twenty years

On Friday night, Christian and I went to hear the Bernstein Mass performed by the Utah Symphony, a prelude to our twentieth wedding anniversary on Tuesday.  It was a book-end of sorts as our first date was to hear the Bach Double at the Madsen Recital Hall performed by the BYU chamber orchestra and the Gruppmans, a husband and wife violinist team.  

The date started at my apartment in The Truman where we ate frozen burritos that Christian brought and I prepared, and tried to dress up with some avocado, salsa, and cheese (I remember them being quite delicious) and then proceeded to a bike ride up the hill to the Harris Fine Arts Center (C rode me on the handle bars and told me that I had pretty skin) where we heard the piece.  It was, as always, a fantastic piece, and we learned that we are both freaks about Bach.  Since the Bach was over, we left the concert at intermission, biked back down the hill, and went to 7-11 for a pint of Hagen-daazs honey vanilla ice cream which we ate on the steps of the then-condemned Academy Square building (which is now the library, thanks in part to a campaign that C was active in as a student to save the building).  We sat there and talked until the wee hours of the morning, and I knew then that I had met my life's partner (what happened next is a long story for another day.)

But Friday night at the symphony reminded me of this instant connection made way back when I was 19 years old with Christian because, as with the Bach, Christian and I again had the exact same reaction to the Bernstein piece.  I could just tell what he was thinking through the whole piece, and I was thinking the same thing.  I'm not going to go in to great detail here because people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but I'll just say the piece was highly problematic (I know a lot of people are aware of this, and hence it is rarely performed, but a lot of people liked it, even loved it, and that's when I'm sooooo glad I'm married to someone who doesn't love the Bernstein mass.)

So, xo, C.

Here's to 20 more years of music, bicycles, and honey-vanilla ice cream.