the one about the girl, and the wedding, and the dress, and the love.

photo creds: Nigel Fubara

i went to NOLA to my girl's wedding.
it was better than your wedding.
it was better than my wedding.
it was better than everyone's wedding put together.
the end.

i admit i've gotten a little cagey about spilling my life out here in the open. it's because i'm savoring each moment too much and i don't want to give any of it away. i don't want to share. so the following isn't a share, it s a public service announcement that no one should bother getting married ever again because my girl just crushed your wedding.

here's why:

1. Take 25 years worth of devoted friendships,
2. Add two huge, loving, laughing families
3. Stir in horse drawn carriages, fireworks, jazz bands, dancing, and delicious food
...annnnd, you still only managed to cover Friday.

i believe the mark of a person's character is who they draw to them, who becomes loyal to them, and the amount of love and devotion with which they cultivate those relationships. when you find those magnetic, truly loyal people, you can't help but fall in love with them as individuals and as a couple when they finally get around to getting married.

the wedding was so spectacularly beautiful because each of them possesses such a radiant soul that they draw the most wonderful people around them--people who embraced each other from the get go like lifelong friends even if it had been 3.5 minutes. people who laugh loud and celebrate each moment.

such joy. seriously such joy surrounded these two.

and then you add NOLA into the mix, with its heady feel of jazz, history, mystique and strength, warmth, humidity, and architecture. its cemeteries call to you, its balconies beckon and its beat carries you until you are sure that the city has claimed your very being and won't give it up.

anyways, her wedding killed all other weddings. everyone else's weddings were already crying their final tears in a corner gasping for air when she put on that red Vera Wang and buried them all with no remorse.

palabras.

and when we moved past the fear, expectations, and insecurity
i saw your heart open, your eyes unguarded
felt the rush of loyalty, love, trust and faith.
i knew that a little of you would never be enough
to fill the portion of my life you claimed.
because when all this fades,
when the tangible no longer matters,
when the hereafter comes,
my only demand from you is this:
that your soul knows mine.

a confession.

i used to write prolifically.  here, in the poetry journal, in my head in the car, in the shower--no matter. there was this constant stream of inner dialogue that seemed to have its own built in subwoofer--loud and heavy.  the beat of the words drove the way i structured my days, the way i thought about people and places.

then, a while back, i got a little lost, a little tempest in a tea-pot-ee and more than a little out of sorts with myself and generally with everyone who loved me and who i loved. and either out of spite or out of fear of what that inner thumping would say, i stopped writing. the reality is that i had this epic and glorious picture in my head of what 35 would look like. it involved big cities, jet setting to pristine beaches, warm open air cafes, the swirl of foreign tongues, and additional pages in my passport filled with work visas and travel adventures.

while i have some of that still, i begrudged the rest of it. so much so that i left my precious words alone for four whole years.  enter my own personal denial of all things.

until a while back, when someone jarred me loose out off my high horse.  when i metaphorically picked myself up again, i got a little indignant, then repentant, then humble, because here's the thing:  i travel a lot. i get to sit with my best friends on pristine beaches. i spent a week this past fall posted up on a cafe porch in latin america, falling in love again with spanish. i make deliberate, real, quality time for the people i love without hesitation or concern.  this weekend, i will be in san francisco smothering my girl's baby with kisses. end of next month in portland at my goddaughter's christening.  my passport--it's full of stamps and visas.  so what the fuck have i been i so out of sorts about?

and now four years later i finally understand.  this feeling, this emptiness, this dull constant ache in the back of my chest, i suspect it's homesickness. unfortunately, i am not quite sure WHERE home is (if that needs clarifying you probably shouldn't be reading my blog) so much as I know WHO home is and it is missing you that makes being so far away up here hard.

home isn't a single person to me. it never has been and as much as i love my husband, that is not what i ask of him.  home is the feeling of my soul reconnecting with those who see me for who i am without condition or expectation of anything other than truth.  home is the purity of those moments, the purity of my love for those people. and home with them happens regardless of physical location, temperature or language.

on resolving no more resolutions

For Christmas we got a new thermostat, you know, one of the ones that has the receiver you place outside and then you can see what the temperature is from the climate controlled enclave of your kitchen.

every time i look at the little screen i feel this nostalgia for places i have traveled and lived where instead of looking at a screen i walked onto a veranda, breathed in the air with my whole being, opened my arms wide and felt the weather the way some people say a morning prayer.

at any rate, i looked at the screen today and it said 3F and i felt myself deflate.  it's no secret my soul lies in warmer climes. i made this new years resolution to be more positive about being in a cold climate (and go to the gym, but let's not kid ourselves about that one).  yes, i hear you tropical peanut gallery, quit your snickering and buy me a plane ticket already.

snark and sarcasm aside, clearly the weather gods were attempting to make the resolution work because the drive from the house to work was beautiful--a rainbow sky in pastels against the crystalline white of the horfrost covering each tree branch and leaf. from work the fog was rolling back across the ice filled inlet. it was so peaceful, so gentle and serene.

so not like the last three hours when the fog came back and it is has been gloomy and doomy outside.

i can see no other lesson from this dreary turn of events than that making resolutions is as futile as my use of the word "never" (which invariably comes back to haunt me).