Tuesday, October 09, 2018

Loving two people



     You know with every wedding things go wrong.  Actually they just go differently than they were planned.  But in every sense, the way things went at my son Chris' wedding to his best friend Jenny this past weekend was better and more full of life than anything we could have predicted or planned.



     A lot of wedding planning is attempting to predict and solve for the unexpected.  Which by definition is hard to do.  But you think, what if it rains, what if it starts late, what if people get lost trying to find the venue, what if no one dances, what if no one rsvps a 'No'? lol. Post-wedding, I say embrace the unexpected.  Who do we all think we are that we can pre-plan every special moment?  God has it in his hands, people.  God has much better plans than any we can imagine.  Wait, isn't that in the bible?  I think someone said that before me.
     I wanted to mark a few memories down here before I forget them.  I barely remember anything from my own wedding day, 34 years ago.  But I can come back and read this and it will remind me.
     Remind me of the Lion King moments.  Off in the huge fields beyond the ceremony were a herd of buffalo to the left and a herd of elk (?) to the right.  Floating between them seemingly to the violin music being played during the ceremony were a large flock of birds swooping in harmony amid the buffalo.  God's creation all around, from the sweetest flower girl moments with their innocent and meandering path down the aisle to the fall weeds (you know I love 'em) by the split rail fence for the 'getting ready' photos to the mist that surrounded the hillside and the trees just starting to turn a bit for their fall splendor.




     Of the laughter had by all.  The jokes about the rain, the Rage Club (the house where Chris and Jenny met and fell in love), Jenny growing up, Chris' nerves.  Chuck wanting to stick a fork in Chris and call him 'done'. So much laughter.  The Merlin fathead....




     Of the mishaps.   I had heard a few frayed nerves. So serious to run out of ribbon when tying the candy apples, have the makeup and hair person out for emergency surgery, the chef in charge of MCing the evening quit three days earlier, the parents of the groom completely forget about the yard games they were delivering and apparently a few other stories the bride and groom plan to share when they return from 9 days of blissful honeymooning.




     Of new experiences? I am sure I had never opened three weather apps on my phone at the same time before and tracked the weather for 3:30 pm in Edwards, IL for seven days before an event.  It burnt up some of my adrenalin, keeping me busy doing that.  Predictors went from 30% to 90% to 50% chance of rain in the same day on one of the days I roosted there.  Weather, weather, weather.



     Of new experiences!  My first Jewish wedding!  The unveiling, the do-se-do, the chuppah, the blessings.  The stomping on the wine glass is a tradition I've seen in movies, but the explanation in person was much more meaningful.  This represents how fragile relationships are and how without trying you can break it into a thousand pieces so easily and quickly with the wrong words or actions.  So true and gives me goosebumps to recall this. 




     The reception was wonderful and hard.  Hard because you invite all these people who love you and your son, and then you get to spend about sixty seconds with each, if you are lucky.  I guess all the weddings over the years are how you repay them for their devotion and support, but I wish we could have talked to everyone more!




     Wonderful because with only two glasses of wine in five hours I felt high as a kite the whole time. High on the most amazing reception venue with glass on three walls looking out into woods and fields and sky.  




     High on love and joy, good food and wine, beautiful flowers and smiling faces.  High on watching my girls dance together and have fun at their brother's wedding.  High on watching adorable great-nieces and nephews at the photo booth. 
   



     There were several epic moments, including the hora or Hava Nagila dance where it seemed all 200 guests were on the dance floor while we circled the loved couple at a speed racer pace!



     Wonderful to see my firstborn as a mature, loving husband who truly cared about his new wife, who danced as much as anyone there to the amazing bluegrass music of New Cats.  Very impressed with he and Jenny's intricate, quirky, tightly woven group of friends who were so present all day and evening.




     Wonderful to stand outside on the rain-soaked deck in my bare feet, with Chuck and look back into the venue at 8pm with all the lights and flowers and flying dancers and know that everything was right with the world in that moment.
     Do I feel ten years younger now that the responsibility of all that is involved in a wedding in 2018 is accomplished.  Yes, yes I do.  Before this weekend I might have been overheard saying "I've got to go through this three more times as the mother of the bride."  Do I still feel this way? No.  Life is simple and beautiful when concentrated down to this.   I now feel that if I'm really, really lucky I might GET to go through it three more times and experience the overflowing joy, all clearly focused on loving two people for a time.














 


*PhotoCredits: courtesy of the hashtag #roomies4life on Instagram and Facebook!















Sunday, July 01, 2018

The Eleven Stages of Moving House


Stage 1 of moving: Excitement -- a new house!  Will they accept the offer? They did.  Oh. My. How. Wonderful.  Life is amazing. A new house to love!


Stage 2 of moving: Enthusiasm -- clean those cabinets, paint those doors, place those casserole dishes just where they will live into eternity in just the right spot. 


Stage 3 of moving: Hard Labor -- fill shopping bags with books, towels, doodads, books, paintings, shoes, blue jeans, and more books.  Carry to new house in 12-16 SUV loads.  Do again.  My route: Fill car, run to Goodwill. Run to storage unit, empty rest at new house.  Return.


Stage 4 of moving: Confidence -- Two men and a truck moved our fridge and piano and beds and other very heavy items.  We are sleeping in the new place.  Halfway there, right?  Wrong.


Stage 5 of moving: Disbelief -- stuff.  so much stuff.  why?  WHY?  Make it go away.  Twenty-one years in the same house turns out to be over 1000 weeks of adding stuff, one little item at a time.  We are moving from 3000 square feet that doesn't count the creepy basement and antiquated unfinished attic that are also full of "stuff" to 1400 square feet. From 5 bedrooms to 2 bedrooms. Do the math.


Stage 6 of moving: Decision-making Burnout -- The notes from every conference ever attended, keep?  No. No definitely not. Well... No. Yes! No.   The first clay pot your daughter made? Keep!  The seventeenth one you run across?  In the trash.  The curtains that one of my adultish children had in some apartment but who knows who?  Give away.  They'll never know unless you blog about it. Where will the trailer, bass boat, and two extra cars GO?  There is no place for them.


Stage 7 of moving: Mishaps -- the fridge was too tall for the new opening. Fixed.  The new basement where I want a media room gets water?  No problem we will deal with later. Put it on the list.  The hose, the furnace vent, the floor joist, the wall behind the washer, the floor in the pantry the poison ivy, the ants.  Fixed. Fixed. And...yeah...f.i.x.e.d.


Pause for dump of things that are not mentioned in these stages.  Utilities. Cable-man, geese, muskrats, hummingbirds, garbage can decisions, mail, rummage sale, estate sale. Marketing our house by owner, showing house (ugh must be pretty), while moving. 409 asphyxiation while cleaning post-move.  See two daughters off for summer, worry about two daughters. Wedding plans. Starting a new job and over 3000 miles of business travel. Oh, and all the wonderful but time-consuming remodeling work on the new house. Waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. It has already been 8 months since we found our new abode.  Molly-the-dog's moving anxiety. Annoying little bank, mortgage, insurance, roofing and electrical issues.  April snow-showers. June 109 degree heat indexes/indices.


Stage 8 of moving: Weariness-- there is no way to empty this house. The thousand cans of paint, the endless piles in the attic of dusty and grimey (now) camping supplies and old hard drives.  One thing, one thing I know for sure -- moving is serious business, not to be taken lightly.  Just say No whenever you can. 


Stage 9 of moving:  teeny, tiny Light at the end of the tunnel -- without landing ourselves in the hospital, (but with a lovely head cold for me) we have reached the day we hand over the keys. We are like abused and jaded golden retrievers, afraid to be excited or happy, afraid we will open a door and find yet another cache of (face it) junk that we forgot about.  We are bleary-eyed, and barely here, but, the day has arrived. 


Stage 10 of moving: Gratitude.  I thank God for my husband.  He has been a solid rock through all this.  He has been a maniac repairing, and dealing and dealing some more.  I am grateful to face each crazy week with his can-do attitude while I just face-plant at yet another obstacle.  Gratitude to God for helping find our new place, find buyers for the old place, and reasonably good health throughout this ordeal nightmare experience.


Stage 11 of moving: Excitement returns!  Oh. My. How. Wonderful.  Life is amazing. A new house to love!  As soon as we figure out how to keep that basement dry...