Luminations of a New Wife

Visit to my old house

On our last trip to Miami earlier this year, I took Steve by the house I grew up in in Coconut Grove. We walked through the Grove, through "CocoWalk" and all the cheeziness that entails, with it's flashing neon lights and signs in Spanish advertising free daquiris for high school girls. It's necessary to insert here that "walked" is really a euphemism for "schlepped" - because in this time of year, with this heat and humidity, you're lucky to walk two blocks without breaking a sweat, panting, complaining and nearly out of breath.

I'm such a Miami girl.

Anyways, we pass my old high school on the left - the same one that boasted BMW's and Maserati's in it's parking lot; it's owner some lucky, random, undeserving fifteen year old. But I digress.  We walk under and through twisting mangrove trees till we finally arrive to my street. My street I called home for eight short years - the street I brought my college girlfriends back to, my friends all too excited to spend spring break in my parent's home, leaving behind the boredom of their rural hometown haphazardly nestled forty-five minutes north of Boston.

We approach my old house with some anticipation. It's been years since I've returned - six to be exact (but maybe less?) yet it feels like a lifetime. I have grown and regressed then matured and digressed a million times since I stealthily fled my house past curfew narrowly escaping through my bathroom windows. Anyone who has visited this house and knows my street knows this story. It's no big secret to those in the know.

There's a woman outside my old house, doing some gardening in the driveway, and she places her hand on her straw hat as she stands up to greet us. Actually, greet is too generous an action. She halts us, to be quite honest, mid-stride, as I show Steve my street, demonstrating with some grandeur my high school antics: "That's the pole I backed into each and every time I took the car out of the driveway!" I say with way too much enthusiasm. I introduce myself to the woman, thinking she would like to meet this Spanish villa's previous owner, but as quickly as I do so I wish I hadn't. She awkwardly asks us in and I ponder - do I want to see my old bedroom? had she painted over the graffiti wall in my closet? I look over at her and quickly decline, but to be honest, I wish I hadn't.

Our Anniversary

This summer flew by and already it's back to school - in some way I feel like we never even left save the new teacher's and taller students. I like working in a school especially in the fall, when the air is crisp and there is a feeling of euphoria in the air.

Steve and I celebrated our year anniversary this summer - it came as quickly as it was anticipated.  We seemed to plan forever our wedding, yet as soon as Steve broke the glass and we all shouted "mazel tov!" time has literally just flown by.

We toasted each other and our first year of marriage in the same place it happened, the top of Rockefeller Center. We nibbled on a piece of the cake that was saved, and yes, it was still as delicious now as it was that night. Later that week we boarded a plane for Exuma, a small island in the Bahamas and spent a week delighting in the blueness of this water:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Other weekends this summer were spent at my parents, where we ate leisure dinners outside as my dad BBQ'ed and my mom made enough sangria for the entire block.  Other nights we met our friends out for dinner, trying this place and that place and this one too.  When enough of us came together, we put up a volleyball net and played variations of 7th grade "nucumb" at a friend's rental in Remsenburg. By far the "Cool Girl Award of Summer '06" goes to Alyssa, who at 7 months pregnant and soon to be a doctor, still drinks her wine when her tuna sashimi arrives. When we really mustered up energy and braved the annoying NYC crowds posing as regular Hamptonites, we ran into an old high school friend from Miami who ended up spending the night when her girlfriend split for Montauk past 2AM.  All in all, a very fun summer indeed.

So, now that we are past the year mark, are we still newlyweds?

Humor me and take my litte poll.