The Maine Event

My daughter is married.

Somehow the baby that could barely tolerate being out of my arms is now, a quarter of a century later, a married woman.

It's a lot to comprehend.

It's been over four years since my own marriage fell apart, and although the trail of destruction the divorce left has not exactly been scoured away by the winds of time, there's been some pretty significant erosion. Oh, it's true that there were separate tables for him and his relatives and for me and mine, but there were incursions into one another's territory.

He danced with my mother. More than once. God knows what she said to him, but the music was so loud that regardless of what either of them said, it's doubtful that they could hear one another. I had a chance to chat with all of his brothers and sisters, and spent plenty of time with his niece who happens to be one of my favorite people.

And so the story of a divorce segues into the story of a marriage. Stories do that. They have a mind of their own, stories do. A baby girl is born, and some time later all hell breaks loose. There's heartbreak. A reversal. The story continues. There's a divorce. There's a wedding. And at this wedding, for the first time ever, four generations of  a rather unusual family find themselves in one place at the same time.

And now I'm home on my couch with my ancient cat purring on my lap. The man who loves me is at his place--savoring the solitude--or, who knows, rattling around in it, lost and wondering what happened to all the joyous hubbub. The relatives and friends are home, too--or making their way there by car, ogling fall foliage as they go. The younger daughter is running victory laps around my mother's trailer, having carried out her Maid of Honor/Party Captain duties, and safely returned my mother and her oxygen machine.

It was a peak family moment, this wedding.

Prenuptial Palpitations

You'd think I was the one getting married.

Two nights ago I stayed up until after 2:00 a.m. with some insane burst of energy. Last night I woke at 2:00 a.m. full of what-about-this-what-about-that, picturing my daughter driving up the New Jersey Turnpike with my mom riding shotgun and her suitcase-sized oxygen unit seat-belted into the back. Oxygen is flammable, I thought. Worryworryworry. Those east-coasters drive like demons on that turnpike. Worryworryworry. Only now, somehow, at the age of nearly fifty-nine, I know how to step outside the worry, step outside myself, and say. Okay. Breathe. And keep going back to the breath like I do when I meditate while my brain is tap dancing all over itself. And with the man who loves me breathing in a deep sleep beside me, it wasn't so hard.

And now my mom and the soon-to-be maid of honor are lounging in a waterfront hotel halfway to Boston. My mom was sipping her martini when the daughter called. In a couple of hours from now, they'll be asleep. The ssssssiippp-pppsssshhh of the oxygen machine a fore-shadowing of the surf on Maine's southern coast.

Tomorrow night there'll be nearly a dozen of us in Boston. And tonight, who knows, I may wake again, worried that we'll oversleep, that I'll forget some essential something, that I'll be careening around coastal curves in the dark between the rehearsal dinner and the hotel. But it's just worry. Oh. Hello, worry. You again? I'll breathe. And then in the morning, get on a plane.

photo credit: a guy named Phil. It was a long time ago, my wedding--and I can't remember Phil's last name. He took some nice pictures.

This just seems wrong

From the New York Times: Guys, Skip the Break-In on These Louboutins

I've written about Louboutins before HERE and HERE. They hold a special repugnant significance in my life.

Or it could be that I'm too clumsy to walk in high heels and maybe I'm secretly jealous. But even if I thought I could walk in them, I'd have to stumble onto a swank garage sale and get them cheap. Hundreds or even thousands of dollars for shoes?

It seems like the world should be walking in the shoes of the people who are out of work, the shoes of people who can't afford health insurance, the shoes of people without shoes.

And did you know that the New York Times only covered the Occupy Wall Street protests in the "N.Y./Region" news? It didn't merit being categorized "U.S." or "Top News." The Los Angeles Times had their article on page 26. That seems wrong, too.

The Wedding or the Check?

I'm a thrifty person. After I graduated from college my career aspirations included joining a commune, doing street theatre and living on hand-outs, traveling the world, and going to grad school. I never fantasized about marrying a doctor or a lawyer even when I discovered I could not afford grad school, but still, being broke in L.A. and driving an ancient car got old after a decade.

After I became an attorney's wife some of my favorite clothes still came from thrift stores. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy the money. A house. Private school for the daughters. Travel. Lots of theatre tickets. But even then I didn't want all the trappings--diamonds and Rolex's and luxury cars just seemed like a waste to me. Weddings were one of the items I put in the category of unnecessary extravagance. Whenever we took our daughters to a big wedding, I told them that they, too, could have a fancy wedding. Or they could have a check. Eventually, those discussions were abbreviated to simply, "The wedding or the check, girls." I'm pretty sure they knew I wanted them to choose the check--or at least a very modest celebration matched with a modestly-sized check.

C. and her fiancé hovered between running off to Vegas and having a more traditional wedding. She was calm and happy when I spoke to her yesterday after their shopping spree at thrift shops and bargain stores to hunt down the necessary pieces and parts to make centerpieces. She was glad they were having a wedding, she said. She learned a lot--and one of the things she learned is that there are a lot of people she likes and wants to party with. Me, too. I'm thrilled there'll be a wedding. It takes a big event to gather our far-flung family together. Of course, not absolutely everyone we love will be able to make it, but big milestones are meant to be shared, I think. To be witnessed. To be celebrated. And the words "celebrate" and "alone" seem like they wouldn't want to be at the same party.

Me, I'm ready to party. I look forward to meeting more of N.'s family. To traveling to a beautiful place I haven't been. To seeing a bunch of my ex in-laws. And I want to draw the circle tighter around my daughters and my son, the people they love, and me and the man who loves me. This will require some effort and concentration, since we currently inhabit four different states. That geography might shift a bit in the coming year. But no matter how that shakes out, I'm aiming for a state of togetherness on a more regular basis. It will be easy to think about that this coming week as we revel in a state of fuzzy family love.