I was wondering why I'd launched into these old stories and don't seem to be coming to any point about actually being "lost and trapped."
The thing is, I like to offer advice. But as I was reading Paulo Coelho's The Warrior of the Light today, he warned against those who would offer advice. He says, "the fool who gives advice about someone else's garden is not tending his own plants." I'm not sure I fully agree with that because I think we can learn from other's experiences. Maybe not as fully as we learn from our own, but not all advice is an evil. I hope. So, rather than thinking of what I'm writing as "advice" of any kind, I guess the last few entries have been a bit of a cautionary tale. And for future entries, in which I'll talk about what I believe and why, I think it's helpful to have written the experiences that brought me to my conclusions. And since I'm writing what I believe based on what I've done without implying it is right for anyone else, without trying to impose my beliefs upon anyone else, I'm hoping I am not one of Coelho's fools.
So, below is the story of my first wedding. Or, as my parents refer to it, "the first event," as neither one of them believe it was a real "wedding." Following this, I'll just pick and choose particular moments of the next four years to illustrate points and begin to talk about what I learned from that particular episode in life, which - as it turns out - is much less than what I learned in the three years that followed...
Wedding day. How many times had I played bride as a little girl? I used to practice saying my vows, “Do you promise to love, honor and cherish, him? And do you promise to tell his friends when he’s sick?” I’m not sure why I thought that was a vow – and an important one at that – but apparently, according to my parents, it was always part vows I made when I was young. But nothing that happened that rainy June day was like what I’d imagined over the years…
When I awoke in the hotel about twenty minutes from X’s father’s house, the setting for the event, there was no mistaking the pitter-pat of heavy rain against the window. The morning rushed by with my parents and brothers in a flurry of activity as they went back and forth between the house and the hotel trying to prepare against the weather.
For my part, I just sat tight and tried to keep faith. X had promised it wouldn’t rain and I was determined to believe all would be well… My only break of spirit came when I heard my oldest brother trudging down the hallway outside my room, declaring loudly that “This was going to be the worst wedding ever!”
My mother (a woman who had owned an interior decorating shop, a devout follower of Martha Stewart Weddings, a woman with impeccable taste and a romantic nature, who had imagined this day since her daughter was born) was coping remarkably well, considering the challenges. My future father-in-law had taken care of procuring tents. In fact, he had taken care of just about everything, seeing as I had lost interest in planning the wedding sometime shortly after the invitations had gone out. He borrowed a school bus to take guests from the hotel to his home (what says wedding more than a big, yellow school bus?). The head chef at the school where he was superintendent was our caterer, the photographer/videographer was a science teacher and the justice of the peace was a drinking buddy – we were all set. To be fair, it was very kind of him to have helped as much as he did; it’s just his taste wasn’t exactly the same as my mother’s. And getting back to those tents…
When told we would have tents, my mother imagined they would be of the lovely, white, fully-walled variety often seen at wedding venues. But when she turned up at the house to try to convert the garage into a dry seating area, she found the tents were red and white striped, without walls – neither elegant, nor practical in a downpour. In fact, definitely better suited to an event that features elephants and popcorn.
And in other decorating hiccups – the night before, mom had dropped off beautiful (and not inexpensive) white, gardenia topiaries to line either side of the front porch, where the ceremony would take place. But Saturday morning, in place of the gardenias were two large pots filled with blue-dyed carnations. We would come to find out they were left-over from the recent eighth-grade graduation. The topiaries were nowhere to be found and my mother was too embarrassed and too polite to move the carnations, thinking at the time that they had been specially chosen.
My parents have often said that upon reflection, someone should have questioned more deeply the root of the bride’s lack of interest in the details of the wedding, but as with the bride herself, there were other reasonable explanations – “she doesn’t like to be the center of attention,” for example. Again, the extraordinary value of 20-20 hindsight. But it’s true, a bride probably should have looked around at what was being planned and wanted to have a bit more input. As it was, at the time, only my mother felt distress as her best-laid plans fell apart into a mire of questionable aesthetics.
Back at the hotel, I was having my own share of difficulties. When we first planned the wedding, we’d decided to get married in December. Accordingly, I’d found a vintage 1940’s winter-white satin dress that, though off the rack, looked as though it had been made for me. Perfect for a December wedding. Only, this was June. Shortly after the engagement, my grandmother (my only living grandparent) and his grandparents all began suffering health problems. We pushed up the date of the wedding to help ensure they would all be in attendance. The satin was a bit heavy for the weather. But that was the least of my problems.
I had gone on anti-depressants a few months earlier. While I had not noted any significant improvement in my emotional or mental state, I had noticed a significant increase in weight. Ten pounds to be exact. I had been quite petite to begin so it wasn’t that I looked especially bad, but the satin did not have a lot of give in it and after it had been let out as far as it could possibly go, it was still rather… snug. Unforgivingly so, particularly on a humid June day.
Finally dressed, though lumpy in places I wished I wasn’t, I headed down to the lobby where we took family photos and said hello to friends. As I mentioned, I hadn’t put a great deal of thought into arrangements so there was only one limo, which needed to take several trips back and forth to bring elderly guests and family before me. Just before my great aunt got into the car, she pulled me aside and whispered into my ear, “God will forgive you, someday.” Um, thanks?
Due to the multiple trips the limo was making, we were a little behind schedule by the time my bridesmaids and I got into the car. Now, I should pause to mention here the great injustice I did these beautiful women. I’d always sworn I would not force upon anyone an ugly bridesmaid dress. I’d picked what I thought was a beautiful gown from a Lord and Taylor’s catalogue. It flowed in chiffon from aqua blue to sea green with a simple tank neckline, straight to the ankles. The dress I was certain would look gorgeous on everyone actually looked god-awful. Well, with a few exceptions. But there was just something peculiarly unflattering about the way it fit – over-emphasizing hips, under-emphasizing chests, or for the less curvy – just looking like a colorful bag. I have since apologized to several of my dear friends for the hours they suffered, but I guess that’s in the contract of being a bridesmaid.
So anyway, I’m sitting in the limo with my attendants. Little did I know that at that moment the groom was fuming over the fact that I was (as usual) late, regardless of the fact it (for once) wasn’t actually my fault, and he was considering calling the whole thing off. Can’t say I haven’t fantasized once or twice about how life would have turned out if he had… As it was, I watched the scenery pass by the window, barely aware of the twitterings of my girlfriends, and had the sudden urge to cry. In retrospect, of course, I know it was the pangs and longings of my buried self-conscious begging me to listen to it and mourning my impending fate. But at the time, I must admit complete self-unawareness… I had no idea why I was sad.
Arriving at the house, I noted with hope that while the air was damp, it had stopped raining, as X had promised. I entered the house on the side so neither the guests nor the groom would see me. There, my family waited to say good luck, in their own ways. Again, my eldest brother was ready with just the right words of wisdom. He pulled me aside, laughed and said, “Remember, it’ll be much easier to end this now than it will be ten minutes from now.”
It’s only been with the passing of time that I’ve come to find out how many of my guests were laying bets on how long the marriage would last…
So there we were, all my bridesmaids fanned out on one side of the front porch, the groomsmen on the other side, X and myself in the middle. The justice of the peace began the ceremony… only, it was clear within his first few sentences that he was one too many sheets to the wind – at 1:00 in the afternoon. When he stumbled on the best man’s name – “Jim Davis” – I was not surprised that it took him three attempts to say the name of the reading Jim was doing from Kahil Gibran.
Next, it was time for us to say the vows we’d each written for one another. I was first. Only, I couldn’t speak. I looked around at the gathered guests as panic struck. My eyes fell, for a moment, on the guy I’d dated one summer in college and I had the most bizarre thought: “Object! Please object! Tell them you love me and want to marry me!” But he just smiled his warm, friendly smile and I turned back to face X. Still the words wouldn’t come. My mind was a blank. The only thing I could think of to say spilled out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“I don’t think I can do this.”
Simultaneously, 120 people drew in breath, gasping like the sound of a hot air balloon descending. Speaking of hot air balloons, for reasons unknown, my somewhat eccentric aunt had brought a giant, yellow smiley face balloon and tied it to the tent post. I looked at it then, bobbing and dancing in the breeze, its empty black eyes staring manically as it smiled its wide, thin grin, mesmerizing me. I tore my eyes away and saw the shocked faces of those closest to me – my parents in the front row, and then, X.
His stunned expression was a reality slap, returning me to where I was and what I’d just said. I started giggling, and as though I were a bad actor in some amateur play who had forgotten my lines, I turned back to the crowd and shrugged, saying, “Sorry – stage fright.” With a deep breath, I started again and this time managed to get through my vows as planned.
I have often said, and do believe, that it was the effort of my subconscious to reach the surface that made me say what I said. In truth, at the time, I don’t believe it was really my intention to stop the proceedings. Or maybe it was, but the instinct only lasted an instant.
The ceremony ended, followed immediately by the reception. We danced, sang, laughed and drank. Nearly all my female friends and more than one of their mothers sidled up to let me know that the justice of the peace was a lech who wouldn’t stop hitting on them.
The photographer/videographer/science teacher didn’t think to film during the reception at all, so for better or worse, those moments were lost to time. He also, rather strangely, forgot to take a picture of just the bride and groom. My mother had to take a picture that had originally included my grandmother and cut her out so that she could have a wedding picture with just X and me.
At one point, late in the evening, some guests were thrown into the pool. I was grabbed by a few inebriated groomsmen and dragged to the water’s edge, but was rescued in the nick of time by X’s friend, a very homosexual costumer, who threw his arm before me and shouted, “Stop! It’s vintage!”
But, like Cinderella, the party ended about midnight. The bride and groom left – and as they did, the rain returned. X had kept his promise, though; it had stayed relatively dry throughout our wedding. The limo drove us back to our apartment about an hour away and we promptly fell asleep. Nothing was consummated that night…
The next day, i.e., the first day of wedded life set the stage, in a way, for much of what would follow. In other words, it wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t what I wanted.
X was in the middle of directing a show (as usual) and so there would be no honeymoon that year. Instead, we used one of our wedding presents – a gift voucher to stay at The Plaza – and headed to New York City
My eyes narrowed into small slits signaling danger to all who know me well and I seethed as I said, “If you don’t get off that bed immediately, this is going to be the shortest marriage in history.”
Sighing, X heaved himself off the bed and looked around, “Well, what do you want to do?” he asked. The truth was I didn’t know what I wanted to do… just something – something to distract me… something to make me feel like a honeymooner. It was almost exactly one year since the day I’d first met him, and looking at him there, all tussled and fatigued, I was filled with the feeling of… nothing.
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