To those who shared our most happy day those many years ago, we thank you for being there, and continuing to be in our lives today! To those who weren't able to be there (or weren't born yet!), we wish that you all would have even just one day in your lives that happy and joyous!
To our 6 precious children, their 6 amazing life partners, and our 6 fabulous grandchildren, we would simply say this. When we married, we vowed to each other that we would create a home full of love, first for our family. We are eternally grateful that you all help make that dream come true every single day of our lives.
Here's how you can help us celebrate our 25th anniversary (be patient, it's kind of a long story). Yesterday as we were writing up our experiences at the University for Peace (UPeace) in San Jose, Costa Rica, we wandered around on the website that honors the legacy of Robert Muller (http://robertmuller.org/rm/R1/Home.html). Muller served at the United Nations for 40 years, most of those as Assistant Secretary General. When incredibly serendipitous circumstances moved the UN to establish the University for Peace, Muller was selected to found and develop the institution. Long an admirer of Muller, Dave's intention was to make an interview with him the very first of his sabbatical. Unfortunately, as we were planning our trip to Costa Rica for January 2011, we learned that Muller passed away in September 2010. Off we went to UPeace, anyway, and had a perfectly remarkable experience.
 |
| Bench of Dreams at UPeace |
So how about helping us celebrate our 25th Anniversary today (or whenever you get a minute in the near future), pick up a couple of stones (or pebbles or whatever is at hand), close your eyes, make up a dream for peace, toss one stone back onto the Earth, and take the other one home as a reminder. Then send us an email (dcschwinn@yahoo.com) or a text (517.331.0095) and let us know about your dream! With your permission, we'll make up a blog about 25th Anniversary Dreams for Peace!
Here's another thing we found on the Muller website yesterday that brought it all home for us...what we believe in, what we would dream for the world, how we would wish to live, and how we would like to celebrate our anniversary - with YOU (read to the last line).
 |
| From Robert Muller's "Decide To" Poems |
"I pray that all human beings of this Earth become instruments of peace, thus fulfilling the cosmic function deeply engraved in each of us and for which we were born and allowed to live temporarily on this beautiful planet in the vast universe and eternal stream of time. The peace of the world is the sum-total of the peace of all individuals."
Blessings all and thanks for helping us celebrate!
How very wonderfully beautiful! This weekend I shall find some stones and dream some dreams for peace. The love the two of you share has been a touchstone, inspiration, home base, heart healer and model for OVER 25 years. The famous line of the three of us beginning to find out how to be our big family together still stands today, with perhaps a deeper meaning than when it was first uttered at 17.... "Who IS this guy?" Indeed, who is this gentle, dear, caring, brilliant soul who showed up to BE the perfect partner, companion, lover (ewwww), thinker, wanderer, and world changer to my perfect and dear darling mother? Dave. As in Dave and Carole, Carole and Dave. The most together, together couple I have ever known and am so very blessed to call my parents. Let the peace on Earth be as grounded and giving as the two of you! Love Lisa, the youngest girl child.
ReplyDeleteBlessings of peace, great joy and sustained good health to both/all of you! Bob Deahl and Friends at Marquette University
ReplyDeleteYou are both exquisitely beautiful! Congratulations. Sweet to hear your reflections from the journey. Big hugs -- before I go back-packing for 4 days. :)
ReplyDeleteTenneson
When I think of peace, I think of Aunt Carole and Uncle David. Both have listened intently to my life's woes for many years. They have served as a perfect couple, for me to model. Not only were they loving and caring; but, sought learning of the world and how they may be a positive force in our world. Aunt Carole chose a complimentary mate - that all of our family has accepted and benefitted from his wisdom. Congratulations on your travels and wish you many more peaceful years.
ReplyDeleteCathleen and Ibar
Our beloved friend, Peter wrote:
ReplyDeleteTrying to capture the beauty and essence of Carole's and Dave's relationship feels a bit daunting, especially following the moving, heartfelt, knowing entries above, but a guy's gotta try.
The challenge I've had is trying to express in words something that's inherently ephemeral but clearly palpable. I'm talking about the feeling I always have when they're together. That is, in addition to knowing and experiencing the individual glories of Carole and Dave, you also become aware of a third presence: you also have the privilege and pleasure of being with Carole-and-Dave. And that's what's so difficult about this invitation. How do you acknowledge and celebrate the presence of that swirl of shared magic? How can you put that into words? Is it even possible to capture that extraordinary relationship essence?
Well, if you're a person who loves poetry, as I do, you find someone else to do the heavy lifting. And so, without further ado, here's a poem that I think, for me, solves the dilemma posed above. It's a poem by Nick Laird, titled "Epithalamium." Interestingly, "epithalamium" is an ancient Greek word for "wedding toast," but it could just as easily, in this situation, also stand in as an "anniversary toast."
Epithalamium
Nick Laird
You're beeswax and I'm bird shit.
I'm mostly harmless. You're irrational.
If I'm iniquity then you're theft.
One of us is supercalifragilistic.
If I'm the most insane disgusting filth
you're hardly curiosa.
You're bubble wrap to my fingertips.
You're winter sleep and I'm the bee dance.
And I am menthol and you are eggshell.
When you're atrocious I am Spellcheck.
You're the yen. I'm the Nepalese pound.
If I'm homesteading you're radical chic.
I'm carpet shock and you're the rail.
I'm Memory Foam Day on Price-Drop TV
and you're the Lord of Misrule who shrieks
when I surface in giggles through duckweed,
and I am Trafalgar and you're Waterloo,
and frequently it seems to me that I am you,
and you are me. If I'm the rising incantation
you're the charm, or I am, or you are.
And that, as they say, is that. Since I really couldn't conjure up a better description of riding with the Schwinns, all I need to say now is how much I've treasured any opportunity to be stimulated, affirmed, and buoyed up by the unique experience of being with Carole-and-Dave.
So congratulations, you two! You give all of us instructions and hope about the glories of creating a truly intimate partnership and the "true grit" it takes to sustain it. I hope we all have at least 25 more years to savor that gift!
Love & hugs,
Peter