(no subject)
Togetherness and the joining of hands
On the 31st of May my hand, life, and hopes were bound to another, in those bounds we speak of no man tearing asunder. I bought expensive brown shoes, leather soled(that fit) and wore a pair of my beloveds pants with a collarless green button up, top button undone. She was in off white with blue stripes in something half 50s house dress-half summer dress. The night before she put it on and I sewed a button to the back and I watched her hand gathering the two pieces while I turned a pin back and forth in my mouth in my best tailor impression trying to place the button just so.
We were joined to one another under a bridal wreath tree in the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain by her mother that was given a single marriage authorization by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I watched for red winged black birds and saw none, though Marina saw her first chipmunk. Her Aunt Mary gathered our hands and said a small, sweet prayer for the two of us.
We went north after, to New Hampshire, to the reception my Mom threw for us. All of my aunts and uncles were in attendance. I wished for Marina's father to be there, home sick. I wished for her grandmother and her family in general all living so far and in so many different parts of the country. Soon I'll meet them all.
We had our first dance as Husband and Wife, and truly our first real dance at all. My family stood around us listening to the music and in my happiness I repeatedly tucked my forehead down the the bridge of her nose. We spun; and I only saw her.
We stayed at the Academy Inn of South Berwick, Maine. The furniture was exquisite, all colonial period chairs and dressers(I think). The dresser in our room had a big curved front of birds-eye maple, not veneer but solid wood. The best piece being a Tudor(?) chair in the hallway on the second floor that sat beside the table lined with morning coffee cups. Lump sugar and creamers on the side table.
Breakfast was sour dough pancakes and we ate with the other couple staying there, 70 years old and Republican with two airplanes, he was sure to let us know. He gesticulated and flapped the flesh of his face in myriad grimaces while speaking. Was certainly funny but somewhat disconnected from the reality of those that do not involve hobby airplaning, Jaguars(A very nice car, let me tell you, he says), and a house in Connecticut and a winter place in Florida.
We spent the afternoon roaming old parks I used to haunt, lying between the tall spindlely pines and listened to the birds and for the water which was so quiet and so close by.
It feels that, through love, all of me is softer. That I have rounded. To be connected in that eternal way to another, the one that teaches me so much, exposes my buried and undiscovered parts, I pray to remain grateful each and every day.