Mary Anne Morgan Blog

365 Project Day 248: Rainy Rendezvous

Posted on 06. Sep, 2011 by maryanne.

Canon 5D Mark ll, 50 1.2L, 1.4 aperture, 1/100 shutter, 400 ISO

I call him down to the muscadine trellis, just as the rain begins to fall. It is our haven, a place we both dreamed of. I brought the vines home ten years prior, and he and Johnny built the frame to hold the heavy tendrils. Now, the vines hang with fruit, ripe and ready for picking. They are just out of my reach, but he gathers them for me and we pop sweetness into our mouths and smile. We are not completely sheltered from the rain, as the drops run down his cheek and fog up my lens. I am trying to capture this, endeavoring to frame this moment. We are veterans of the rain. We fell in love as we walked in it, over 25 years ago. He told me it looked good on me back then and I swooned. I still do.

He is wearing my new favorite shirt. He is handsome and huggable all at the same time. I move in closer, breathing in his warmth. It is just us, under the muscadine vines. I cannot believe how blessed I am. This moment, this husband, this place.

The rain gets heavier, louder. We are both getting soaked now. He gently smiles and I know he is graciously obliging me. He knows me now. He knows I am trying to capture the moment, to hold it awhile longer. The rain does not hinder me. It holds me, deepening my awareness, my skin coming alive with my heart. He has spent many years a willing student of all that is me, and he loves me, in spite of my many weaknesses. He has taught me much about love, this man.

I wrap up my images and my thoughts and kiss him. I love this man. I am so grateful that after all these years, we still rendezvous in the rain.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ~ “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

 

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365 Project Day 42: Love Story

Posted on 12. Feb, 2011 by maryanne.

Canon 5D Markll, 100mm 2.8 macro, 3.2 aperture, 1/80 shutter, 100 ISO

You were a skinny country boy when my sister brought you home. She was marrying your best friend. We were to attend them, you as the best man. Me, a maid of honor.

I saw you there, in my mother’s house, eyes blue and enduring as the sky, your spirit quiet and steady. I craved your peace, your earth.  You brought your songs, and serenaded me into your life.

We held hands, walked in rain. You whispered softly, “Rain looks good on you”. My knees felt weak.  You pointd me to the Father, and He gathered us up together. We said ,”We will. We do.”

You are lifted in my laughter, and I soothed by your songs. We sing our babies to sleep, and laugh about God’s goodness. When I run ahead, you tether me to you.

You are my country boy. I am your skippy girl.

Let the story carry on.

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Love Story, the Long Version

Posted on 12. Feb, 2011 by maryanne.

Canon 5D Mark ll, 100mm 2.8 macro, 3.2 aperture, 1/80 shutter, 100 ISO

When I first met him He was a skinny country boy, or at least I thought so. My sister Liza and her husband-to-be, Mickey, brought him home with them to be best man at the wedding. (I was the maid of honor.) He was, and still is, Mickey’s best friend since grade school. Kindergarten, as they like to tell it, but I am getting ahead of myself.

I knew they were bringing him home. In fact, there was much chatter about “setting us up”. I had been at work that day, and drove home nervously wondering if they had gotten there yet. I worked as a food server at the pool at the local Ramada Inn. I wore, as my uniform, white shorts with a white shirt and white, you guessed it, skippies. When I drove up to the house, I saw Liza’s car. I took a deep breath and bounced in the door, as casually and cheerfully as possible. I hugged my sister first and introduced myself to Mickey.

Then, my eyes fell on him.  He was skinny, with gentle blue eyes, and a quiet but stable demeanor. His brown hair curled just a little around his ears. I felt rattled already. “Oh hi!” I bubbled, trying to feign surprise that he was even there.  ”Hey”, he said calmly. He was unassuming and confident. Peaceful, even. In the world of boys I knew, this is was an anomaly. I was definitely curious.

When the newlyweds scurried off for their honeymoon, he decided to hang around a little longer. I had invited him to do so, but honestly didn’t think he would. Well, he did. We stood by his little yellow Honda and listened to his and Mickey’s first album that was hot off the press. He put the headphones on my head and grinned. He was so happy to share it with me. Oh that smile. I was so comfortable with him, it was unnerving. In the 24 hours that he stayed, we laughed, listened to James Taylor, drove around in one of our old beat up cars, and he played guitar and sang for me. When he played that night on my mom’s sofa and sang so sweetly, my heart melted. Just a little. Thoughts of our kids listening to him sing and play passed briefly through my mind. Wait… what?

I quickly made myself think of other things.

The next day he went back to Georgia, and I promised him I would write. In fact I told him not to write me first, but to wait on me. Ahem.  He still likes to tell that story, how he looked into the deep cavernous mailbox every day, (with echo sound effects and all), feeling so dejected. In his telling of it, weeks, no, months, went by. And, to make matters worse, when I did write him, I typed it. Apparently, that was the most impersonal thing I could have ever done.  He, of course, responded with a very personal, handwritten piece of correspondence. I still have it. (He still has my typed one too.) In it, he was funny, thoughtful, and clear about his intentions to get to know me better. He also invited me to come to see him and go to a James Taylor concert. I had been playing JT constantly since he left. But, I turned him down flat.

I had already moved on to another boyfriend by then. Hmmm…

The week before I was to go back to school at JMU, my mom decided to attend a class in Atlanta for a week. It was the very week of the concert. I finally agreed to go. I stayed with my sister, but spent every waking hour with Chris. We explored the Chattahoochee, went downtown, watched a movie together, but mostly we just talked. We talked about everything and nothing. We talked about God and who He is and isn’t. We talked about relationships, (and how I needed to drop my new boyfriend.) We walked in the rain, where he stopped me and whispered, ” Hey, rain looks good on you.” I still get weak in the knees just thinking about it. I probably would have kissed him right then and there if he would have made an attempt.

I could feel my heart burning. Something was so very different about this boy. This man. At the end of the week, we drove to his house in North Carolina and saw James Taylor together. He held my hand at that concert , in the breezy open air. My heart fluttered.  In the late night hours we sat on the road where he grew up, the traffic light glaring with two red eyes. The stars seemed to sing. We were together, silent. Hearts content. I could feel mine expanding. Breathing. Coming alive.

Could it have only been a week that we were together? In the car with my mom on the way home to VA, my heart ached. I was changed. When I got home, I broke up with that other boy.

We met the day before Liza and Mickey’s wedding on July 1, 1986. We pledged our love and made our vows a year and two days later, on July 3, 1987.

It will be 24 years this summer since I blushed behind that veil and gave him my heart, my everything. He is my husband. My lover, my very best friend, my confidant. I trust him with my life. He is my North Carolina country boy, and I am his Virginia skippy girl.

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celebrating love

Posted on 11. Jul, 2010 by maryanne.

Last week Chris and I celebrated 23 years together as husband and wife. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. I can always count our years together by our eldest daughter’s age as she is one year younger than we are married. We got her as a surprise from our Father God. We were not planning on babies for a while. Chris didn’t have a steady job and we had no health insurance. I was planning on finishing college and he was going to school for his Masters of Divinity. God of course, had His own plans, and I am so thankful. I had moved away from most of my family. I was 21 and pregnant and newly married. Yes, I was afraid and bewildered. My pastor’s wife told me something at the time  I have never forgotten. She told me  that “God never orders anything He can’t pay for.” This and her calm resolve brought me peace and I rested in that truth on more than one occasion.  The rest, you might say, is history. We got our beautiful curly haired Katie, then our Annie, and then our John. Later, at 40, I was blessed with another surprise. I was pregnant with my fifth (the fourth lost in miscarriage much earlier) child. We ended up losing him at 16 weeks gestation. We named him Benjamin and he is forever a Morgan child.

But alas, I digress from my original story. We met at my sister Liza’s wedding, having been not-so-secretly set up by Liza and her husband and Chris’s best friend, Mickey. I met him the night before the wedding, July 1, 1986. We were married just a year later on July the 3rd 1987. Katie was born April of 1988. God moves quickly sometimes.

There was so much to love about this man. He was a modern day Huck Finn, so simple and yet so profound in his thinking. I found peace in those beautiful blues. I loved to hear him sing and play his guitar. He was like no one I had ever known. We got lost in conversation, talking about all things spiritual, God and who He is, about Love and what it looked like (not realizing I was falling right into it), and about anything that we felt had real value. We laughed often. Our senses of humor aligning so perfectly. We walked on railroad tracks, in the rain, and through paths in the woods not knowing where we would end up. It was an adventure. He had me and I didn’t even know it. Once again, I had my own plans, but God’s plan prevailed. So thankful.

So on this eve of our anniversary, we once again had a spontaneous adventure together. We decided to go somewhere new and eat some sushi together at Ra Sushi in Atlanta. A wonderful choice! We sat outside in the evening air and enjoyed conversation and delicious food together. A dragonfly decide to join us.

Later we went exploring, just like in the our old days. We walked the streets of Atlanta and went to Piedmont Park, stopping for some refreshment at Willy’s Mexicana Grill. The light faded into the night and the city lights began to glow. We both felt free, talking about things that mattered and laughing about things that didn’t.

On the way home, he took me to my favorite coffee place, Octane Coffee. He doesn’t drink coffee. He loves me. My cappuccino had a heart in it when I got to the bottom. “How fitting”, I thought to myself and made him hold the cup for me until I got the shot I wanted.

No matter what, my heart is his. I gave it to him 23 years ago.

Our last adventure of the night was to go for a midnight swim in our pool. We lit the twinkly lights and set up candles and torches around the pool and played some of our favorite music. I got in the pool with my camera for some of the shots, and he was patient with my photojournalistic tendencies. Then we danced in water. We didn’t talk for a long time. The cicadas sang their song. It was a good night to be married for 23 years.

His eyes are still just as blue. I still find peace there. Now that our kids are nearly grown, I hope we continue our adventures together, laughing and talking, and kissing, and dancing. He is my love.

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