September 6, 2025

“The universe is so very complicated,” said Dr. Dimble.

“So you have said rather often before, dear,” replied Mrs. Dimble.

“Have I?” he said with a smile. “How often, I wonder? As often as you’ve told the story of the pony and trap at Dawlish?”

“Cecil! I haven’t told it for years.”

“My dear, I heard you telling it to Camilla the night before last.”

“Oh, Camilla. That was quite different. She’d never heard it before.”

⁂ The Small Refrains of a Long Marriage

This is not a courtroom exchange. It’s a liturgy. He repeats himself. She notices and says so. He returns the favor by pointing out one of her characteristic repetitions. She dances out of his accusation, the way we do, seemingly at the cost of truth. But the “truth” of the matter is not the point. What matters is the rhythm.

Marriage, like worship, is held together by refrains. The words you have said before, the stories told again, the gentle corrections—these are not failures of memory. They are the household liturgy, rehearsed without anyone deciding it should be so.

⁂ The Comfort of Saying It Again

Every long love invents its own prayer book. Phrases worn smooth with use. Stories repeated until they belong more to the couple than to history itself.

To outsiders it sounds like monotony. To the ones inside, it is devotion. Each telling, each correction, is a reminder: we are still here, still saying this together.

⁂ The Dance of Being Known

Notice how the Dimbles play. Accuracy is never the point. Gentleness is. He smiles at his own repetition. She teases without malice. He catches her in turn. And when she wriggles free with a defense that both know is flimsy, he lets her.

That is how liturgy works. You don’t argue with the words of the prayer. You say them. You let them carry more weight than they logically should. You let them form you.

⁂ The Tender Weight of Memory

These refrains are not accidents. They are the sacred phrases of shared life. A sigh. A story. A familiar argument. Each one is a verse in the marriage hymnbook.

To press too hard for factual precision would be to miss the point. The point is the echo. The point is the rhythm that carries love through decades.

⁂ Lessons From the Dimbles

• Treat repetition as ritual. The small sayings are prayers you pray together.
• Let gentleness outrank accuracy. The refrain matters more than the record.
• Make space for escape. Let your partner sidestep and smile, because the liturgy isn’t about winning.

Marriage isn’t about being right. It’s about letting each other stay human in the small imperfections.

⁂ Complicated Like a Garden

Yes, the universe is complicated. Marriage is too. But not like a courtroom, where truth is measured in verdicts. More like a garden, where you tend the same perennials, again and again.

The wriggles, the repetitions, the playful dodges—these are not flaws to be corrected. They are signs of life. Signs that the story hasn’t ended.

⁂ A Vow Hidden in Play

“Oh, Camilla… She’d never heard it before.”

It is a weak defense, yes. It is also a vow in disguise. We will keep repeating, keep sidestepping, keep smiling at each other’s grooves. We will let our shared refrains be our prayer, our liturgy, our life together.

This is how love lasts. We set aside perfection, even novelty, for the sacred work of saying the same words again, and again, and again.