Origin story

Tuesday Essay by Neal and Kerry Zagarella

We still have some of the white pencils we had printed up as wedding favors. The standard #2 pencils were inscribed with our names and the date of our wedding. In a time when most people gave personalized books of matches, we wanted something that was unique to who we were; writers who needed erasers!

There are so many decisions that go into planning a wedding, that a willingness to compromise is key. It may be one of the best boot camps for a happy marriage where understanding each other’s point of view is essential. A skill that is certainly earned. Sometimes you actually have to settle a disagreement by not getting what you want. Girl!

Neal and I can look back and joke about some of those times when reaching a middle ground seemed impossible. Before we were married we experienced the toughest test of our love, and that was our first canoeing adventure. Still to this day, I know I was the more experienced boater (ha ha…I am also writing this and will not give Neal editing privileges!). For the life of us we could not get our rowing in sync. We both had two very different ideas about who was in charge of paddling and who followed those instructions. It was a LONG day on the Ipswich River. We drove home in silence and forever refer to that day as our “journey down the river Styx”, that mythical river being the border between the living world and Hades.

Every year our kids prepared for the marital rumble provoked by setting up a camp site. But as years passed and our camping skills increased, Neal and I began to jokingly refer to the actions of setting up a rain tarp as “the divorce machine”.

Now, those past arguments seem silly. The unrelenting confidence in our own opinion and our complete devotion in defending it, even when a mistied rope releases a 25’ by 20’ plastic tarp on your head, seems so insignificant.

Of course, there are more serious topics that the fates can serve. Vastly differing opinions need to be genuinely understood before reaching any type of agreement. Love has to be relentless, a solid foundation on which to have difficult disagreements. In a marriage, or any partnership, you must learn how to argue.

You have to believe that the other person has your back, even if they don’t share your viewpoint. You have to trust. Truly trusting even just one person can be life changing. Well, for me it was. Neal and I continue to count our blessings to have not only found each other as best friends, but to have evolved together to become a team as well as individual people.

This is beginning to sound like an advice column. Let me state for the record, these nuances of friendships and relationships are not only regulated to marriage. Honesty, trust, AND disagreement in a loving way makes all relationships stronger.

Thirty six years ago, today, we promised to get through all the difficult times together. Those pronouncements recognize the reality of life’s hardships. After that sometimes solemn ceremony, the celebration of love and longevity begins. Family and friends bring their joy and together announce a new beginning. For us, it begins in a familiar place, a dance floor. Take it away Neal.

Aaah, the beginning. It was just an ordinary weekend night. For me it began somewhere, playing pool with a buddy and drinking beer. From there my friend and I ventured to the now long gone City Hall Pub in Peabody Square. There was music and a dance floor, but my friend and I were just having beers. Through the door came a boisterous gaggle of young women celebrating someone’s engagement. One of those women was my best friend’s girlfriend Lisa. Suddenly there was an excuse to put my beer bottle down. I dashed to the dance floor and swirled around with Lisa for a song or two. When I got back to my buddy (not Lisa’s boyfriend), he was talking to a young woman. That young woman was Kerry.

With the conversation already underway, it was easy for me to slip in. Kerry was with her cousin, and when the lights brightened and last call beckoned, they invited my buddy and I to an after party. Once at the party I found myself seated on a couch next to Kerry, the party swirling around us. With 3am in the rear view mirror and the two of us hitting it off well, I proposed. Well, actually I put my head on her shoulder and proposed that she come to work with me. See, at the time my job was delivering the Boston Globe all over Beverly in my van from 4am to 7am. I was a real catch.

Miraculously she agreed. We traversed the dark Beverly streets dispersing the news, listening to music, and talking easily about anything and everything. We finished with an early breakfast at the Port Diner in Danvers. I dropped her back at her apartment in Salem and went home to get a few hours sleep and meet some friends in Harvard Square. When I got back home late in the afternoon, I returned a phone call from her. Again, the conversation was easy. One year later we were married.

If I needed any more convincing that our miracle match was meant to be, it came sometime during that first morning when Kerry handed me a piece of paper, both sides filled with typing. One side contained a portion of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem “I’m Waiting.” The other side had the lyrics to Billy Bragg’s great song “Waiting for the Great Leap Forward.”

As it turns out, for both of us, the waiting was over.

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