In the meantime, how about I keep your in-search-of-happy-relationship-appetites whetted with a few quick summaries and cool links to what's currently the best writing/thinking out there on the topic? For instance, did you see David Brooks' opinion piece in the NYTimes this week? Rhapsody in Realism. Whoa! LOVE.
If you haven't clicked the link above, I get it. The title itself would lead even the most dedicated among us to believe this isn't perfect for THIS blog (and/or "Bruess is losing her edge -- suggesting articles on far-out philosophies about realism." "Whatevs.").
But oh-so-deceiving can a title be!
Out of Brooks' musing emerges the perfectly ironic "crooked timber mentality" -- one that has me, since reading, observing my own life and my ironically-and-irritatingly-perfectly-nutty-fabulous husband with fresh eyes and newfound admirations. Yes, he's already perfectly-imperfect and I (almost) daily admire the way he parents, partners, leads, lives simply, and profoundly influences with a steady, gentle approach (while those same approaches simultaneously make me mad and madly in love with him!). I now get it even more, as Brooks' who cites Kant points out: Each of us (amen) "are, to varying degrees, foolish, weak and often just plain inexplicable." And marriage is ironic "... because you are trying to build a pure relationship out of people who are ramshackle and messy. There’s an awesome incongruity between the purity you glimpse in the love and the fact that he leaves used tissues around the house and it drives you crazy."
When a short piece like Brooks' can almost instantaneously help you LIKE your perfectly-imperfect partner and ideally crooked reality even more: seriously, click on it already.
And while you do, I'll toggle back to that top-secret project I hope to reveal here ... some ... day ... very ... soon ...
