Marriage, transience, and the elusive difficulty of belonging.

Our culture is one of transience. What does it mean to belong somewhere? What does it mean to have a place? Similar to marriage, here's how I've found belonging.

“What is the most important advice to give a couple before they get married?”

I never really considered a vocation that would involve officiating weddings and offering pre-marital counseling. I’m not sure anyone grows up with such a lofty career goal. Yet, I’ve somehow managed to have it be a regular part of my life over the last eight years. With such an endeavor comes the casual question of advice. I assume most inquiries are a well-meaning attempt to carry a conversation. Either way, I’ve come to offer a consistent answer.

Don’t do it.

Unless, of course, you are willing to subject yourself to one of the most difficult experiences of human life.

Marriage is the strange decision to let another person know every single part of you, every day, for the rest of your existence. You are choosing to occupy a common space with a common lifestyle where every waking (and sleeping) moment involves the other. You get to see every single part of them — their flaws, their failures, their baggage, their strange tendencies — and they get to see every single part of you. You will develop a shared history and a shared future as you consistently endure the complicated nature of another human being.

This is not a disposition we hold with almost any other relationship. Even parents and children, not to mention the majority of interactions through the span of one’s life, have an optional transience to them. Technically, though divorce rates are quite elevated, marriage is one of the only relationships where full belonging is promised; with a legal contract, no less.

There is also much hope with such an undertaking; for no other relationship offers the potential bond of this infinite mingling of souls. The commitment makes possible the sharing of gifts, the combination of skills and personalities that can be mutually beneficial, and fondness of sharing life and the world with a sense of permanence. There are typically four ingredients necessary to community — shared history, proximity, permanence, and shared vision. Marriage, it seems, is a microcosm of how community is supposed to work. Yet, as it goes with community, embodying and maintaining those ingredients involves the daily process of persisting through the messiness which symbiotically accompanies the relationship.

So, unless you are willing to embrace the struggle, feel free to abstain.

My marriage has had added complications. It’s also had a tremendous amount of growth. To be known by the same person through both calamity and calm reveals the potential mutuality that is not only rarer and rarer in society but incredibly satisfying. The calamities, however, have been present; and have emerged in their own unique form.

One was our own doing and was mostly a lack of foresight. My spouse and I got married while still in college with only a few hundred dollars to our names. We went from living in college dormitories to looking for an apartment that we couldn’t afford.

Living among the totality of another person at the inchoate age of twenty-one was a warning I never received. Doing so with no financial stability was boss-level difficult. We took our classes, worked as many jobs as possible, and often seethed with rage at the unknown adventure we had committed to. We then decided to take the difficulty up to eleven.

Both of us grew up in small communities and both of us found no solace in them. My parents had divorced, my extended family had lost contact, and transferring to a high school out of the village I grew up in left me with almost no continuity with the people I shared an address with as a child. My spouse, as well, had little endearment with where she grew up. As graduation neared, we shared the sentiment of apathy toward the only connections we knew.

Photo by author — taken in the moment of our actual departure from Ohio.

Transience was our answer. We vowed to leave and never come back. As our college graduation approached, we took the only money we had left and the only items two recently married college students own, got in a truck, and left for Pasadena, California — leaving Ohio in the rearview mirror to become a memory.

Southern California is a dream. The ocean is only a handful of miles away, there are mountains, and it is rife with the most hipster food establishments I’ve ever seen. And the culture! This is where cool people live, right? Well, alongside not realizing that it can take three hours to drive ten miles, we quickly became disillusioned with the supposed epicenter of progressive culture. Primarily because with the beautiful geography, the suspiciously perfect weather, and the amenities of high culture, there was an absence of something; an absence that felt strangely familiar.

Ironically, we lived in an apartment complex called “Koinonia,” a Greek word that means community. Shared history, proximity, permanence, and shared vision. Proximity could be checked off the list. I’m still not sure how so many people crammed into such a small space. But of the community ingredients, that was it. Southern California felt like the place to move so as to run away from broken belonging. This must be what transience looked like.

Needless to say, marriage remained difficult for no other reason than we felt completely and utterly alone. Now add to the equation one of the most tumultuous endeavors I can conjure up and the ground beneath our feet felt anything like home.

On a warm winter morning — December 12th, 2012 — my spouse and I hitched a ride to the hospital. We had somehow managed to achieve a relational connection with someone who also had a car — we didn’t — and after three days of my spouse having excruciating back pain, we finally made the decision to go to the hospital.

My spouse and I left the hospital that day with our first child.

Our baby boy was a posterior placenta, meaning that my spouse basically carried him in her back. To briefly defend the technical details, she never showed, she was still spotting, she didn’t gain any weight, and our lifestyle remained pretty much as it has been (fortunately, it was a healthy one). Yes, we knew how children were made, but we had no idea we were pregnant; let alone nine months pregnant. Reality became iridescently altered.

These are the moments where belonging becomes the only thing that matters. The very belonging we shunned, the very connections we ran away from were now the only thing we desired. With no money, no family, and no light at the end of the tunnel we did the only thing that made sense to us — we decided to move back to Ohio.

As cliché as it sounds, having a child changed us. It’s strange how furthered ancestry forces you to see the world differently. I, for one, always envisioned a life of urban joy. Busy streets, conglomerated access to the best of societal progress, and places with omnipresent opportunity. I considered my future to be akin to a vagabond — I would travel and explore, preferably in urban centers. I desired such freedom.

Imagine my shock when my departure from Pasadena, California ended in Metamora, Ohio, population 645. There’s more corn than people, buildings, or imagination combined. I was nowhere, or so I thought.

Metamora is best found on a map by looking West from the metropolis of Toledo (can it be called a metropolis?) and peering right up against the Michigan border. From where I sit, I can currently see the northern state (though it isn’t as “pure” down here). As someone previously dedicated to the urban experience, I will be the first to tell you that Metamora passes all the marks of being rural.

Metamora is one of three still-functioning villages with any semblance of activity in the immediate area. Alongside Lyons and Berkey (etymologies appropriately reflecting the European heritage of the area), these three villages find their larger coherence in what is the Evergreen School District — the largest school district in Ohio. Per acreage, that is.

Evergreen, as the common parlance refers to this place, is a composition of what was once six small villages and several townships. The villages remain as address indicators and were established as connecting locations from the days of railroad and horse travel. With the onset of automobiles, those transportation forms dwindled. As did the villages.

Most Midwestern, rural criteria fit the encompassing district and its surrounding area totaling about 30,000 inhabitants. Mostly white. Blue-collar. Small industries and lots of agriculture. There are the common entrepreneurs and suburbanites who retreated to the quaint countryside. Food access is minimal with a small handful of casual diners, a pizza parlor, and the occasional roadside produce stand. The closest grocery store is approximately 20 minutes away. There is, however, a meat market — St. Mary’s Meats — which reveals interest to reclaim once known local food (which many of those still alive fondly remember). What was a rural food cooperative survived the cultural shift of rural decline and still operates — albeit next to a cemetery with a sign that reads, “Fresh Cut Meats.”

What is unique about Evergreen is that it has no historical center or main street hub. There’s also no foundational industry and, with it, none of the tax benefits. The three small villages all host their array of abandoned buildings and none of them carry coherency among the population. Originally, each village was its own hub, hosting everything from stores to hotels. They also had their own local schools. In 1958, those six schools merged to form Evergreen.

The population continues to evolve. The age demographic is unique in comparison to other rural areas. Certainly, an aging population exists, but a surprising percentage of the population occupies the 25–40-year-old age bracket. Some still embody their intergenerational continuation and even live on the same parcel of land as their ancestors. Driving through the district reveals this evolution. Quite tangibly, it is easy to tell which homes have maintained heritage — they’re the ones that don’t resemble suburban architecture. The ideological landscape is, surprisingly, just as diverse. There are hillbillies and hippies. Collared conservatives and high-brow liberals. Sometimes a bit of all four at the same time. Maybe it's confusion. Maybe it's uncertainty. But this is where I now live.

This brings me to the second most question I am often asked:

“Why do you live out there?”

The connotation is typically elongated with an insinuating emphasis on the second half of the question. The answer is complicated. On the surface, I didn’t necessarily choose this location. There was a job opportunity, we were still broke, and my decision-making power had been quite vanquished after moving from Pasadena. However, the question is fair. Quite literally, some people cannot imagine how one can go from Southern California to the remote wilderness of rural America. Especially having been so urban, my current residence, in the mind of most questioners, must be an act of despair or exile.

My marriage had something to do with it. Amidst the chaos of how our marriage began, we found solace in one another. For a time, we were the only source of connection we had. We found out what it meant to belong; what it meant to subsume responsibility to another even with the flaws, failures, and messiness. We realized the potential of committing to another, its maturity over time, and how this loyalty and affection could produce more than the transience of individuality. In each other, we were known. When nothing else made sense, we had more in the other than we had alone.

For the first time, I cared less about what someone could offer me and, instead, prioritized what could be offered collaboratively. My previous desire for individual freedom produced a life where I was never home; where, no matter my location, I never had a place. The difficulty of marriage revealed my ineptitude. The onset of children made it a priority.

I began to lament how I had no one in my life who knew me my entire life. I had no history outside of myself. As I haphazardly found residence in this desolate landscape full of strange people and complicated narratives, I sensed these people had something that my pursuit of progress, liberation, and culture could never offer: Belonging.

We talk about the life of rural people as not only irrelevant but archaic and futile. Urban folks (the ones who really matter) must avoid these people or correct them; possibly even colonize them. The assumption that rural areas are defined by their cultural lack, however, may reveal more about our culture’s blindness than rural misfortune. These people sure seemed a mess. They all appeared, somehow, to be related to one another. There weren’t and still aren’t many amenities especially in comparison to farms. Stereotypically, there is nothing to do out here. But there is a lot to be done. I saw, for the first time, people who knew where they were. They carry the generalization of being backward and provincial, but it may simply be because they give credence to what our culture has long forgotten — each other.

When I answer the demeaning question about my current residence, I usually begin with my children in mind. I hope to provide my children with knowledge, wisdom, and peace. I also hope to provide them with a place. I hope that in their old age, they can look upon someone who has seen them and truly known them since their first days.

In the end, many of us will die with great stories of adventure and trite memories of the mighty deeds and acquisitions our culture prioritizes. We want to see the world, experience its pleasures, and arrive at a status only possible by traversing the human journey with a sort of homelessness. When my end inevitably comes, I hope that the most important thing I’ve acquired is the relationships that I held and that held me through a seemingly mediocre life.

Shared history. Proximity. Permanence. Shared vision.

Maybe to my own futility, those have become my standards.

These are standards, though, that cost something. They require one’s feet to be firmly rooted where they are; to care about a place with such tenacity that you see to its future by being connected with its present and with its past. We often live as if we are the first and last who will be in the places we are. Yet, I have realized that who I am has been in large part determined by what my forbearers were — by how they chose to live in this place. Every day I am confronted with the question of what inheritance I will leave. What will I do for this demanding and difficult place?

I want to die with the satisfaction that I was known and that my contribution to a small place will transcend my own existence. I want to enact my life in this small space called nowhere, full of strange people, infinite corn, and chaos. I want to die in a world that I was glad to live in.

Which can only manifest in these few square miles inherited by consciousness and intimacy.

Our culture lives with the assumption that the quality of life is determined by luxury, convenience, and access which is best found in the conglomerated metros. To arrive is to have the cool, special, important things only available to those smart enough to detach themselves from messy people. It is now my opinion that the quality of life is best reflected in the connection of relationships. Our “arrival” as sentient beings will only amount to our connection to the places we are. How many people live in places without ever arriving in them? If we have not yet devoted ourselves to a place over time, we will not know it and it will not know us. There is no greater human achievement than to fully arrive in this way; to be known and to belong.

I’ve concluded, therefore, that if I want to die with that kind of satisfaction, I will need to die here. I must learn to fit into this small place with an intricate awareness of its needs and rhythms. I must live slowly in accordance with the knowledge of where I am. I must let go of the superficial abundance that beckons in the siren’s call of independence and give myself to a place that will then offer more abundance than is possible in the high-wheeling transience of the world. If my life is to find the profound belonging only possible in this limited landscape, then it will require that my flesh one day rot into its ground.

This is all idealistic rubbish, I know. The same culture that promotes sleeping around wonders the same thing about marriage and, more notably, sex. Why have sex with one person the rest of your life when you can have lots of sex with lots of different people? Would you really want to give up that possibility? Absolutely.

For one, memory builds over time. As I do not have infinite time, the decision of marriage is simply if I want to know one person deeply or many people shallowly. Not to be crude, but a common partner over time leads to better sex, as well. I may be “missing out” on a breadth of experiences, but the one-night stand is missing out on the enhancement that can only come through continuous belonging. The adventure of being married is infinite; it can never be finished. A lifetime would not be enough to experience it all. You can choose to experience a lot of things with breadth or one thing deeply, but you can’t choose them both. As it goes with where we live.

When this retort appears, I often imagine myself having the same conversation from Good Will Hunting that Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) has with Will Hunting (Matt Damon):

Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations. Him and the pope. Sexual orientation. The whole works, right. I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling, seeing that.
If I ask you about women, you’ll probably give me a syllabus of your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
You’re a tough kid. I ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right? “Once more into the breach, dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watch him gasp his last breath lookin’ to you for help.
If I asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable; known someone that could level you with her eyes, feelin’ like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleepin’ sittin’ up in a hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.

What does it mean to love someone?

What does it mean to love someplace?

Making myself the end goal of life’s journey is not interesting to me anymore. The quickest way to destroy a marriage is to assume the other person is simply there to provide you with something. When others become objects for our use, there is no mutuality. We are a culture set on receiving much and offering only as much as necessary.

Marriage has, therefore, taught me what it means to belong and my marriage is able to act as an extension to my place. The same standards are present and the same beautiful outcomes are possible — especially when done together.

I, in my belonging to my spouse, am also married to my place. It requires the same commitment, the same loyalty, the same affection, and the same responsibility. It must endure the same flaws and failures. Community, like marriage, is often unromantic because it deals with and seeks to truly know real people.

Marriage works when you choose it. So does belonging. There is no perfect partner and there is no perfect place. There are only people who choose to belong and choose to build what is in their reach over time. This, then, is the real answer to why I live out here.

Because I choose to.

Because I have made it mine and decided to take responsibility for it. Our relationship to where we are is often no more than that of a curious traveler. We are not responsible to it. When we are dissatisfied, we simply go to another place and solve the problems by taking ourselves someplace else. Here, I cannot escape the sense that I am involved because, in being a part of this geographical proximity, I contribute to and am affected by it. I have to ask what this difficult and demanding place needs from me. What does Evergreen require of my one, limited, yet wild life? Evergreen is a part of me. I am part of its native landscape. Therefore, I do not care what it has to offer me. I only care what I have to offer it before my flesh rots into its ground.

Because this is home.

And there is nowhere else I’d rather be.

I’m proud to say that I would rather live in Metamora, Ohio than Pasadena, California. It has nothing to do with amenities. I would rather live here because here is home, and this is home because I choose to make it home. I’ve chosen to root my feet in the ground to produce what transplanting makes impossible.

Maybe I’m just aloof, but I really do believe culture is overrated. Meaning is better found elsewhere.

I’m also honest enough to say that everywhere sucks. I’ll meet recent graduates who express their desire to leave for greener pastures and I’ll try to express to them how similar that is to uprooting a plant. Often, just like myself, they won’t hear it. They, too, must go to see that every place is undesirable; that the grass is the same in those exotic lands. At some point, they will either need to keep transiently traveling or choose to belong to the messiness of where they are. They will keep searching for the mythological perfect place or they will decide to make a place their own.

Everywhere is nowhere unless you choose for it to become somewhere.

Nowhere has become my home.

Someplace has become my place.

I’m learning to die here.

And — just like marriage — I think I’ll be happier for the trouble.