‘To Death Do Us Part
‘Til death do us part, but first, let me get some photographs.
They say opposites attract and I am a firm believer in that. Each person should bring a unique perspective to the relationship to challenge the other to do something they wouldn’t normally do. In our relationship, I’m the spontaneous one, my wife, Cindy is the planner. I’m not exciting or adventurous, no, I’m lazy and hate planning. My wife however, will execute a plan on how she’s going to plan a plan.
We were married in late October of 2021 and were on day two of our honeymoon in beautiful Yosemite. I had never been before. The weather was perfect, a warm mid 70 degrees fahrenheit, and there were hardly any other visitors.
We went for a long hike and half way through, hot and a little tired, we came across a stunning pool of crystal clear water. The edges and bottom were covered with the most perfectly smooth rounded boulders. My spontaneity kicked in!
“Why are you taking your clothes off?”, my wife asked.
“We’re going skinny dipping! Come on, it’ll be great!”, trying to convince her to throw caution to the wind.
But, she seemed to be apprehensive, beginning an interrogation with questions like, “Have you even tested to see how cold the water is? Do you even know where this water comes from? I wouldn’t do that if I were you!”.
We’ll of course she wouldn’t! This diversion tactic was expected because, clearly, she’s terrified of this unplanned event. But, it might not hurt to dip a toe in. I grazed the water with my toes and convinced myself that it was a bit chilly but bearable. Anyway, I’m naked, I can’t back out now.
I sat on the bank and put one foot in the water and rested it on the smooth surface of the rock. “Well, that’s quite a bit more colder than I expected!”, I thought. Okay, time to reconsider. I put pressure on my numbing, submerged foot to push myself up out of the water but the smooth rock surface was also covered in algae, a substance slicker than ice. I slid completely into the ice-cold pool of water. Instantly, every muscle in my body tensed and what didn’t tense shrank.
I could barely move, couldn’t exhale, only gasp. Panicked, I gasped the word “Help!”, as I floundered and splashed around. My wife, who, not 72 hours earlier, vowed to love, hold, cherish, blah, blah, blah was on the bank laughing and engaged in what appeared to be an impromptu photo shoot. I’ll admit, I had to admire her spontaneity.
But, I’m slipping into hypothermia and she’s all of a sudden the love-child of Ansel Adams and Robert Mapplethorpe. Like she’s going to get a Pulitzer Prize for her ‘Life’ magazine cover-photo of the body of her dead, blue, naked husband floating in a pool of emerald green water. The irony hadn’t escaped me.
Desperately I clawed at the edge of the pool. My wife looked down at me and said, “I told you so!” Ahhhh, there it is, my first marital ‘I told you so’. Well, I’m going to cherish this for as long as I live… which will likely be mere seconds if I don’t get out of…” You know that’s snow-melt, right? “, my wife disclosed, shedding light on the purpose of her pre-skinny dip interrogation.
I managed to get one foot stuck in a crevasse between two rocks and was able to launch myself like an injured seal onto the dirt bank. There I lay, shivering, exhausted, covered in a thick layer of dirt and torn grass and weeds thinking that I could still, somehow, pass all of this off as a fun, spontaneous act that turned out just like I planned… er, actually, didn’t plan.
Then I remembered, of the 35 exposures on the camera, one was of Half-Dome, the other 34 were photographic evidence of my poorly executed attempt to impress my wife with my contribution to the marriage.
