One Year

This weekend Kevin and I celebrated an entire year of being married. We decided to clear our schedules and just spend a low-key day together, cooking and watching TV. We made french toast for breakfast and lamb with roast potatoes for dinner. We drank mimosas in the morning and wedding brandy in the evening. We also defrosted the cake that's been in our freezer for the past year and dutifully ate a slice each before trashing the rest of it. Freezer cake may be the stupidest tradition.

I guess at this point other people would write something poetic about marriage or commitment or love. The truth is, the celebration felt a little arbitrary. It was nice to have a reason to put aside a day. Especially since Kevin's been out of town for most of the past month. But it's also new and a little weird. We've been together for a long time now. We've been living together for nearly five years, during which time we bought a house, adopted a dog, and basically figured out how to live together. Sot he one year anniversary mostly brought up feelings of "it's only been a year?"

Regardless, it was a good day. It's nice to have an excuse to buy presents for Kevin in the Spring, when grilling and biking accessories are actually available in stores. It's nice to have a day to celebrate our relationship. I'm sure that as we get more of these under our belts I'll become more accustomed to the whole idea of an anniversary.

Biking

The thing I miss most abut living in Boulder is how easy it was to bike everywhere. Boulder isn't a big city, and it's one of the more bike-friendly places in the country. It was pretty easy for me to get in the habit of running many of my errands on bike, biking to work, and just going out for quick rides on the weekends.

That all changed when I moved to Virginia. For one, the suburbs are a lot more spread out. Instead of being a mile away, my bank was now closer to three miles away. There are a lot more cars, too, and the whole experience is scarier. The heat and humidity, which I wasn't yet used to, didn't help. It wasn't long before I feel out of the habit completely, and my attempts to pick it back up were cut short by how horrifically out of shape I got.

I'm changing that now.

The ten mile ride to work is a lot more than the two mile ride I had back in Boulder. But I'm in much better shape than I was, even then. It adds to my commute, but it's a more efficient way to exercise overall and leaves me with more time free in the evenings. And if it cuts into my reading time, well, reading less was one of my goals for this year.

I'm hoping to be able to ride to work twice a week, weather permitting. As I get stronger, I may even up that. Although I'm currently pretty tired and sore from doing the ride yesterday. It didn't help that I picked a miserable day for my first bike to work. It was cold enough in the morning to make my hands go numb and windy enough in the evening to add twenty minutes to what is usually an hour-long ride. But I did it, and I can do it again, and I will keep improving.

On top of this, I'm trying to bike for smaller errands. I can easily bike three miles to the pet store or bike store when I need something small. Ditto the grocery store, which is only 1.5 miles away. Although I have to be careful how much I buy when I do that. I can only carry so many groceries. But if I make more, smaller trips, well that's just more excuses to ride the bike.

The key here is incorporating the bike into my daily life. To choose it over the car whenever it makes sense. Staying on the bike makes me want to get on the bike more. And biking constantly will make it easier to go on longer rides when I can. One of these days I may actually be able to keep up with Kevin on a thirty or forty (or fifty?) mile ride.

When I first moved here, one of Kevin's goals was to ride the entire W&OD trail, 45 miles from Purcellville to Shirlington. I dropped him off at the high end and picked him up several hours later at the low end. Maybe next year I'll get him to do the same for me. Or maybe we can find someone else to drive and ride it together.

Perfect

Every now and then you get a perfect day.

Sunday was warm and breezy and sunny. Kevin and I went for a 12.5 mile bike ride, so he could show me how to get to my office from home. It's the longest ride I've ever done, and it felt good. I may have even been able to make it all the way home, but I'm glad we decided to take the metro back. I still want to work up to that round trip slowly, especially since the way home is almost entirely uphill. Though I don't think it'll be as steep or even as continuous as I initially thought. There were some uphill portions on the ride to my office that should even things out. I'm not too far from being able to do the round trip. Or, more importantly, from being able to bike to work.

After we got home, we cleaned up the main floor and I spent a few hours organizing my library. I pulled a few more books to donate, and an entire box-full of Kevin's childhood books that are falling apart. We're going to see how badly his mom wants to keep them, and then have her take those back and throw out the rest. I just don't like having an entire shelf of spineless, musty books that can't even be read. I'd rather buy new copies when it's time. I also moved a bunch of books to shelves in the living room which means that, for the first time in years, there's empty space in my library. It has room to grow again. Though I'm going to try to be more careful about keeping it pruned from now on.

Connor and his girlfriend, Allison, came over for dinner. We sat in the backyard and grilled burgers because, as mentioned, the weather was amazing. I feel like we've usually grilled a lot more by this time in the year. But between rainy weekends and Kevin being out of town, we haven't found the time. It was nice to fire the grill back up and enjoy a cookout. Then we played monopoly on the fancy board dad got us for Christmas. I got destroyed and it looked like Allison was going to win when we stopped the game to go watch Game of Thrones.

It was everything a weekend day should be - the perfect blend of productivity and relaxation, or alone time and family time. It's nice to stop and smell the roses every now and then.

The Blue-Bearded Fox

Once upon a time, a man and a woman got married.

As beginnings go it isn't that exciting. It's the sort of thing that happens every day. Nevertheless every story must start somewhere, and this one starts here.

The man had been married before. He was a rich widower who liked to have a woman around the house. His new wife was young and beautiful and not at all sure what she was getting into.

After the wedding she moved into his large house. Maybe mansion is more accurate. The only rule he had was that she must stay out of his study.

Is he the Beast? I hear you ask yourself.

Worse, I reply.

They settled in to married life and everything was fine for a few weeks. She cooked and cleaned and he did whatever it was that he did to earn money. It was comfortable.

Then the man was called away on business. Before he left, he warned her again to stay out of his study.

Alas she had always been curious. He'd been gone less than an hour before she'd fetched the key and was standing in the door of his study, wishing she'd listened to him. Surrounded by the corpses of his previous wives, she could do nothing but scream.

Her scream brought him back. He had never actually left. It was a test. She failed. Her punishment was to join the rest of his wives.

Eventually the man found a satisfactory woman who obeyed him completely. He also found that some of the thrill had gone out of his life.

No. Scratch that. I don't like that story at all. Do you?

Let's back up. Before the beginning. When the man and woman were betrothed.

Mary had always been curious, you see. She wasn't about to move into a house without at least seeing it first. Besides which, Mr. Fox had invited her to come see his estate. There was no reason for her to stay away and every reason to surprise him one evening.

One of the risks of surprising someone is that, not knowing your intentions, they may not be there to be surprised.

Undeterred by the owner's absence, Mary elected to explore the house on her own. It would soon be hers, after all.

She entered the grounds and walked down the path. On a series of arches between the gate and the door she read the following:

Be bold, be bold. 
But not too bold. 
Else your heart's blood 
shall run cold.

Boldness, like curiosity, was not something Mary lacked. She ignored the warning and continued into the house. It was only a matter of time before she came across her fiance's study, saw the corpses he kept like trophies.

Before she could decide what to do she heard Mr. Fox coming up the lane. Dragging the body of a young woman behind him.

Mary ran down the stairs, but she wasn't fast enough to escape the house. She ducked behind a table, hoping he'd be too preoccupied to see her. From her hiding place she saw him notice a diamond ring on his victim's figure, attempt to tug it off, grow frustrated, cut the finger off using a knife from his belt, tuck his prize into a pocket. That done, he resumed dragging the corpse upstairs. When he was gone, Mary grabbed the discarded finger and ran home.

On their wedding day, before the papers were to be signed, the families gathered to share a meal. With everyone there, Mary began to recount the tale of her visit to Mr. Fox's house. Over his repeated protests ("It is not so, nor twas it so, and God forbid it should be so.") she laid bare all she had seen, finally producing the finger of the latest woman he had killed. Mary's father and brothers wasted not a moment before leaping on Mr. Fox and hacking him to pieces.

***

The first of these stories is a French folktale called Bluebeard. It's several centuries old, possibly based on the crimes of Gilles de Rais, who lived in the early 15th century. Then again, it may predate him. The moral is clear: be obedient, not curious.

The second story, which rewards the woman for her curiosity, is an English folktale sometimes called The Robber Bridegroom and other times Mr. Fox. Again, it's hard to date this tale. William Shakespeare called it old when he referenced it in Much Ado About Nothing (Act I, scene i).

Because of the nature of oral traditions, not to mention the geographic distance between these two tales' origins, it's impossible to know which came first. But it certainly seems like one is a reaction to the other. And after all, Englad and France aren't so far from each other.

I first encountered Mr. Fox in college, in Neil Gaiman's The White Road. Gaiman elects to have Mary falsely accuse an innocent Mr. Fox, which is a choice I'm more wary of than I used to be. Still, the story captured my imagination at the time. It burrowed into my subconscious and stuck with me.

Years later, I cam across Bluebeard in a collection of modern retellings of fairy tales. I was intrigued enough to briefly look up the original tale, but Bluebeard didn't entrance me. Though it did haunt me, feeding on my love of vampires and driving me to distrust Mr. Rochester.

After I read White is for Witching, I went looking for more of Oyeyemi's work. It took me a while to actually pick up another of her books, but Mr. Fox has been on my mental book shelf since I heard of it. I love literature that takes apart and examines fairy tales. I knew Mr. Fox was concerned with Bluebeard. Oyeyemi is both vicious and smart, and I was eager to see her take on this particular tale.

Of course, I got caught up in other things. My sister-in-law told me she hadn't liked Mr. Fox, which caused me to hesitate, even as I saw praise for it all over the internet. Then my book club chose White is for Witching and I decided it was the perfect opportunity seek out Mr. Fox once and for all.

Ten pages in, that phrase is repeated: Be bold, be bold; but not too bold.

It was like an electric shock that sent my whole brain buzzing. I immediately found and re-read the Gaiman story. I fell down a wiki-hole, pulled books off my own shelves as I reminded myself of all the other times I had encountered those words, that story. I learned more, saw for the first time how the two tales comment on each other. I finally came up for air, eager, prepared for this book. I am intimately familiar with the framework, now, prepared to digest Oyeyemi's take.

By a stroke of luck, I also have Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride sitting on my to-read stack. I bought it on the same day I bought Mr. Fox, simply because I can't pass up a cheap copy of an Atwood book. It's about the same thing, with the genders swapped. I'm about to fall into a foxhole, surround myself with this tale. See you on the other side.