Marriage is the clue to human life, but there is no marriage apart from the wheeling sun and the nodding earth, from the straying of the planets and the magnificence of the fixed stars. Is not man different, utterly different, at dawn from what he is at sunset / and a woman too? And does not the changing harmony and discord of their variation make the secret music of life? And is it not so throughout life? A man is different at thirty, forty, at fifty, at sixty, at seventy: and the woman at his side is different. But is there not some strange conjunction in their differences? Is there not some peculiar harmony, through youth, the period of childbirth, the period of florescence and young children, the period of woman’s change of life, painful yet also a renewal, the period of waning passion but mellowing delight of affection, the dim, unequal period of the approach of death, when the man and woman look at one another with the dim apprehension of separation that is really not a separation: is there not, throughout it all, some unseen, unknown interplay of balance, harmony, completions like some soundless symphony which moves with a rhythm from phase to phase, so different, so very different in the various movements, and yet one symphony, made out of the soundless singing of two strange and incompatible lives, a mans and a womans?

Man dies, and woman dies, and perhaps separate the souls go back to the Creator. Who knows? But we know that the oneness of the bloodstream of man and woman in marriage completes the universe, as far as humanity is concerned, completes the streaming of the sun and the flowing of the stars.

D. H. Laurence

I love you, Not only for what you are But for what I am When I am with you.
I love you Not only for what You have made of yourself But for what You are making of me.

I love you For the part of me That you bring out; I love you For, putting your hand Into my heaped—up heart And passing over All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help Dimly seeing there, And for drawing out Into the light All the beautiful belongings That no one else had looked Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you... Are helping me to make Of the lumber of my life Not a tavern But a temple; Out of works Of my every day Not a reproach But a song.

I love you Because you have done More than any creed Could have done To make me good And more than any fate Could have done To make me happy.

You have done it Without a touch, Without a word, Without a sign. You have done it By being yourself. Perhaps that is what Being a friend means, After all.

I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be. I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals. I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little. A satisfied flower is one whose petals are about to fall. The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire are working for a larger and finer growth. Not always shall you be what you are now. You are going forward toward something great. I am on the way with you and therefore I love you.

Carl Sandburg

What is a friend? I will tell you. It is a person with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They seem to ask of you to put on nothing, only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel as a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard, you can say what you think, so long as it is genuinely you. They understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With a friend, you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meanness, and absurdities and (in opening them up) they are lost dissolves on the white ocean of their loyalty. A friend understands. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It makes no matter. They like you. They are like fire that purges to the bone. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them. Through it all and underneath they see, know, and love you.

A friend? What is a friend? Just one, I repeat, with whom you dare to be yourself.

Unknown

Let's grow old together... beginning with today.
Let's work slowly with each other and build a relationship that we can both enjoy being a part of.
Let's share love and understand that neither of us is perfect; we are both subject to human frailties.
Let's hold each other close and whisper though the night--pledging our love, honoring our commitment.
Let's encourage each other to pursue our dreams, even when we're weary from trying.
Let's expect the best that we both have to give and still love when we fall short of our expectations.
Let's be friends and respect each other's individual personality and give one another room to grow.
Let's be candid with each other and point out strengths and weaknesses.
Let's understand each other's personal philosophy, even if we don't agree.
Let's lie awake long into the night sharing our innermost secrets.
Let's be friends as well as lovers.
Let's laugh at time and plan with each other and wonder how we ever got along without this love we've found.
Let's never take for granted these moments that we've shared, but always be reminded of how intensely we have learned to live, how completely we have learned to love.
Let's grow old together...
and look back on life and smile.

Braxton Brown and Peggy Smith

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