Waylon Lewis, author of “Things I Would Like to Do With You,” and Ada Calhoun, author of “Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give” discussed modern love, independence within relationships, and the Buddhist notion of marriage.
About Things I Would Like to Do With You:
Elephant Journal founder Waylon Lewis’ first book is romantic—and then some. But it details a different kind of romance: instead of a happily-ever-after fantasy, Things I Would Like to Do With You marks an exploration of the kind of love that includes independence, humor, and room for growth. Poetically searching through four seasons and touching upon dozens of past relationships on a path to awakening, this is a book to curl up with.
Read the first chapter: Things I would like to do with You in the Woods. Or get the book: elephantjournal.com/books
About Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give:
We hear plenty about whether or not to get married, but less about what it takes to stay married. Ada Calhoun’s funny, poignant, personal essays explore the bedrooms of modern coupledom for a nuanced discussion of infidelity, existential anxiety, and the other obstacles to staying together. Both realistic and openhearted, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give offers a new way to think about marriage—as a brave, tough, creative decision to stay with someone for the rest of your life.
An excerpt from Weddings Toasts I’ll Never Give:
Finding something new or helpful to say about marriage feels borderline impossible. “It’s difficult to think about marriage,” says a friend married for thirty years. “It’s like trying to describe your own face.” And so we offer clichéd advice like the dubious Ephesians paraphrase “Don’t go to bed angry.” (Personally, I have avoided many fights by going to bed angry and waking up to realize that I’d just been tired.)
Now in the second decade of my second marriage, I can’t look newlyweds in the eye and promise they’ll never regret marrying. (Well, not sober. Maybe this is why weddings correlate with binge drinking.) I adore my husband and plan to be with him forever. I also want to run screaming from the house because the person I promised to love all the days of my life insists on falling asleep to Frasier reruns.
“The first twenty years are the hardest,” an older woman once told me. At the time I thought she was joking. She was not.
And this is why I don’t give wedding toasts—because I’d probably end up saying that even good marriages sometimes involve flinging a remote control at the wall.
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