Borrowed Bliss

Of the myriad tiny joys embedded in my day like so many Easter Eggs in the green grass, one of the sweetest occurs in the early evening, when my route home invariably takes me past a little wooden-faced building nestled in the heart of Coeur d’Alene, a place called The Hitching Post. Often, especially in the summer, the golden rays of late sun illuminating the small brick and clapboard structure also fall upon a wedding party milling around on the lawn outside, where a bride and groom and their retinue of devoted friends are either coming or going from the short and intimate ceremony inside the small chapel.

Sometimes the bride is in full regalia–veil, train and all–resplendent and rapturous beside her tuxedoed groom and matching taffeta-encrusted wedding party. Many times, though, she is less formally attired. Passing by the Post day after day, I have seen a Western themed wedding, a Medieval wedding, and even a wedding where everyone involved, including the happy couple, wore matching tee shirts. Whatever they’re wearing, they usually stop and pose for photos in front of the Hitching Post’s famous sign, sharing hugs and smiles with gathered family as passers-by honk and wave their congratulations in the spirit of bonhomie.

Even when the whole wedding party is dressed in jeans, it’s easy to tell which ones are the bride and groom: look for the couple that is gazing intently into each other’s eyes, giddy and slightly off-balance, as if they’ve just been hit over the head with a pillow-encased anvil. Glancing at them is like glancing into the sun. The joy lingers, radiates, spreads out in concentric circles from its source to wash over even me, driving by in my dusty red car, and suddenly I’m grinning like an idiot.

I do love a wedding.

Scribbles

*I’m having a little trouble jumpstarting my Monday. I’m not even sure I’m completely awake, although a peremptory sniff of my armpits tells me that my body at least walked itself through my morning shower and deodorant ritual. The sky is gray. The snow is gray. The air even smells gray. The chill of late winter is still needling through my clothes, sliding its unwelcome gray tentacles into the open sleeve, the unbuttoned collar. Come, spring!

*I just talked to my sister on the phone. She and Daniel moved to Georgia right after the wedding, in pursuit of better job opportunities and housing prices. With their week long drive across the country, they’ve already started writing the story of their marriage, and it’s great to hear the note of sweet contentment in her voice. But oh, how I miss her already.

*By the way, I tried to find a bridesmaid’s dress. I looked all over town, and all over the next town. Amber went with me into Spokane to scour the bridal shops and department stores. Finally, exhausted and about to concede defeat, we were lamenting the lack of dark green gowns on the matrimonial landscape (it must not be the “in” color right now) when Amber lit up like a bulb and asked, “Why don’t you just wear the same dress I wore in your wedding?” So I did. It may not have been the sassy green cocktail dress of my dreams, but it was sublimely satisfying to stand beside Amber on her special day in the same dress she had worn on mine.

*Friday night we had Girls’ Night Out in celebration of Jen‘s birthday. After falling upon a table full of Applebee’s half-price appetizers, we hit the theater to see Penelope, a warm-hearted fable about an aristocratic girl who is born with the face of a pig as the result of an old family curse. It sounds weird, right? I adored it. It probably didn’t hurt that James McAvoy was in it (and, as Kathy pointed out, who can better sympathize with a pig-faced girl than a man who very recently sported hooves?) The ending was lovely, and included a kiss which instantly catapulted onto my list of the Top Ten Movie Kisses of All Time (which I should share with you sometime.) I can’t wait to add it to my DVD collection.

*Paul and I just celebrated our twelfth anniversary! And as everyone knows, twelve is the Rock Icon Anniversary, so we commemorated it by buying Queen–The Platinum Collection: Greatest Hits I, II, & III. What? Queen isn’t your thing? Come on–you can’t tell me it doesn’t stir your blood to hear the opening stomp-stomp-clap of We Will Rock You or that kicking guitar riff from Bohemian Rhapsody. I know, we’ve got great taste. What can we say? We are the champions.

*Well, it’s time to go slice and dice some lunch. I’m trying to get back to my healthy meats and veggies after spiraling out of control on slices of leftover wedding cake. Fortunately, that delectable concoction is gone now, and I can once again eat a carrot without having to trick myself into choosing it over cream cheese frosting.

Wedding Drums

Well, Amber is a married woman now.

I know she’s 29 years old, but she’s still my baby sister, and seeing her in a wedding dress was every bit as surreal as the first time I witnessed my brother (the one who used to give me Indian rug burns and wrestle with me for control of the TV remote) changing diapers and answering to the name of “Daddy.” Still, the look on her face was beyond description. I suppose I could say that she was glowing, but it doesn’t seem to do her justice. When that kind of happiness, so deep and transforming, shines out from someone’s eyes, it’s almost too beautiful to look at. Seeing it radiating from my beloved sister warmed me straight through.

The wedding was lovely. It was a perfect reflection of the two hearts being joined together that day. Daniel’s twin brother and best man, Samuel, sang a song in Shona, and Amber walked down the aisle to the sound of African drumbeats. Then she and Daniel faced each other before a crowd of smiling witnesses and promised to love each other always, to build their lives on God’s truth, and to be home to one another forever. After their first kiss (which was heralded by Daniel’s sincere “Woohooo!” of glee and the onlookers’ appreciative chuckles), the newly married couple a-wimoweh-ed back down the aisle together to the strains of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens, grinning from ear to ear.

Thanks to the round-the-clock food preparation and decorating efforts of some very dedicated extended family, the reception was a vision of candlelight and white tablecloths, filled with the aromas of delicious Italian meatballs and skewered chicken. Our Aunt Linette made the wedding cake, a delectable Italian Cream cake festooned with red roses. Samuel made a sweet toast to the happy couple, and the bride and groom entertained the guests with their own harmonic performance, singing an array of songs, accompanied by their musical friends, Butch and Linda. A few brave souls even jumped up to strut their stuff on the dance floor; mostly the kids, who found it an excellent way to burn off their sugar high from the cream cheese frosting.

Finally, the cake was eaten, the bouquet was flung, and Daniel and Amber were ready to exchange the noisy wedding festivities for the quiet refuge of their reserved room at a nearby bed-and-breakfast. Instead of birdseed to hurl at the bride and groom (possibly causing grievous injury or inviting freak bird swarm attacks) the guests received glowsticks to wave around and light the path through the dark parking lot to Amber’s well-decorated car. With one last run through the cheering crowd, the freshly joined pair jumped into their escape vehicle and drove away to begin their new life.

Just like that, the wedding was over.

The cleanup, however, was just beginning.

***

Congratulations, Daniel and Amber. May God bless you with true friendship, self-sacrificing love, and more mountains than valleys. I wish you both very happy!

(Final photo courtesy of Mike McElhatton)

The Home Stretch

With only four days left to go, this year’s NaBloPoMo is nearly in the books.  I can hardly wait to put that little “I participated in National Blog Posting Month and all I got was this sidebar logo” button on my page.  Then, of course, there are the prizes.  I could win anything from a sock zombie to an Amazon gift certificate.  I’m personally hoping for a zombie–they’re kind of cute.

Meanwhile, as I think I mentioned in my last post, my sister Amber has sweetly asked me to be her matron-of-honor (But can we use another word besides “matron”?  I just don’t feel very matronly.)  Not only that, but she’s letting me pick out my own dress!   (Did I mention how much I love my sister?)  It just has to be green.

So, I’ve been shopping.  Here are some possible contenders:

Yeah, I just put that last one in to see if you were still paying attention.

Thank You for My Husband

Amber and Daniel are deep in the throes of wedding planning. They’re making reservations, designing table centerpieces, and trying to figure out the best way to mix Shona wedding traditions with those of the American south. Daniel is happily spreading the news to friends across the world and the glow around Amber has, if anything, intensified. It’s wonderful to see.

And who can witness the anticipation and joy of the soon-to-be-married without thinking back over their own wedding memories? I can close my eyes and remember the fun and frenzy of our days as Paul and I prepared to tie the knot, almost twelve years ago. We were engaged for six months, but sometimes it felt like forever. There was stress, a lot of it. Money worries, dueling schedules, and classes and tests that fell by the wayside in our dash to the altar all jockeyed for our attention. But beneath all that, I felt a constant rippling undercurrent of delight, a thrum of joy at the thought that, soon, I would be sharing a home, a path, a life with my best friend. I couldn’t believe I was actually getting the Happily Ever After.

Of course, Happily Ever After is more a descriptor of a general trend than a moment-by-moment guarantee. Anyone who has been married for a while knows that even the most durable “Happy” can occasionally give way to “Irritated”, “Misunderstood”, and “Violently In Need of Chocolate and a Back Rub”. You learn to roll with the punches (and keep the chocolate close at hand.)

Today, I give thanks for my husband, Paul. I really hit the jackpot the day he cut college classes with me so we could sit in the branches of a magnolia tree talking about school, and family, and the hazy, crazy, far off future. It was the first of many talks, back when I had an opinion about everything, and the world looked like a big, wide open oyster with a shiny pearl in the middle. He was funny, and kind, and we were friends before we were anything. I remember the first time he held my hand, reaching out to take it suddenly as I was about to slip it into my pocket. My small hand was instantly at home in his big one, and when we hugged, my ear lay close against his chest, just over his heart, and it felt like I had always been there in the circle of his arms.

Twelve years. I blinked, and twelve years whooshed by. And what years! Changing jobs, crossing states, adding tiny indispensable people to our family. Crying. Celebrating. Aching, hoping, growing, fighting, stumbling, learning. Choosing each other again, on purpose, every day.

Here are just a few of the reasons Paul is the greatest:

He instinctively knows when I need chocolate and a back rub, and delivers.

He listens, I mean really listens.

He understands the value of retail therapy.

He encourages my passions.

He holds my hair back when I throw up.

He makes sure I get time to myself.

He gives me remedial computer lessons.

He appreciates my strengths and accepts my failings.

He helps me make the beds in the morning, even though that’s my hangup and not his.

He knows what I’m going to say before I do.

He’s a loving, involved father.

He doesn’t expect me to cook, and is wildly appreciative when I do.

He loves God.

He still makes me laugh.

And have you seen the unibrow?

Truly I am blessed among women.

The Second Time Around

“How lucky to have been twice blessed in marriage! It has been my belief that one loves only once. I am happy to be wrong.” –Harriet Smith, Emma

***

This Saturday, my husband and I will be among the friends and family watching as my father-in-law, Mike, ties the knot with his new love, Yvonne. Theirs has been something of a whirlwind courtship, but when I look at them together, I have no fear that they are taking on this commitment lightly, no worries for their future. Dad’s eyes are glowing again, you see. I haven’t seen them lit up like this for … well, a long time.

Four years ago, after a prolonged struggle, we lost Paul’s mom to an especially aggressive form of breast cancer. She was an amazing woman. She lived with her whole heart, and her life was intertwined with those of all the people she knew. She prayed over them, worried for them, cried with them, and lifted them up with a thoughtfulness and fervor that left no one in doubt of how much she cared. There is hardly a person who knew her who didn’t receive at least one card, if not many, written in her flowing hand and full of hopefulness and encouragement. Of course, there are those who remember her as nearly perfect, but they are forgetting her quiet, mile-wide stubborn streak, and her rare, but impressive, fits of temper. These things, as much as any other, make her memory real and beloved to me, and the hole that she left when she went home still yawns wide.

After Mom’s death, Dad mourned in his own quiet way. I think he had started mourning a long time before, in the weeks and months of Mom’s illness, and when she passed on, a stillness descended, like the one that comes after a big storm, when the pounding and the noise have stopped and everything lays dripping in the sun. Somewhere in the midst of those days, peace crept in, and the sun rose and set and rose and set, and life stirred again.

Time passed, and Dad learned the ins and outs of being a bachelor, something he hadn’t been for over thirty years. Flowers appeared in his front yard, lines of color skirting the sidewalk in front of his house, and he took visible delight in rigging up an automatic watering system for them. He bought a small catamaran and began visiting the lake on every obliging sunny day, bringing back fish and no fish with equal satisfaction. Weekend camping trips allowed him to explore the backcountry around the Pacific Northwest, and he started returning from long weekends with stories and pictures from trails he hadn’t hiked since his boyhood. He took up motorcycle riding. He kept house. He was something to watch, this man, as he reached down inside himself and kept coming up with answers to the question: What now?

And he seemed okay. And he was. But something was missing. Bringing back pictures of glorious sunsets is all very well, but it doesn’t hold a candle to standing beside someone looking at the same sunset, sharing the experience.

What now? The answer was surprising, unexpected: eHarmony. In his same quiet, unadorned way, Dad prayed, reached out across the internet, and found Yvie.

When we first heard of her, it was several months after they’d met. In typical Dad fashion, he didn’t tell us anything until he was sure there was something to tell. They had visited each other’s hometowns, spent hours and hours on the phone, and sent hundreds of emails back and forth, and before we’d even had a chance to digest the news that he was dating someone, he mentioned, almost casually, that it was “pretty serious.”

“Pretty serious” is the Dad equivalent of skywriting and balloons and flashing announcements on the JumboTron.

So she came, and we met her, and I have to tell you: she is wonderful. On the day of that first meeting, she was nervous, and sweet, and the kids warmed to her instantly. (Well, almost instantly; Caleb spent a good minute and a half looking flirtatiously out from under my armpit before he decided it was safe to approach.) We spent quite a while talking, Dad and Yvie sitting close to each other on the couch, holding hands like teenagers–when they weren’t busy juggling flying kids. I kept sneaking glances at Dad’s face, which wore an expression that I would like to see a lot more of. And I think I will. After that weekend’s visit, Dad proposed.

So here we are, the week of the wedding. Yvonne arrived Tuesday, packed and breathless, and yesterday she and I spent the day together, running around buying punch ingredients and ordering extra cake and doing other last minute wedding stuff. She showed me her dress, which she sewed herself (I am in awe of that), and some of the gifts she got at a wedding shower her friends threw before she left. She was so excited and so in love that I don’t think her feet touched the ground all day. We stopped for lunch at Wendy’s and, while Caleb nibbled on a cheeseburger and played with the toy pig that came in the kid’s meal, we had the best talk. I realized then that we are going to be good friends.

Inside, I felt something let go. It might have been the very last trace of my concern.

Tomorrow, we’ll decorate the church and ready the reception room, attending to all the details of a simple, elegant wedding. We’ll drape the tulle, cover the tables, set out the guest book, and arrange the flowers. We’ll make sure there are enough chairs and that the sound system is in working order.

And the next day, a new chapter will begin in the lives of two people who know they’re not anywhere close to the end of the book. I wish them happiness.

Congratulations, Dad and Yvie!