by Becky Shafi
~~~~~~~~
Who We Marry
Girl meets boy. Eyes stare. Lips smile. Hearts flutter. The gaze is held. Longingly. Lovingly.
I was 21 years old, an art student from the San Francisco Bay Area. He was 24, a café waiter from Egypt. On my morning walk to school I’d stop by his cute and charming, little café for my morning coffee. Somewhere between the dark and foamy cappuccino, his dazzling smile and deep, brown eyes I was drowning in infatuation.
It’s been 25 years now since we exchanged our wedding vows at the hillside church where my father was a minister. It hasn’t always been easy. I often can’t understand his logic and some of his habits drive me absolutely crazy. Yet our lives are inextricably intertwined. I’ve often wondered at the fates that brought the two of us, a seemingly unlikely pair, together.
He is a cocky, handsome teen in Egypt. His good looks and joyful smile attracts the attention of many heartsick Egyptian girls. A handsome, happy-go-lucky teenage boy, what’s not to like? But his heart wasn’t in it. He had visions he knew were true – his future was with a light-haired, light-eyed girl in America.
I was an exchange student in Norway. It was the middle of winter and I was traveling on a bus. Outside the window the world was white and snowy. Inside the bus the passengers were white and pasty. I began to write a poem about living in an eggshell world where everything was sterile and uninspired. The poem was passionate and longing, crying out for the dark opposite of myself to come and complete me. The words poured out of somewhere mysterious and meaningful. I was stunned by how deeply I connected with the stark truth of the words.
I could have easily stayed in Norway and become the wife of a fisherman. Or I could have taken a job in a small Norwegian town, sitting sparkling and pristine on the side of a fjord. It was that achingly beautiful and that close to heaven. But, I returned home and eventually met Omar in that little café, on that bustling street, in the heart of the city.
Our first date was to a restaurant jutting out on a pier, overlooking the quiet water of the Bay and the twinkling lights of San Francisco. He was smiling, comfortable and free. He said he felt as if he’d always known me.
I was young and flighty, liking him one day and unsure the next. During a flighty period I decided to attend a University in Utah known for its design department and picturesque campus. I tried to fall in love with American boys but nothing stuck. Omar would call. He was missing me. He visited and we dined in an historic French restaurant and spent time walking together. Chatting together. Being. Together.
When I returned to school after winter break, he couldn’t take it. His heart was about to break. He called day. And he called night. Our missing each other was almost unbearable. “I want to come get you,” he said. “I want to marry you.” “OK,” I said, “ Come.” In this moment, in this blink of an eye, double syllable, I had irrevocably changed the course of my life forever. “Oh Kay.”
He didn’t waste a minute. He rented a car and got verbal driving directions. He didn’t even have a map. He’d follow his heart. The night was dark and stormy. The snow out the window was blinding with near zero visibility. To this day he marvels that he even remained on the highway and didn’t hit another car, tree or being. Speeding through the night, his love was his compass.
What are the fates that bring two people together – that match them across continents, and press them on through the storms? What are the seeds of knowing that plant themselves in the young? What are the ties that bind, against all odds, one heart to another and set two lives on one course?
What burning ember glows brightly despite cultural clashes and differences in logic and habit? Whatever it is defies heaven and is greater than earth and the three new lives that our union has created seem reason enough. These three fresh, young beings will go out and meet their own fates and be moved by their own rhythms. The rhyme and the reason of their parents will be but a whisper in their souls, a fleeting memory like a faded fingerprint leaving barely visible grooves on their hearts as they create their own constellations and chart their own courses across this vast and beautifully chaotic, yet infinitely ordered universe.
