Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

Wrong story. Begin again.

Neither Bonni nor I ever planned to marry: to begin with. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

She'd been married once or twice before, and that was enough.  I'd felt, since I was around eight years old, that marriage was pointless. We were sure.

We were beginning to have a few furtive doubts about True Love, as well. Both of us have people we deeply love, but as for being in love, that's an entirely different thing, and she at 29 and I at 36 had gone ages without experiencing it. The abiding selfish/selfless magic of love was beginning to look like an attribute of inexperience -- the failure to have previous highs and lows that makes each new event seem like such a big deal, and thus much more likely to happen in youth. After having trotted around the globe of crushes, romances, infatuations, and even deep and abiding love and respect, True Love seemed more and more like a difference in amount rather than a difference in kind, and hence it was unlikely that there'd ever come a day when one "just knew."

And for that matter, there was the question of soulmates. I was an agnostic on that subject, and Bonni veered even farther into atheism. It wasn't so much the departure from strict rationalism required to believe in this -- again as experienced thinkers, both of us had lost certainty about rationality and logic years before. But still: there being one perfect person out there for each of us -- of buying in some fashion the metaphorical image of being matched beforehand, then cleaved apart by some-or-other deity with a smooth line of talk and a questionable sense of humor, and sent to walk the earth with the goal of finding one another... well, just look at it on the surface. "Statistically unlikely" floats to mind, at the very least.

She accidentally torpedoed my first plan by mentioning to me that one of her students had told her about this amazing hotel up on Mt. Hood, and could we go sometime?

Grrr... 

An elaborate ruse had to be concocted...

Since we were going to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and since she had never been there, I dropped a hint or two about how lovely the Elizabethan Theatre was.

I then finally allowed myself to be plied with the minor detail that I'd ask her there, on October 1. "Oh, why'd you tell me?," she hollered (after she'd asked), but she smiled, and it was fitting, and after all, hopelessly romantic, and hence from me, entirely believable.  One week before the Big Day, I drive her to see a model of her thirteenth century-style ring.

She loves it, and as I order it I see her walking around the store trying to act casual. But she's excited. And I am enchanted. Back into the car, across the Willamette River, out of Portland, and up the side of Mt. Hood we drive, ostensibly to see this lovely hotel and the mountainside it grows from, just for kicks. Remember: the proposal is actually supposed to come next week.

Timeout for the Metaphor Part

A word on Mt. Hood. It is The Spiritual Center for me -- the axis of the world. I have a church: Lynah Rink, in Ithaca. But Mt. Hood is a present tense form of the Goddess Herself. Two days after moving to Oregon I saw it in all Her glory, and just like in all the really good literary epics, the vision changed me fundamentally. At least in the sense that for the first time in my life, I was in love with a place, and felt security and belonging there. But I digress. Back to the action.

The temperature very cold at Timberline Lodge. On the way up, Bonni asks me to stay the night there. This is a rather monumental offer from my perpetual student single Mom girl to her as-perpetually-imminently-employable boy; especially considering we both take great pride in our cheapness; but on this day I easily agree. Money only exists to finance dreams, so this is about the best spending of hers that we can imagine. When we get to the top, I park in a lot far from the buildings, and we walk up to the lodge.

It is gorgeous. We check in and get a lovely room, and it begins to start snowing a bit. An hour or so later, we've still not begun our investigation of the hotel itself, and we're surprised by a loud knock at the door. Mix up at the desk. This room already promised to someone. We'll comp you "what is admittedly a lesser room." Sure, I say. Mistakes happen, no problem.

We walk into the new room, and the sink in the corner should probably be a tip-off.  Bare walls. Light fixtures last cleaned in the '80's. The TV has become a rotary wall phone. The other shoe drops: the beds are bunk double beds! We turn and look at each other; collapse on the bed laughing.

The Scene of the Crime

After a while, the joke value has decreased sufficiently that we decide to slip out and go home. We sit on a couch in the massive second floor concourse for a while, listening to the voices, hearing the scuffing on snowboards on the floorboards below, and catching snatches of conversation from our Euro-or-otherwise fellow lodgers. The exposed beams, fine woodwork, High Art WPA Depression Era craftsmanship of the place -- it is the idyllic romantic setting.

She says we'll play her game: I sit and she circles the couch, then approaches as a stranger -- plays with picking me up. Afterwards, I say we'll now play my game. Tell her to stay there. Without a word of explanation, I walk off.

Penelope Waits

So, here's The Plan. As well, I have researched everything I love about the ring, which I chose for its inscription and the various meanings entailed in it, some of which you'll find referenced later in this story. I have printed all the research as nice, parchment-like papers, and put all these together with an eye to reading them aloud to her after proposing. I also have a pin I want her to have until the ring is finished. I plan to pop down to the car, pop back with the props, all in a few minutes.

Middle School, Unkind to Us All

Now, I told her nothing -- just "wait here." What with one thing and another, I have been gone at least twenty minutes, and you can bet it has seemed just as long -- about three hours -- to her as it has to me.

But she smiles, and laughs. I very briefly clue her in to the attempt to bring the car up (no explanation of why), and she laughs it off genuinely. That is indeed Bonni At Her Best. It is the perfect moment. I sit next to her. Feel in my pocket for the pin. And feel myself for the very first time to get nervous. I relax. But I let myself feel the nervous energy for just a couple seconds, watching her, observing her.

I get down on one knee in front of her and take her hand -- I'm often very affectionate, though, so I haven't unduly startled her, I think -- she'll still be surprised. In the beginning when I thought about doing this, I imagined all sorts of things to say. But as I thought more and more, it became more and more simple, until what I say is the very minimum. "Bonni, I love you and need you. Will you marry me?" And she says, "Is this really it?!" And I nod, and she beams and says, "Yes."

I sit next to her on the couch. We seal our engagement with embraces and kisses. I take out the papers and show them to her; she smiles at my geekiness and I read her the first four of the following texts, reproduced on the pages linked below.

I hope you've enjoyed our story.

Geek Central

• First, the quotation itself, from the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales.

• A short analysis of this passage, telling something of its significance.

• The translation of the passage, for those rare moments when we're not up on our Middle English.

• A summary of the Prioress' Tale from the general body of the Tales. A deep, disturbing, meaningful story, which cannot be glossed by any simplistic analysis -- just the sort of thing Bonni loves to think about.

• Finally, the actual text of her tale, again in the original 14th C verse, every bit as  esoteric and difficult as the lady herself.