The Funeral Of Scyld Scefing


We got married on a dare and a coin-flip.

I mean, he dared me to marry him-- but i had to check my impulsive alacrity against the chaos of the universe.

Heads, we break up. Tails, we... wed.

and the universe

said "Go"



***

I was leaving for New York. Friday, August 22nd was my last day in St. Louis, and the one day of the week that the Justice of the Peace would be joining couples in holy matrimony at their spontaneous, irreverent, and reckless whims. General trepidation and rational advice had begun to peck away at our confidence in the days since the toss of the coin, and on the morning of the fated day we called it off. Then we sort of called it on... and finally it was oh-so-vaguely stated, with all conscious ambiguity, that any who wanted to marry should go to the courthouse at 1 pm. I sped in borrowed convertible at 80 mph; I was late. Would he have thought that I wouldn't appear? Would he ever have been there? He was late, too. He had the marriage license that we had gotten just 5 days before. We stood in line; we were booked, processed, stamped. We repeated-after-he. We married. I went to my last night of work serving tequila in the same dress in which I'd made my oaths.

Saturday, August 23rd. The newlywed couple packs the rusted '85 Volvo with the material contents of her life, and sets off. We got a flat tire in Vandalia, IL, not yet out from under the shadow of the Arch. Thanks to an open sunroof, we were infested with flying cockroaches while pumping gas near Dayton, OH. And finally we broke down on the Penna turnpike, in the inappropriately-named little hell-hole of Mount Pleasant, PA. But we met all these frustrating set-backs with patience and optimism. I wish that we could have maintained that outlook in the coming weeks.

He went back to St. Louis and I commenced my studies in Stony Brook, NY. To make a gross understatement, the separation was a strain on the weeks-old relationship. By September 23rd we had been married longer than we had courted.

He visited. I got a bigger apartment. He moved in. We struggled and wrestled and grappled to see that the risky bet that we had made would pay off. The chances were slim: new place (more of a non-place, Stony Brook), no friends, no family, no money, no jobs, no history, no confidence, no trust. Unforeseeable and unfortunate events brought new differences to light. The best intentions produced the worst deceits. And the damage is now beyond repair. If I thought there was any way to make that quarter worth more than $.25, I would fight like hell.

My apartment is now empty of his things. But there are still many things around that befit memories of him. He is a candy fiend. Anything made mostly of sugar would do. A cardamom pod for his love of Indian food, perhaps. But these things speak of him, and he is still walking about this spinning rock. The things that I gather must befit the memory of the thing that I've lost: what we were. He+Me.




Objects Befitting the Memory of the Shortest Marriage on Long Island:

• a 1987 quarter (that one day landed on tails)
  




• a wedding ring (not the one he presented to me- but another that I sometimes wore, made of indestructible stainless steel, the same stuff as the Arch, and acquired in Manhattan for $6 just because it matched his)
  




• a square of gauzy green fabric (originally held potlatch treasure from Dela Dejavoo, it was recycled in order to present a gift to him the first time he asked me to dinner.  The gift was a lapel pin in the form of a golden arrow.  He said receiving that silly gift made him fall in love with me)
  




• a heart-shaped stick pin (presented as a gift to me in response to the arrow.  The heart shape especially befits the memory of the brief marriage; it was the leitmotif of a series of text-message valentines that we traded from the beginning till the end.  A heart traced onto a foggy window, or drawn in water on the pavement.  A heart of bright green grass revealed by clearing away a blanket of red leaves just so.  The shape of the shadow cast by a wedding ring when placed upright in the spine of an open book.  We'd form the clichéd symbol from the ephemera of our surroundings, and send the photograph to the other to say "hi."  Now the transient nature of many of our creations seems a portent...)
  

.







To send these things off in a dignified fashion, to say goodbye to the thing that I've lost, becomes a difficult task.  The union, which we so impetuously and passionately dove into, was- in hindsight- all but destined to fail from the start.  What send-off can I give my mementos matrimori that would reflect such lack of forethought?  Such impassioned, nearsighted whimsy?

Furthermore, the saying of goodbye is bittersweet.  I am sad, so sad, to see it fail, and I regret playing a starring role in that failure.  But it was clear to everyone but us that it would end poorly.  The difficulties that we had relating to eachother (we never really knew eachother) were beginning to seem almost too great to overcome, when we finally made some headway at the end.  It seemed we might be able to make it work after all, we were finally opening up, when treacheries were revealed that couldn't be forgiven. 

To reflect the blind lack of foresight and utter futility of the entire endeavor, but also to capture some of the spirit of whimsy and the soaring intensities of love that started it all... I am attaching these memory-charged objects to balloons, where they will float off to a place beyond my control (as so many things seem to be).


THE RELEASE:




Like my marriage, this ritual did not go quite to plan.  Which is so perfectly fitting.  I walked to the sea, spoke aloud of what the release of these objects meant to me, and sent them forth to an unknown destination- but ironically, the destination was not as far away as I had envisioned.  

Some strangers walked up as I was photographing the results:





I proselytized and perhaps they will appear on sfØ in the near future. Gentlemen?







***

Your new task, friends, is ETERNAL --> EPHEMERAL.  Take something that is supposed to last forever, and make it go away.