pasturesfresh

It’s the anniversary of one of the best moments of my life: waking up next to my wife for the first time. Allow me to explain.

The place we woke up looked somewhat like a motel, a low-cost lie-down kind of place which represents that classic slice of Americana all the tourists have seen on the silver screen or read about in travelogues. Not the sort of place most girls would dream about spending the first married night with the man of their destiny, and also not the sort of place most mother’s would dream about leaving their daughter to experience the next phase of life.

“Oh my god,” the mother groaned, “I am so sorry.”

The thing is, the place was actually really nice once you got inside. Done over in that international AirBNB style, with a lot of solid greys and a few dark blacks accentuated by very crisp mirrors. An ideal place

The last section has been removed at the writer of this piece’s foreknowledge for how it could develop as he does not want this to be that sort of blog

We awoke in our surprising marital bed to the discovery that I had accomplished the impossible – I’d been a Scottish groom at a wedding with an open bar and had not ended up completely trolley’d. Partly through prior planning and negotiation, often it’s helpful for me to set strict limits on when I can drink and how much. Otherwise bad times can unfold and it isn’t fun for anyone. At the wedding, I didn’t have anything besides a sip of ceremonial kalimotxo until approximately 8 o’clock, thus there was not really enough time to get hammered as American weddings end at 11 or something ridiculous, though they are then followed by an afterparty somewhere else. We skipped that event, in the knowledge that at least one Scot was going to die that night and it ought not be me as that would’ve made for the most tragic headline possible, therefore was the most likely occurrence.

Waking so clear headed and in control was pleasing, and only made more so by one of the most thoughtful wedding presents possible. Kevin, the one who Loves Orts if you know what that means, gave us $20 for breakfast. It’s a tradition which, my slightly sozzled mind at that time mixed with my often imperfect memory stretched over 4 years may be mistaken here, he picked up from his dad who gave him the same gift on his wedding. It’s a good touch when so many pay with bank deposits these days which can take some time to clear. Especially in America at that time when card payments were ascendant but not yet universal in locations like diners.

My Exquisite Wife and I enjoyed classic American breakfasts, she had a pancake stack with copious amounts of “maple”, syrup which might have been imitation or real but who cares as maple syrup is a cartel anyway, and I had bacon and eggs. Americans get a lot of stick around the world for various aspects of their food but there are two parts of the culinary experience they have absolutely nailed where I much prefer them over everyone else, breakfast and milkshakes. Yeah the classic Full English and Full Scottish are tight, but the bacon is often limp and there’s a lot of extra stuff which are unnecessary like fried tomato.

It was during this breakfast I reflected on the craziness of it all. There I’d been, a starving graduate failing repeatedly at life who’d accidentally lucked into a couple thousand pounds and used it to mistakenly book a flight to Prague for 3 months longer than intended, and I happened to meet someone who loved Scotland had been tired of doing a job I still don’t understand and I don’t need explained anymore, who’d moved to Russia to escape monotony then discovered the horribleness of suburban Russia was slightly worse than monotony so she moved to Prague. We came together like a cliche, an accident wrapped around a misunderstanding, sprinkled by my self-interested desire to cut hostel costs by securing a girlfriend, and her desire to take a walk on the wild side with the sureness that she could always quit me if she wanted.

At that moment the universe was so crystallised to me I could pick out events that hadn’t even happened yet. I knew we would have a girl, who would be perfect and would look just like me. I knew we would get a dog who wore eyeliner like an Egyptian pharaoh. I knew I’d spend the rest of my life loving the lot of them like it was all I had going on because in many ways it’s all I’d ever need to have going on. And at that moment I knew that at some point I was going to write about that feeling of knowing exactly how everything will turn out and it would all be fine, and it would culminate in a piece of pedantry which felt appropriate at the start of the piece but as it drags on and gets more elaborate feels slightly off in a stream of consciousness end of Ulysses sort of way but probably not a masterpiece.

This is the anniversary of me first waking up next to my wife because obviously we got married the day before and I’m only writing now because my anniversary was yesterday and childcare prevented it. Breath it in, kids. I’m the ghost of Christmas future and I’m here to tell you everything will be fine in the end, and if things ain’t fine, it’s not the end yet.

The writer of this piece is certain he’s revealed too much, but it’s all he knows.