Yin et Yang, Le secret d'un long mariage

A while back a teacher I worked with was planning a trip to Paris. He asked me to teach him some French in preparation for his trip. When I told him that Rollie and I would be going to Paris for our 40th anniversary, he said, "Forget teaching me French, and tell me the secret of staying married for so long".

The simplified answer to that question would be "committment", but that sounds rather generic. I have heard much advice over the years, such as "marriage is a fifty/fifty proposition", "each partner gives 100 percent", or "always put the other spouse first". On a daily basis, I have never found marriage to be formulaic, at least not at a conscious level. A couple of weeks ago as I was signing Easter cards for the grandchildren, I asked Rolllie to address the envelopes. He prints so well. That's when I had a light bulb moment. The secret of our marriage is that we practice the Chinese art of Yin yang, which "describes how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world and how they give rise to each other in turn". (Thanks Wikipedia.) Natural dualities -- light/dark, male/female, low/high, hot/cold are Yin and Yang.

Now I am not sure which one of us is Yin and which is Yang, though I am certain Rollie would say I represent the darker side (I call it being realistic), but we are definitely two contrary forces that have somehow always managed to function symbiotically. Originally, being married in 1970, we assumed traditional roles - bread winner/homemaker, but an evolution took place because, as you know, the Yin yang constantly interacts, never existing in absolute stasis. Our Yin yang approach is based on whatever each one does best. I wash the clothes, Rollie irons without creasing anything. I cook to make sure we don't have pot pies every night, but Rollie can really clean a kitchen. He vacuums (the straight lines in the carpet attest to that), and I dust (sort of). I shop, he puts things away. I buy the gifts; he wraps them for mailing. When planning trips and events, I visualize the big picture while Rollie sweats the details.

Never have we sat down to discuss this mutuality. It has just happened, and still happens, which leads me to explain the picture connected to this blog. One of the best parts of the Yin yang approach to marriage is when our mutual talents and interests complement each other. That is what this picture symbolizes. Rollie turns wood. I knit. In this instance, Rollie made me a "yarn bowl" with a cut-out section to slide the yarn through as I knit. The wood is finely smoothed and polished to allow the yarn to easily glide through the loop. The hand turned wood bowl serves as a protection to the soft yarn as together we create. The Yin and the Yang. So simple. This is our marriage.