Scraps and Notes

There are novels written about weekends like this one.

At dinner on Friday night, the first to arrive were two guys in a Kia with Massachusetts plates.  I was outside organizing drinks and ice, and saw them drive in, but didn’t recognize them.  So I walked to the screen door and hollered “Incoming!”

“Who is it?” Nora replied.

“I don’t know.  They must be yours.”  But by that time they’d gotten out of the car, and I recognized that it was my brothers Jerry and Bill, whom I hadn’t seen for eight years.

Then other cars arrived, bearing friends from New York, from New Jersey, from Wisconsin, from California.  From Boston and Medford and Salem and Beverly and Somerville and Amesbury.  From Middletown. 

The grilles were adopted, as grilles are, by men who produced burgers and chicken breasts and hot dogs and bratwurst in endless succession.  The early uncontrolled grease fire didn’t last too long...

Talking.  On the deck, on the lawn, in the garage, in the house.  Everywhere talking, and laughing.  And hugging, too, lots of hugging.  And people who had traveled hundreds or thousands of miles thanking US for asking them to come.

On Saturday afternoon, a dozen women descended on our house to help Nora feel comforted and surrounded before she went off to her big event.  Susan and Jonno piled into their car and followed me up the hill, helping to hammer in 24 Burma Shave signs, twelve uphill and twelve more downhill.

I drove back up to Emmett & Kerstin’s home, and saw Melody and Matt and Wheaton setting up chairs.  I encouraged chairs to be brought closer to the arbor, then jumped in and tied a few sashes onto chair-backs until it was time to head inside and change.  I stood in front of the air conditioner and de-humidified for a few minutes, then showered and put on my suit and slipped a dime into my right shoe.  Since there’s no prohibition against the bride seeing the groom’s clothing ahead of time, I went back out to greet Nelson and Betti, and to sequentially introduce them to the other celebration participants.  We staked out our places, and talked with incoming guests.  I moved the stand with the programs to be right above the plastic golf hole, so that we wouldn’t injure anyone.

Elizabeth began to play, and the hillside was filled with music.  I saw a car bypass the parking barrier and climb the rest of the driveway to the house—Nora was hunkered down in the back seat like the Pope attended by his security detail, being spirited away through secret passageways to arrive at her upstairs chambers.  The family assembled on the porch, Nelson gathered, Emmett & Kerstin welcomed, I walked downhill with Estelle, arrived at the arbor, and turned.

The congregants rose without bidding and turned toward the door, and Nora was escorted by her brother Ellis.  And all the cliches were true.  Radiant.  Regal.  A vision of loveliness.

Throughout the ceremony, people laughing.  That doesn’t happen at a wedding unless the ring bearer or flower girl do something cute, but it happened at our wedding a lot.  We had asked all of our participants to each take a minute or two, but almost all of them took three or four.  No one seemed antsy about it, though.  The weather was cool, the valley was beautiful, the words were filled with love, and things took as long as they took.

You all pronounced us wed.

The toast at the porch, supposedly about five minutes after the end of the ceremony, didn’t start for another half hour, as we made slow progress uphill, stopping every few feet to welcome and thank another friend. 

Toasts were offered, Swedish public speaking was deemed inferior, thunder rumbled in the western distance, and the sky darkened.  At about 6:30, the gathering started to disassemble and wagon-train its way down to the reception grounds.

I left late, stopped by the house.  Put on more comfortable shoes, though I retained the dime; picked up the cash for the band and the envelope with the Vermont marriage license; and parked in the gravel lot behind the firehouse.

It rained.  People were forced to stay either inside or under the tent, and met one another.  Humboldt Fog and Truffle Tremor were consumed, along with tapenades and flatbreads and much libation.

We herded the group together under the tent.  The band arrived at 7:30 as promised, and I said, “tell them to go inside and get some dinner, and be ready to start at 8:30.  We’ve got some other things to do.”

Nelson welcomed, Mom welcomed, Jonno and Susan sang (I’m sorry if I disturbed you as I sang along to both songs). Don and Agnes limericked, and Howard barrelhoused. 

A bagpiper arrived bearing Scots tunes and Amazing Grace and a poem from Rumi, a moment of utterly random wonderfulness.  I was blindsided by a book of family photos and a PowerPoint show, my wife and brother and sister conspiring against me as I’m sure they’ll continue to do.

We lost Nora’s dress-pin.  We lost our wedding license.  We found them both.

Dinner was had, along with continued libation and much more talking.  Nora and I made our way from one table to another, sharing sequential love throughout the full evening.  Tables disaggregated and re-assembled in different forms, as people found those that they themselves hadn’t seen in ages.  Swing Noire swung, dancers danced, three cakes were dismantled and consumed, witnesses signed their statement and left more elaborate well-wishes in the guestbook.

A table in the corner was laden with gifts, an entire Nissan Rogue-ful.

Back at home, things were vaguely sorted and secured, and we made it to bed at about 2 am, arising again at 7 to prepare for visitors.  Ice was purchased, leftovers were acquired from the garage, food and drink were set out, and a great many folks stopped by for a few hours before they departed for their distant homes.  We played liars’ dice, made substantial but not sufficient inroads into the remaining ham, consumed more prosecco.  We talked.

We opened our gift.  Although there were over sixty packages of various sizes and colors, there was really only a single gift, which was made of love.  We recorded that love by its components and their origins, marveling over each element as it emerged.  We need a larger house to adequately hold and display the love that we received.

Leftovers were re-packaged again, the more fragile elements of love set into cat-proof locations, and we made it to bed at about 2:00 am, arising again at 7 to prepare for visitors.  My brothers returned, along with Grazyna and Howard.  Matt arrived to disassemble the tent, retrieve some chairs and a cooler, and to return Nan’s grille and tables to her.  He talked of the house he rebuilt, and then he and I leaned on his truck and talked together about family.

When Jerry, Bill, Howard and Grazyna departed, Ginger and Jane arrived.  I recognized that moment as fiber-friendly, and went to sort trash and recycling in the garage as they emerged onto the porch with a spinning wheel and a drop spindle and needles of varied gauges.  I met friends at the dump who’d been at one or more of the weekend’s events, picked up another box of love at the post office, and came back to meet more friends on their ways back home.  We dished out another tasting platter of varied wedding cakes, and by about 3:00, were left on our own. 

E-mails arrived, with well-wishes and with photographs.  Emmett arrived, showing us his own photos and video.

Nora and I went for a drive through town, stopping at Shirley’s.  She brought us in onto the couch, and I missed an entire hour of conversation, sleeping in thirty-second bites on Nora’s arm.  They’ll be visiting us this evening, though, and I’ll be better prepared and more gracious.

We returned home and I took my first shower as a married man (yes, it had been nearly 50 hours between showers... I’ve been busy), and proposed to my w... wi... woman in the next room that we dress up and go out on a date.  So we drove in to Table 24 and had a lovely dinner and even better conversation, arriving home at about 10:30 and crashing into bed like toppled trees.

Now it is Tuesday, a day we missed the first nine hours of as we slept in for the first time in over a week.  Lois and Paul have been by to retrieve coolers and chairs and to drop off a bag of their garden lettuce.  Nora is puttering and sorting as she does in the morning, while I write, which is what I do in the morning.  Later, those roles will reverse.  Nelson stopped by at lunch, having dropped off our fully signed wedding license at the town clerk.  

I’ve just spent pages describing to you some fraction of what happened this weekend, but really, I can’t begin to describe to you what it meant to have all of you there.  We were congratulated several times on having put together a wonderful wedding unlike any other.  But really, what we did was gather wonderful people together and allow magic to happen.  This was your weekend every bit as much as it was ours, and it was amazing precisely because of the recipe of wonderfulness to which you all added your own spices. 

Thanks for a truly remarkable time, and keep track of the blog.  This wedding has not ended.