Being the Eye
Today was the first real serious, heavy day of wedding stuff. It was like being immersed in a wedding bath. My family has come into town, not all of them but enough to really be great. There's a frenzy, a whirling let's-get-this-done attitude that's compelling and awesome to be a part of, not a part, the center of. To be the eye of the storm, together with P, and the storm has only begun to spin in earnest now.

Tomorrow will be a flash of a day, recorded in moments and will be busy, busy, busy. But things are coming together in a really nice way. Where, two weeks ago, I thought that a wedding brought out the greed from the service sector in that everything, everything, costs more if the seller knows its being used for a wedding. Cakes, dresses, alterations, chairs, space, everything.

But, as the moment approaches, like the moon when's close and so bright you can read by it, it takes on a life of its own. A newer and better and stronger unwritten rule supercedes the merchant's dictum, the aspect of the joining of lives, the public bonding of two individuals together. Its like there is nothing that can or would stand in the way of a wedding. A moment's grace in a chaotic and increasingly overangry and overpaced world. When strangers can be thrown together one moment and be relatives to each other the next. A wedding is a stitch in the fabric of society.

But tomorrow will be as tiring as any day I've yet known. The list of things to do and be at and the people to talk to and enjoy their company and the well wishes, the joy of sharing a happy, happy moment together with friends and family is an overwhelming emotion.

And there are a thousand mini stories that can spin out of the wedding, shopping for dresses, cake tasting, writing vows, cycling on the wharf, negotiations with the rehearsal restuarant, deciding what to wear, rings, tradition versus what we want, how religious (or not), picking caterers, driving through Watsonville, making the favors, fielding questions, considering, always considering one option over another or another pattern, style or color.

But for now, I think we'll enjoy the eye at the center of it all and things will sort themselves out.