#32 / Don't Forget to Vote, Part 3
Hi everyone,
We celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary this week!
I’ve heard of the movie The Seven-Year Itch, but I didn’t know that there may be some psychological evidence—according to my therapist, anyway—that couples who stay together that long have in fact reached some kind of threshold, and they are likely to remain committed for the long haul. Not that I was worried about this, but it’s good news; I guess I’m free to stop putting in work! (Ashley is my editor for these emails; let’s see if that line gets through.)
Minnesota Northwoods Trip, Day 4
Wednesday, September 23. A very chill day: we hung out on the porch of our tiny house cabin all morning and into the afternoon, reading and cross-stitching and chatting, and watching the birds come and go in the surrounding wilderness.
I must have been in a contemplative mood; in my notebook, I jotted down stuff like:
Idea for a challenge: pay attention to the sun all day
And:
Welcome new people into your life like a restaurant welcomes new diners, as a source of sustainment
If our marriage was a video game, then this day would have popped up a notification: “Relationship Achievement Unlocked.”
Ashley and I have very different travel styles. I like to be totally off the clock, take my time in the mornings, and indulge in spontaneity. Ashley likes to get out and explore, see as many things as possible, and stick to a plan.
In the early days, before we understood this dynamic, 10 A.M. would either 1) find Ashley antsy and pacing our hotel room while I watched T.V. or read a book in bed, or 2) find me a little under-slept and resentful, enjoying the adventure but not fully present.
On this day, we compromised by not scheduling any major hikes, but making sure to still get out and see something. We decided to check out the nearby town of Virginia; to get there, you drive across a bridge high above a lake, with stunning cliffs on either side (it looks like a river, but it’s just long and narrow). The bridge doubles as a section of the famous Mesabi Trail, so we parked at a trailhead on the outskirts of town and headed over.
On the way back to the cabin, we stopped at the much smaller lake, the charmingly-named Embarrass, to try to watch the sun set over the water. The sun did not oblige—we turned out to be looking in the wrong direction, and there was a hill in the way—but it was a peaceful moment all the same.
Mood
Sufjan Stevens — “Chicago”
Continuing last week’s theme of college nostalgia, I spent some time reviewing my stats on last.fm, a program that keeps track of what you listen to. I started using it in 2005, and most of my listening is digital, so this presents a good overall picture of my tastes and habits.
This came up because we were listening to the new Sufjan Stevens album, and I tried to guess where he ranked on my list. I was pretty damn close: I guessed #24, which would have been correct last week, but with the new spins he’d ascended to #21 (and now #18—but actually #16 because last.fm infuriatingly doesn’t combine results for “Belle and Sebastian” and “Belle & Sebastian,” even though people have complained about this for years and even though I swear they used to handle this situation correctly).
The new Sufjan album is good, though! It continues the quieter, more electronic vibe he’s been exploring. But I think Illinois will always be my favorite album of his. It came out in 2005, so right before I started using last.fm, and it reminds me of much more optimistic and ambitious times. A lot of this is just sentimentality; but not all of it. This was the second album of Stevens’ “50 States Project,” in which he planned to record an entire album about each U.S. state. And whether it’s because I was naïve or because more things felt possible then, it really felt like he could do it. Of course, Illinois ended up being the last entry in the project, as it currently stands. Luckily Sufjan didn’t go away; he just grew into a different artist, and moved on.
Also, I never thought in 2005 that I would eventually live in the state of Illinois, or that the city would come to mean something similar to me as it did to Sufjan.
I fell in love again
All things go, all things go
Drove to Chicago
All things know, all things know
Chicago - song by Sufjan Stevens | Spotify
Sufjan Stevens · Song · 2005
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Thanks for reading. Please take care, and write back if you can!
Love,
Aaron