May Wedding

Friends Katie and Laura are getting married today by the river they love and float down with me every summer.

I had wanted to camp out a night or two at the three-day campground wedding bash (150 guests from as far away as England), but gastritis has hit me again, making me not so much in pain as so weak that climbing up a flight of stairs is a minor ordeal and mowing the yard takes a good three-hour build-up of rest.

Yes, I will go to the doctor, but first I’ve got a wedding to go to.

Between being ill, busy with multiple projects and a screenwriting internship, catching up with housework and yardwork and helping out with the wedding (I made the brides a dry-mounted “wedding promise” for all 150 guests to sign; I’m also sort of in the wedding as the person manning the table where the promise gets signed), I’ve been not so much overwhelmed as just pleasantly whelmed, with zero free time but a full heart.

K&L didn’t plan their wedding during this weekend of equal marriage rights popping up in the news like spring dandelions; like any wedding involving international travel and 100+ guests, this one’s been in the works for more than a year. But the timing feels numinous as two people who just want to love each other and raise a family gather with their loved ones to do something that shouldn’t be any greater act of bravery or daring than any marriage already is.

When I had their wedding promise printed up, in the back of my mind was the fear that the printer would read the names of the brides, realize what was going on, and tell me to take my business elsewhere. But not only did this never happen, the printer gave me part of the order for free as a wedding gift, and gave my friends warm congratulations on their big day and his wishes for clear weather.

You should have seen the surprised happiness on the faces of the brides to learn that the printer sent them loving acceptance in the form of good wishes on their wedding day. Every bride should be loved by her community like that.

I remain ill and busy and tired, but while mowing the lawn this morning I wept in the grass as my friends’ wedding song (the Magnetic Fields’ exquisite “The Book of Love“) played in my mind and it hit me: Today is a very big day. Today is a day for the miracle of human love, as two people pledge to spend their whole lives together, to build a life and a family together that will go on for generations, to rely with the most profound intimacy on one another as long as life lasts.

Seeing as how it starts with a blowout campground party, a wedding, a good marriage and a real live screenwriting internship, I can’t help but think that this is going to be another great summer.

More soon once I am rested and well and done with a few of my current projects, and home from the wedding exhausted and sunburned, stuffed with catered food and stinking drunk on joy.