Comments on: 21

By: barbara sanchez

barbara sanchez — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:29:23 +0000

Belated happy anniversary. The world is richer because you met.

By: Sue Maden

Sue Maden — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 15:25:50 +0000

Congrats Kelley & Nicola! 21 years is an amazing gift. My husband and I will celebrate 11 this year and we feel like we’re just starting out. I think it’s because we feel in some ways we started anew around year 9. We didn’t follow the British, “start as you mean to go on”, although ironically my husband moved here from England to marry me. We had big ups and downs, and still have a few bumps. But it’s a different union now and I’m so thankful. I wish you both another 21 (and another 21 after that! ) years of bliss!

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 06:23:40 +0000

I will never tire of hearing that story of when you two met. It’s a great story. I believe it, but I wonder why we don’t here more stories like this – it seems pretty rare.

Happy Anniversary.

By: Jim Cox

Jim Cox — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:42:29 +0000

Congrats to both of you

By: Kelley

Kelley — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:40:03 +0000

Thank you all very much for your good wishes! It’s been a lovely day.

By: rhbee

rhbee — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:41:19 +0000

Just think now you are old enought to . . . No, wait 21 that’s young. Hell, you are just starting out. Well, happy future days, you all.

By: Allan Rousselle

Allan Rousselle — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:25:16 +0000

Kelley and Nicola: sincerest congratulations on your twenty-one years of happiness. May you continue to enjoy your lives together for many, many years to come!

By: Jill

Jill — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:12:24 +0000

Oh yes. Thanks Kelley!

By: Kelley

Kelley — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:58:28 +0000

“The English say, Start as you mean to go on, so perhaps itâs luck we met at a writing workshop. People warned me these workshops were rough: if I showed weakness of words, of confidence, of self, the other students would bring out the long knives and leave me collecting the leftovers of myself and my precious work in a bucket. But for me, the chance to spend six weeks in the company of students and professionals was like the scene in C.S. Lewisâ The Magicianâs Nephew, where the boy Digory stands in front of the bell and the plaque that says âMake your choice, Adventurous Stranger/Strike the bell and bide the danger/Or wonder, till it drives you mad/What would have followed if you had.â Iâve typed all that from memory because it burned into my adolescent brain the first time I read it, so many years ago, when I understood that I would be faced with such choices in my life: that I would have to draw back, or reach out and grab. Thatâs what the workshop felt like. So I quit my job and got a loan, and drove from Georgia to Michigan with a left ankle sprained blood-black, bandaged rigid so I could work the clutch pedal with my heel. I was scared witless: of debt, of writing, of not writing. Of those knives. Of finding myself too fucked up to create work that connects rather than distances, and having to go back home with a withered dream, a longed-for identity popped like a balloon.

And then came Nicola. The first time I saw her, in the hallway of the unairconditioned dorm, close and hot as a greenhouse, I opened my mouth to say How was your trip? as if we were already each otherâs friend, lover, partner, joint explorer. I knew in our first three sentences that she would be the best writer there; that I would help her be better; that all my assumptions about how my life would unfurl were wrong; and that I would someday be the writer I yearned to be, because she wouldnât have it any other way.

Sometimes people think it couldnât have been that sudden, that this is just a story we tell. And it is — the first story of us — but it also happened, and is happening still.”

From “As We Mean To Go On”

By: Jill

Jill — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:53:28 +0000

Thanks Nicola. I have read that one before. I remember really liking how you spoke about your relationship in general. I didn’t remember anything specific about Kelley talking about your first meeting .