Our First Third Of A Century

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Saturday, Marianne and I reached a milestone in our lives -- thirty-three years and four months of marriage.  We have now been man and wife for over a third of a century

We had been thinking of having a large party.  But because Marianne's mother died in January (at age 103, so it didn't come as a surprise) and Marianne's still in mourning, we had a smaller gathering of close friends whom we've known for many decades.

In keeping with the low-key nature of the celebration, I commissioned something simple to give my beloved:  A silver coin cut into a one-third piece and a two-thirds piece.  Why a coin?  Well, in The Iron Dragon's Daughter, there's this explanation by Jane's one true love:

“… you know how if you take a coin and break it in a vise and throw half in the ocean and keep the other in a dresser drawer, they'll yearn after each other? One day you're taking out a pair of socks and you knock the drawer-half onto the floor without noticing. Somebody kicks it toward the door. A week later, it's half a block away. And the other half meanwhile, a fish swallows it and is caught and gutted and the entrails thrown into the trash, half-coin and all. So that maybe a couple of months later, it might take a century, you'll find the two lying in the sand at the verge of some nothing-special stretch of country road, nestled together. 

"That's kind of how I think we are."

I was thinking of Marianne when I wrote that, and it still seems true to me today.


And since you're wondering . . .

The coin was cut by master jeweler Janet Kofoed.  Her usual work is much more extraordinary (and, for what it is, scandalously underpriced) and can be seen here.

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