None can pull the passion loose from youth's ungrateful hands

spatch and I have been married five years today. We stood together under the chuppah embroidered by my great-grandmother in front of the load-bearing piano on the mezzanine of the Somerville Theatre and were consecrated to one another with rings and ritual and a line from 1776. We spent our first night as a married couple at a hotel and our second night at the ER and our third night quietly home. And the next year our lives fell apart and nothing has been easy since, but we have never missed our anniversary.

The world has changed in five years. We have changed. At the moment we are both still sick, because viruses take no note of important time. But we are here and there is pale clear sun in the sky and the streets and we are going to celebrate. We chose to marry in winter even though we met in spring because it is the season when the light comes back. We brought ourselves out of the underworld once. We can do it again.