Aug. 15, 1996

Dear Leslie,

Marriage is turning out to be as tricky a proposition as advertised. Not that I expected less. Just that I thought we could easily talk our way out of whatever came up.

At the moment, both DC and I are walking around under clouds that look like vague disappointment and real misunderstanding. Cumulus defensive.

When the clouds darken they rain dissatisfactions with each other. The smaller the better, just to be kind.

She faults my laundry habits, which admittedly consist of hoisting the All only when nothing clean can be found.

She also thinks I should put a shine on the bathtub after using it.

My point of view is, why get down on my hands and knees to clean a bathtub after I've just lathered myself into momentary perfection?

How often does one achieve that state where stresses are soothed and sweated away and the mind is afloat in a placid sea? The bathtub can wait.

Meanwhile, DC's version of a clean house leaves me perplexed. Running the vacuum, dusting and spreading some Ajax around does the job for her. She doesn't care that boxes of unidentified objects have been sitting in the dining room for months. Or that there's a hand drill at the foot of the stairs.

Here's a woman who likes things where she put them.

None of which really matters. These are just the easy targets we've chosen. Disturbances have to come out somehow, so we pick apart each other's traits as if doing so will solve the problem.

Yes, the real problem.

It has gone by various names. Sometimes it is Cape Girardeau, the Midwestern town that isn't quite San Francisco.

Sometimes the problem is being overwhelmed with familial responsibilities.

Sometimes we even blame the chaos Hank and Lucy stir up wherever they go.

None of these is anywhere near the heart of our dissatisfaction, though.

That appeared in the flesh a few days ago at our favorite pizza parlor. Friends showed up with their breathtaking new baby girl. DC spent only a moment with her, then was off to her next meeting.

I knew why she left so quickly.

She has wanted to be a mom since we married nearly three years ago.

We love our nieces and nephews but, as Woody Allen says in "Mighty Aphrodite," "There's something to be said for pride of ownership."

As with most problems, every time you peel off one layer another is revealed.

I suspect we somehow are disappointed in ourselves.

We haven't lived up to a cultural ideal. The easy thing to do then is to fault those close by rather than take responsibility for our own unhappiness.

We dissolve into dependency.

"You make me very happy" so readily becomes "You make me very unhappy."

Expecting perfection from each other and from ourselves is certain disappointment.

All perfection is momentary, a fleeting taste of godliness. And all work toward perfection is achieved from the inside out.

The more we try to perfect each other, the more we succeed in making ourselves unhappy.

We talked it over. She still dreams of a sparkling bathtub.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.