Cast your minds back, if you will, to the year 2007. It was a gentler time, when global warming was only just invented and Kevin Rudd was super exciting.
It was a time when CJ and Louise fell in love. (Well, CJ did. I was WAY ahead of the times.)
To celebrate the fact that we’d been dating for a WHOLE two months, CJ and I drove down the coast in a car that has since gone to the garage in the sky*.
Along the way, while driving on the King’s Highway between Canberra and Bungendore, CJ delightedly pointed out dozens of teddy bears attached to the trees. Some were nailed on. Others were attached by the neck. Still others were wedged into narrow cracks between branches. All wore fixed expressions of delight.
My newly-awoken heart went pitter-pat. “Ah ha!” I thought quietly to myself. “I will return to this road someday, with this man in tow, and nail our love to this highway in the form of a slowly-disintegrating soft toy! In this fashion our love will endure, like a mutilated bear, and grow like rust forevermore. Our future progeny shall be carried carefully to this spot, and made to look in wonder upon the lasting glory of their parents’ strange love.”
Time passed, and we two were wed.
Last year (one year, one month and one day ago) we gathered in our hands:
our love
a good strong hammer
a bear
a marker
a length of wire
and several large nails.
Gazing rapturously at one another (while also being careful not to nail CJ’s fingers to the tree in a bloody reminder of our special day), we did this:
Today is the 18-month anniversary of our marriage (also roughly three and a half years since my original Notion of Bear). So on our way back from another coast trip, we went on a BEAR HUNT. Thanks to CJ actually having a memory, we found the bear. Our monument of love lives! (In fact, if you like microorganisms, it lives more than ever before.)
That red glow in my eyes is the glow of TRUE LOVE (and. . . um. . . so is the green colour in CJ’s eyes).
Play along at home: Nail a bear to a tree.**
Coming soon: Lighthouse! Waterfall! Alphabet! Food! Etc!
And here’s a picture of where CJ and I will go when we die (it’s from Bookshelfporn.com):
*ie, in Fyshwick
** I do not recommend using a real bear.
All that room needs is a comfy chair and a set of curtains to become the best study *ever*^
Some day, I shall go bear-nailing.
Hmm… that’s not quite what I meant. I think.
^subject to replacement by even better studies found elsewhere.
It was the golden colour that made me think of heaven. I heart wooden floors.
Oh, I ALWAYS count micoorganisms…
Of course you do, Ben. Of course you do.