December 4th, 2024
Matrimony is a rumour sometimes, and a mystery the rest of the time. No one commands the thing.
I was in the matrimony trade longer than I was in the death trade, and the crazy days were comparable. A few years ago I got it in mind to see if I could give matrimony the same treatment I’d given dying and elderhood. This time though, I was committed to doing a shorter, gentler, user-friendly rendering. Time will tell of the soundness of my judgement on that matter.
The pandemic eclipsed many things, and drove many more out into the swampland. Four years later the troubles are with us still. It seemed to me that given the carnage, nobody needed a book about matrimony. I let it lie.
I was in San Diego last winter, with a lot on my mind. Somewhere in there Kimberly Johnson asked if there really was a book about matrimony somewhere in the vault, and if so, could she see it. A day later she let me know clearly that I might have been wrong about the book’s timing or audience. I listened to that.
I’m glad I did.
She and I pulled out a half dozen themes from the book and made an online series called ‘Forgotten Pillars’ earlier this year.
Now there’s a publisher for the thing, SoundsTrue in Colorado. It’s coming out in August 2025.
It’s a blessing sometimes to be wrong about your own stuff.
If you missed being part of the live professionally filmed event, please follow the link below.
Forgotten Pillars Series available here
There’s a love that outwaits the fizz and disorientation of excitement, burgundy to the beaujolais of mad attraction. It’s not exclusive to older people, but it does seem to resemble them, even reward them. It looks quietly across the table, wants for little more than that it might continue a while yet. It knows what endings mean.
-Stephen Jenkinson
From the forth coming book on matrimony and other drastic medicines
Photo credit: Khadija Striegel
View Stephen’s works at www.OrphanWisdom.com
