I love tradition. Weddings are one of the few traditions in our culture with a structure and a form
I love tradition. Weddings are one of the few traditions in our culture with a structure and a form that we adhere to. And a lot of us point our lives toward it, setting it in our own stories as a pinnacle, a goal, a mile marker of achievement. This can cause a lot of idolatry and grief and impossibility through the distortion of fantasy. I’ve been to a lot of incredible weddings. Beautiful celebrations of that tradition of commitment. But they can blur together, and feel performed rather than experienced. The feeling of ‘ok we’re supposed to say this now, and now this.’ Vendors gouging budgets. Stuffy clothes choking laughter. Expectations dashed on the hardness of reality. . Well, I just felt something new. I went to the best one yet. Because they morphed it, honed it, changed it to feel fresh and honest. It wasn’t in a church or a building, it was in a grove of redwoods. We dressed in costumes. White and gold. I wore tights and spray painted my white jacket gold. Gold face paint everywhere. The decorations were hung by friends. Everyone camped in tents and tipis by the river. The local college marching band led us in a celebratory march through a persimmon grove. The bride and groom read vows that came from the honest surprise that a partner could be found in this life, a comrade. They didn’t pretend to perfection. They celebrated the shadow and the light, as commitment to another is an opportunity for growth and a life time of self discovery. We danced til 4am under the unpolluted bright stars of rural Northern California. . The whole thing made me feel as if marriage had just been invented, a brilliant new idea. I didn’t feel the sting of comparison, of 'wow I hope I find this one day.’ I was too wrapped up in the awe that it exists at all. That something so pure is a gift not to the couple alone, but to the community. . Love is real you guys. And it isn’t sold in catalogues and movies. It’s built in communities and orchards and working together and standing together. I’m shining this week as if a mirror could hold on to sunshine and reflect it around for days. #lesalz : @todesbrilliant -- source link
#lesalz