storytellers. All of those themes emerged, developed, and synthesized over the course of many years of blogging.
We think we know what we think about something when it’s just a nebulous idea swimming in the soup of our cerebrum. But by taking an idea and refining it into a thesis, and then developing that thesis into a structured argument, we walk away with a much firmer sense of how we feel about these issues. Every single essay I’ve posted on this blog contains at least one insight that only presented itself during the writing process; it wasn’t a preconceived notion, but rather an intellectual discovery. As E.M. Forster so eloquently phrased it: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”
Each essay builds on thoughts I’ve informally entertained, or ideas formally expressed in earlier posts, and if I’m revisiting a theme, I’d better be prepared to dig into it deeper than last time, else I’m just repeating myself. Such is why we shouldn’t worry that we’re not “good” at blogging, or that we may have expressed an opinion in an earlier post we now no longer stand by. This blog is not a sacrosanct compilation of all my beliefs and wisdom; rather, it is an intellectual workshop — a place to see what I say so I can know what I think. And once I know with certainty what I think about things, sometimes I challenge and even reconsider those notions/beliefs. And certainly the engagement I get in the comments compels yet further discussion on the topic du jour, which only yields deeper insight on the matter.
I had no expectation of any of that when I started blogging — it just happened organically. I tried a new thing, stuck with it (even and especially when I wasn’t sure what I was doing), invested consistent time and attention in it, and it became this very rewarding asset in my life — much like the partnership I enjoy with my wife. I think the trick to any long-term project or relationship is understanding that it’s never fixed in place — that there is no And they lived happily ever after…, you know? It’s something that needs to be cared for and given room to grow, and to change. I’m a big believer in letting things go — things that have outlived their purpose — but the things we consciously and intentionally choose to bring with us cannot be left in stasis, like a trophy on a shelf or fine china on display in a locked credenza. No, they need to be cared for and exercised. So, that’s what I try to do, to the best of my ability. I suppose this particular post is a twofer — an investment of attention in both my blog and my marriage.
Thanks, as always, Lena, for leaving behind a piece of your good spirit every time you visit! I appreciate that.
Thank you so much for sharing your own experience! This really makes me feel better about my own blogging! It’s always a pleasure to visit!
My pleasure, Lena! If we refrained from new ventures for fear we weren’t “good enough,” we’d never find the courage to try new things. And the point of trying most things, if you think about it, isn’t to be “good” at them — by whichever metric that’s determined — but rather to diversify our experiences. A wide range of exposure to different people, cultures, and experiences ultimately makes us more compassionate human beings and, in our case, more imaginative artists. It takes a rarified degree of commitment to blog regularly and of courage to blog honestly, so you have no reason to feel anything but good about yourself in that respect. Keep it up!