Gravy Vs. Sauce: The Great Debate and Marital Metaphor
I love October. It's my absolute month. I love fall colors. I love pumpkin flavored everything. And in a few weeks I get to celebrate my seventh wedding anniversary with my beloved.....in the city.....at Carnegie Hall.....in great seats....to see Ben Harper play an acoustic set....all by himself. But that's another story for another day.
What I had planned on talking about today was sauce. Or, gravy. Depending upon where you're from, or what family you were born into.
My husband is a little less than half Italian-American. His family refers to that stuff that comes from cooking down tomatoes to death in order to drape it over pasta, Gravy.
I'm Dutch. And Scottish. And English. And German. Gravy is brown, served with a roast and potatoes. End of story.
In the seven years we have been married, I still cannot bring myself to call sauce, gravy. I just can't call it something it's not. To, me.
Isn't it funny how, when two people decide to spend the rest of their lives together, they bring all kinds of crazy and different things with them? However, no one told me you needed a key to discern an entirely different language- in which Italian words are pronounced without vowels on the end.
Everyone comes with their own language. And that's ok. God gives married couples an amazing ability to be able to study, research and learn their partner because when you love someone, you want to know what they're saying. We don't have to call things the same- we often don't see things the same way, so naturally, we wouldn't call it the same thing. This has been so influential in our marriage. Rich sees things so differently than me, it's amazing to be able to step outside of myself and get to know something in his language. It's often more optimistic than mine.
We may not understand some things our spouses come with: the baggage they carry from a wound, their love of banjos, their teacup chihuahuas.We don't have to. We just need to make sure we have the key their language. Although, it'd be really hard to love someone with an affinity for teacup chihuahuas. Teacup chihuahuas are gross. Just saying.
The point is, Rich still calls it gravy. I still call it sauce. The important thing is, we know we're both talking about the same thing.
Unless we're having pot roast.