The Best 14 Years

Due to the state of the economy, the Craig household is on a hiring freeze. We are not currently accepting any new bids for large projects right now. So our anniversary gifts this year were quaint. And that was actually quite fine with us. The backpacking trek across Europe? Maybe next year. Scuba diving in the Caymans? Perhaps on my 40^th birthday. A sleek, black Audi A8? How embarrassingly cliché for you.

For me, Katie hunted through her favorite little used bookstore and discovered this inimitable gem: 365 Love Poems. My favorite? Marriage by Samuel Rogers.

Then before all they stand – the holy vow

And ring of gold, no fond illusions now,

Bind he as his. Across the threshold led,

And every tear kissed off as soon as shed,

His house she enters – there be a light,

Shining within, when all without is night;

A guardian angel o’er his life presiding,

Doubling his pleasures and his cares dividing,

Winning him back when mingling in the throng,

Back from a world we love, alas! too long,

To fireside happiness, to hours of ease,

Blest with that charm, the certainty to please.

How oft her eyes read his; her gentle mind

To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined;

Still subject – ever on the watch to borrow

Mirth of his mirth and sorrow of his sorrow!

The soul of music slumbers in the shell,

Till waked and kindled by the master’s spell,

And feeling hearts – touch them but rightly – pour

A thousand melodies unheard before!

And for her, I hunted through some garage-banished boxes of photographs labeled Things to Never Put on Display, threw them in with some digital ones we had on file and presented her with these buried treasures. Which I now share with you, if you'll indulge me.

Love In the Time of Dishes

The moment our relationship rounded that final corner and opened up to a full sprint to the Engagement Finish Line, Katie was washing dishes.

I was not.

I was in a play, up on BYU campus. It was the second to last night of the show – the comedy Ordinary People. (I think it was a comedy. I’m not completely sure. I never really read the entire play, because I found that it interfered with my acting process, which I’d carefully honed. And also I didn’t know how to read.)

The play was highly entertaining, but only to those of us in the cast. The other eight folks in the audience gave us a lukewarm reception. Could be that they found dysfunctional families sad or could be that they weren’t privy to our myriad inside jokes that included hidden quotes from other movies, pratfalls, and an RC Cola reference.

I got home that night around 10:30 p.m. and called Katie so she could give me an unbiased opinion on how awesome and funny our play was. (She’d seen it opening night.) This was back in 1995, before email, texting, or even cell phones. So I had to wait until I got back to my apartment to use a landline to call her – like some sort of barbarian or wild animal!

“Katie?” I asked. “Don’t you think it’s funny when, at the part in the play when Chris lies to me that I respond, in my best 1920s gangster voice and say, ‘Why-I-oughtta…!’, even though it takes place in the 80s and we’re not gangsters?’

Her response came at lightening speed, and it was difficult to decipher, except I could hear her repeating my name several times. Finally I was able to make out a “I missed you so much, can you come over right now?!”

Of course, after I literally hung up the phone on the wall, I was on my way. But the funny thing was, I’d just been with her before the play. So I hadn’t been gone that long. But I hurried anyway because, my goodness, she sounded like she was caught in a gin-raid at a speak-easy!

I kicked the door off the hinges and in slow-motion it fell to the floor of her condo with a thud and a cloud of dust. The moonlight behind me shaped my silhouette and cast a shadow on the clearing haze. The music crescendo-ed. There she stood in the kitchen, her hair blowing from the breeze through the window over the sink, wearing nothing but jeans and a long-sleeve turtleneck under a BYU sweatshirt, with an apron on, plus cleaning gloves and a hairnet. Shoes and socks.

She ran towards me, and I stretched out my arms. She jumped into my embrace.

She was crying. I had no idea why. But we were hugging, and I liked that. Breaking the spell, I asked her what was wrong.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just so excited to see you, and I love you so much.”

I liked where this was going. It seemed things were in my favor, but she was still crying and I was still confused. Fortunately, she went on.

“I have memories of doing homework late at night on the kitchen table,” she started to explain. “My mom would be cleaning the kitchen, and the last thing she would do was start the dishwasher. Once it was running, she would come sit at the table with me. I loved that time. The world had slowed down, she was not multi-tasking, and everything was about our conversation and our relationship. It felt safe. I felt nurtured. I felt loved. And the sound of the dishwasher running has always reminded me of that. Tonight, with nobody else home, I did the dishes, loaded the dishwasher and sat at the kitchen table to do some homework. And as the dishwasher ran, I remembered all those feelings. And I realized that that’s how I feel when I’m with you.”

As you can imagine, I was thrilled. I was in love and I didn't even care that Katie had distracted me and side-stepped admitting to my face that the play I was in was nowhere near the Coke or Pepsi caliber at all, but was in fact the RC Cola of plays.

A few weeks later, we were engaged. You can read all about that story, plus watch the extremely 1995 candid video of us actually getting engaged right here.

Happy 14 years of that delightful dishwasher-y feeling, Katie!

If You Like Me, Check This Box

December 1994 at a Christmas Party for The Garrens Comedy Troupe

I was an advertising major in college. I wanted to write commercials for radio and television. My goal was to one day work at a large ad firm in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or San Luis Obispo. (I don’t think there are any large agencies in San Luis Obispo, but 1. I adore little beach towns, and 2. Don’t you kind of giggle when you say “San Luis Obispo?” Me too.)

In my dreams, I would have a little office with a window view of the ocean, an oversized poster of The Joshua Tree hanging on my wall, a mini-freezer filled with ice cream, and one of those little basketball hoops rigged atop a little wastebasket for the ultimate cliché of the tortured writer who rips scarcely touched paper with half-written ideas on it out of the typewriter, wads it up into a ball, and throws it at the wastebasket. (Camera cuts to the wastebasket, with nary a single wadded-up piece of paper inside, but about 23 wads peppered around the outside of the basket.) Also, everyone else in the office would give me a hard time for still using a typewriter in this day and age.

In an effort to stay true to my art form of writing and completely avoid developing any business savvy, I took only one business class in college. It was held in a stadium-style classroom with hundreds of savvy business students and me and my roommate/fellow dreamer/future commercial writing-partner – Lincoln.

We always sat in the front row. I don’t know why we sat there; maybe because we felt out of place with all the snooty business students. What with their briefcases, collared shirts, and large brains. It seemed like the average age in the classroom was 42, and I was at all times slightly uncomfortable, like somebody might stand, call my bluff, and demand my dismissal from this and any business classes. “Pardon me, Mr. Professor, your Honor, but I object to this hoodlum occupying a coveted seat in the front row of this, your stadium classroom. Furthermore, I submit that he has neither the inclination nor the maturation or substantiation for comprehending the volumes of wise and insightful tutorials you have prepared for us, your insatiable business students. Plus I heard him make a fart joke when he walked into class today.”

But I remained dutiful in attending my big business class. After all, I’d paid for it, I needed the credits to graduate…and my future wife, Katie Fillmore, happened to have a class in that same building, about half an hour after my class had started.

And then she started this little tradition that I adored.

About 25 minutes into every class, I would receive a love note from Katie. As if we were in junior high. They were always sweet and thoughtful; but my favorite part was that she would write the note, fold it up, and on the outside of the paper write: “Pass this note to the handsome, dark-haired man on the front row named ‘Ken.’” She would then sneak in the door of this monstrous classroom, tap the suit in the last row, at the top of the stadium-style seating structure, and hand him the note. The guy would read the instructions to pass it down, and he would hand it to the guy in front of him. Down and down. Down and down. Down something like 36 rows of seats the note would go, until somebody would tap me on the shoulder and hand me the note.

Now, we had been dating several months at this point, and I think Katie truly loved me. I think she knew I appreciated getting these little notes. But somewhere in Katie’s psyche, I think she also got the biggest kick out of this little phenomenon. That amidst all the no-nonsense attitudes of these business students, who would just as quickly clock you with their Franklin Planners as shoot you a dirty look for disturbing them during a business lecture, she could single-handedly reduce them to schoolyard behavior in three seconds flat. Inherit in everyone who ever went through adolescence is the knee-jerk, sociological reaction to not ask questions, just do what the note says and pass it along to the receiving end. Like you have no choice in the matter. The instructions are clear; I must pass this note on or endure the consequences!

I loved Katie for that. I loved that she found hilarity in random acts of frivolity. I loved that she thought of me every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 2:25 p.m. I loved that she would write “the handsome dark-haired man in the front row” and assumed everyone would know who that was. And I love that Katie still thinks no matter what other vocation I persue to support our family, I should never give up on that little writing office with the typewriter that overlooks the ocean.

Post Script: I actually kept a handful of those original notes that Katie sent me back in Winter semester 1995. Here are a couple (and if you click on them, I believe they should zoom in):

I should explain that my brother-like friend, Lincoln, gave me the nickname "Craigles." (A derivative of my last name, you see.) That's a story for another time. But anyway, most everybody in The Garrens called me that. Including Katie.) (Please note: This does not give you permission to call me Craigles.)

I did not want to include this note below, as it says things that make me blush and it sounds very self-aggrandizing. But Katie threatened me if I didn't. And she's tiny, but I bruise easy!

The Reason for the Season

Two weeks from today will mark 14 years that Katie and I have been married. I thought that between now and then, I’d share a few things I love about my darling Katie. After all, she is the reason for the season!

I won’t say that I knew I was going to marry Katie Fillmore the first time I met her. But I knew something was happening.

Let me back up.

Eight months before meeting Katie I had auditioned for, wet my pants over, and officially joined The Garrens Comedy Troupe. The first improvisational and sketch comedy group to ever grace the land of BYU. (Unless you count the short-lived 1876 troupe, Die Brigham!, started by German immigrant Karl Maeser. Yes, translated it means The Brigham; but with the lingo misunderstanding, I don’t think I need to tell you that the troupe was quickly disbanded, a public flogging was held, and we never heard from those folks again.)

At any rate, it was January 1993. It was the year of Schindler’s List, civil war in Afghanistan, and the dissolution of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. So, as you can see, the world was rife with hilarity already! As a society we were infatuated with Jurassic Park and Eddie Vedder’s reality-biting plaid, flannel fashion. Also Whitney Houston would not shut up about how she would always love us. (F.Y.I., Whitney; desperation is so unbecoming.)

On this particular winter-y day, my roommate and yours, Lincoln Hoppe, had seen a flier on campus, wherein some hooligan named Eric D. Snider (Hi Snidles!) was holding auditions so he could convince a couple of chumps to join him in starting a comedy troupe. Lincoln was thrilled with the idea. He was less thrilled with my openly mocking him for suggesting we go audition. (And less thrilled even further when he opened the fridge to discover I had not only drunk the last of his personal stash of Minute Maid, but put the empty pitcher back in the fridge for him to find and then properly relocate to the kitchen sink.)

Don’t get me wrong. In theory, I loved the idea of writing sketches and performing them. In theory, I also loved the idea of getting up in front of a crowd of people and not pooping my pants. So you keep to your theories, and I’ll keep to my unsoiled pants, and round n’ round the world will go.

Well, we both auditioned and became part of BYU history that year by becoming members of The Garrens. The two of us, plus seven more mirthful souls. Our popularity soared! Between the hours of 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on most Friday nights, at the JKHB building on BYU campus, to a crowd that was willing to pay $1 each to see us – we were practically celebrities! And then Winter Semester ended. And some of the cast members left to seek their fortune and fame by becoming LDS missionaries.

So we held auditions to fill their spots.

And in late August of 1993 I sat in the back of that same room in the JKHB building with about five other members of The Garrens; watching for talent, energy, and which girls would most likely let us date them if we let them in the troupe. (I’m 70% kidding.)

Enter Katie Fillmore, center stage.

But I hadn’t seen her yet.

In the back of this darkened theater room I was squinting at my pad of paper as I was still noting some detailed, astute, professor-like observations regarding the previous auditioning individual. Not that funny, I wrote.

For her audition, we had placed Katie in an improvisation with Natalie (a current Garrens’ member), wherein they had both been summoned to the high school principal’s office, and were sitting next to each other in anticipation. Natalie was an angst-y, angry hard rocker and Katie was a cheerleader. I’d heard the scene start, but I was still focused on my notes, and hadn’t yet turned my attention to the stage.

Finally I looked up. There, in all her glory, was my wife. Not yet. But in less than two years, she would change my life and make it better than I deserved.

I could not stop watching her.

The first thing I noticed was her eyes. And though I’ve never asked, I assume to this day that is the first thing anybody notices about Katie. It’s not the color. It’s not the lashes. It’s the light. Those eyes are windows into what makes Katie…Katie. Her very essence. Her personality emanates out her eyes. I looked in those eyes and knew immediately she was a happy and kind spirit. Not just for the fleeting moment, but in her core.

She was wearing a yellow shirt, 1993 jeans, white sneakers, and a huge-normous smile. She was a force to be reckoned with, but not assuming. She didn’t try to take over the stage, but had a confidence in what she was doing. And she was hilarious. A 5’2” ball of energy and enthusiasm and wit and adorableness.

It wasn’t love at first sight in any kind of formulaic way. I didn’t think, “One day I will marry her.” I didn’t think, “Roll the montage sequence, we’re in love.” But it wouldn’t be truthful to say it was nothing either. It was something. Something extremely, profoundly deep, deep, deep in my soul reacted to Katie. Almost chemically. Like I could feel a physical change. Some trace part of me recognized her. Or was drawn out to her. Or something. I didn’t know what it was in that moment. But I did know she would be in The Garrens. Her audition alone was outstanding; but even more, I could just sense she would be a part of my life. Even for just a season. Thankfully, though, it’s been much longer.

This is the first documented photo of Katie and I. It was right after a Garrens' show. Yes, that's me in the pink/red shirt, and that is Katie next to me. And who's that she is looking at? Is it the camera? No, it's ME! We had yet to even begin flirting; and yet she is looking at me. I love it.

Back stage just before a show. We had only begun flirting at this point. Yes, Katie is the one on the right. And no, that is not my real hair.

Final show of the season. Me in the middle-center, Katie on top of me, to your right.