They did it.
They really went and did it...
It was a strange and unusual thing for me, to see my best friend tying the knot yesterday. It had been settled since last October, and preparations had been under way since then, but it was still stranger than fiction to see her in a wedding dress... with all of us lady friends draped in pink silk shantung, sweat dripping down our legs in the wondrous Hermosillo July heat, wondering (at least myself) not so much how she was able to stand and kneel for half an hour before needing a chair and a glass of water considering the seven-layered monster of a crinoline she had on, but other, more ponderous and strange things.
For one, they met exactly a year ago (to the day). This is their idea of celebrating their one-year anniversary as boyfriend and girlfriend, by getting married. I thought that during my lifetime I had been the one with all the crazy stunts and sanity-defying leaps of faith, but I sat there on my pew and had to be humbled by the acts unfolding before me. Our best guy friend standing up to translate the vows for the groom, then him reading his part in the most broken spanish I have heard since the original Zorro show (of course they were trying to make it sound like mispronounced English, but to hell with that, this is MY analogy). When it was over, as we all walked down the hallway and out the door, I still wondered exactly what it all meant. My best friend is married? Actually married? And she's moving... TO JAPAN??
I'm not daring, I'm not adventurous, I'm a freaking n00b compared to these two. Yes, I do question their common sense in making such a hurried desicion, but at the same time it makes me think about the things I've done and have considered so daring... namely that ancient engagement to a guy I never met. Daring? ha! It might have been, had I stuck around long enough to actually meet the guy... but there has always been a way out of everything uncomfortable for me. Back then it was the trip to Vallarta. Served a double purpose too, to get away from my family problems, and at the same time, from an engagement I wasn't totally happy with. It worked on both counts... then there was the OTHER engagement... also cut short because the guy was too overbearing in his intentions (mild mannered, sweet guy, love ya lots, but I'm not getting any younger and I have to get married NOW!). So then I came back home, broke THAT off too. Both of these have been ringless engagements, to men my family never even met. Then again... there are some things you just can't fake, and the kind of commitment it takes to unite yourself to a single person must be one of them.
Back to the wedding... the reception was all anyone could have hoped for. Boleros to greet the guests, a round of cumbias to get everyone on the dance floor, then an hour of mariachi music over dinner, and rounding everything up, a great round of everything popular and irresistibly dance-able from the last 5 decades. My heels made it through the first round. Slippers came out afterwads (yes, I think of these things beforehand). Took lots of pictures of my friends and the bride and groom. His parents were aparently ecstatic, they flailed around the dance floor with an enthusiasm that more than made up for their lack of grace or experience in flailing around to cumbias. Enrique tore up the dance floor and made us all see the truth behind his famous non-sequitur: "I CAN CURE THIS WITH WHISKEY!!". I also got some pics of my brother and L. wearing my wrap over their heads and holding my bouquet.
As for the bride and groom themselves, well... it was a sight... the whole thing has read like something out of a story... novel... book... something. And the reception could be no exception. They didn't seem to care two hoots about the world around them. When they danced, they were on their own. It really, really made me wonder... what truth could there be to the lesson these people who want something and just go for it convey? Then again... how often is it that two people fervently wish for the same thing?... this second question might be more on-target. We've all been brought up to think sensible, follow an unwritten set of rules for living well, and adjusting to anything that does not suit said rules. Falling in love with someone on the other side of the globe might have broken a rule... getting engaged to said person after three months might have well been another... but how often do the two people involved in a story like this really REALLY want the same thing? And in wanting the same thing could very well lie the will to do everything it takes to make things work no matter what.
I didn't write on the guest book until the end of the reception. I wrote down "take care, and listen to each other always. For good times and bad, you will always have each other. Please learn to value and treasure everything this means." Then I left with my family, came home, read a couple dozen pages of Battle Royale, and went to sleep. I went to sleep still wondering about what makes things work. Feeling a bit afraid that doing everything by the book might entail a bigger dissapointment when things don't go as planned.
Then I stopped thinking. After all, this isn't about me.
It was a strange and unusual thing for me, to see my best friend tying the knot yesterday. It had been settled since last October, and preparations had been under way since then, but it was still stranger than fiction to see her in a wedding dress... with all of us lady friends draped in pink silk shantung, sweat dripping down our legs in the wondrous Hermosillo July heat, wondering (at least myself) not so much how she was able to stand and kneel for half an hour before needing a chair and a glass of water considering the seven-layered monster of a crinoline she had on, but other, more ponderous and strange things.
For one, they met exactly a year ago (to the day). This is their idea of celebrating their one-year anniversary as boyfriend and girlfriend, by getting married. I thought that during my lifetime I had been the one with all the crazy stunts and sanity-defying leaps of faith, but I sat there on my pew and had to be humbled by the acts unfolding before me. Our best guy friend standing up to translate the vows for the groom, then him reading his part in the most broken spanish I have heard since the original Zorro show (of course they were trying to make it sound like mispronounced English, but to hell with that, this is MY analogy). When it was over, as we all walked down the hallway and out the door, I still wondered exactly what it all meant. My best friend is married? Actually married? And she's moving... TO JAPAN??
I'm not daring, I'm not adventurous, I'm a freaking n00b compared to these two. Yes, I do question their common sense in making such a hurried desicion, but at the same time it makes me think about the things I've done and have considered so daring... namely that ancient engagement to a guy I never met. Daring? ha! It might have been, had I stuck around long enough to actually meet the guy... but there has always been a way out of everything uncomfortable for me. Back then it was the trip to Vallarta. Served a double purpose too, to get away from my family problems, and at the same time, from an engagement I wasn't totally happy with. It worked on both counts... then there was the OTHER engagement... also cut short because the guy was too overbearing in his intentions (mild mannered, sweet guy, love ya lots, but I'm not getting any younger and I have to get married NOW!). So then I came back home, broke THAT off too. Both of these have been ringless engagements, to men my family never even met. Then again... there are some things you just can't fake, and the kind of commitment it takes to unite yourself to a single person must be one of them.
Back to the wedding... the reception was all anyone could have hoped for. Boleros to greet the guests, a round of cumbias to get everyone on the dance floor, then an hour of mariachi music over dinner, and rounding everything up, a great round of everything popular and irresistibly dance-able from the last 5 decades. My heels made it through the first round. Slippers came out afterwads (yes, I think of these things beforehand). Took lots of pictures of my friends and the bride and groom. His parents were aparently ecstatic, they flailed around the dance floor with an enthusiasm that more than made up for their lack of grace or experience in flailing around to cumbias. Enrique tore up the dance floor and made us all see the truth behind his famous non-sequitur: "I CAN CURE THIS WITH WHISKEY!!". I also got some pics of my brother and L. wearing my wrap over their heads and holding my bouquet.
As for the bride and groom themselves, well... it was a sight... the whole thing has read like something out of a story... novel... book... something. And the reception could be no exception. They didn't seem to care two hoots about the world around them. When they danced, they were on their own. It really, really made me wonder... what truth could there be to the lesson these people who want something and just go for it convey? Then again... how often is it that two people fervently wish for the same thing?... this second question might be more on-target. We've all been brought up to think sensible, follow an unwritten set of rules for living well, and adjusting to anything that does not suit said rules. Falling in love with someone on the other side of the globe might have broken a rule... getting engaged to said person after three months might have well been another... but how often do the two people involved in a story like this really REALLY want the same thing? And in wanting the same thing could very well lie the will to do everything it takes to make things work no matter what.
I didn't write on the guest book until the end of the reception. I wrote down "take care, and listen to each other always. For good times and bad, you will always have each other. Please learn to value and treasure everything this means." Then I left with my family, came home, read a couple dozen pages of Battle Royale, and went to sleep. I went to sleep still wondering about what makes things work. Feeling a bit afraid that doing everything by the book might entail a bigger dissapointment when things don't go as planned.
Then I stopped thinking. After all, this isn't about me.