A pair of willets, an ordinarily solitary bird.

Every time I’ve started to write about my upcoming marriage, I’ve stalled out. I have come to recognize that as an indication that I’m having authenticity problems. Those are probably the biggest stumbling blocks in my work. Writing has made me understand that it’s almost reflexive for me to adopt a mask of half-truths. One of the gifts of it is that it catches me every time.

In this case, I was trying to fit Trav’s and my relationship into the language of others, when in fact it has a verse all its own.

I’m very interested in the words and phrases that others use in relation to their happy partnerships. So often I hear words like safe, secure, trusting, in-sync. I hear about a common pattern, in which two partners meet, share a period of blissful, glassy-eyed serenity, and then later must confront…