Monday, July 18, 2005

To Mull

v. mulled, mull·ing, mulls
v. tr.
To go over extensively in the mind; ponder.

v. intr.
To ruminate; ponder: mull over a plan.

This is me mulling. I mull. Quite often and extensively actually. Although I prefer not to use the term ruminate. It reminds me of cows.



So I am mulling. What am I mulling...cider, mmmh. Really what I am mulling over is the nature of weddings.

I have, thus far, attended two weddings this year. Drastically different experiences and, as I mull over how to discuss them with you, dear reader, let us for a moment explore the idea of a wedding.


Expect a little ramblitiousness here...already I guess. More to follow. Trust me.

A wedding is a strange beast. All of that money and time and planning and dressing and doing of hair and makeup and picture taking and dancing and then it's over. Poof.

Well, that's not right. I mean, it's ACCURATE but it's not right. Because a wedding isn't just about a day or a ceremony or a party. It is about love and life and family and friends and promises.It is about expectations and dreams and these are all things that far outlast the time when the catering staff comes out to witness the last dance of the night.

Ostensibly (and I had to look that word up to make sure I was using it correctly folks) a wedding is the joining of two lives and two families. Bride's family, meet groom's family, now lets all play nice and have a good meal. Best face forward and all that.

Some folks scoff at weddings. They say they don't need a ceremony or a piece of paper for them to love the person they love for ever and ever. For a brief period in my life, we shall refer to them as The Independent Hippie Years, I was a scoffer of weddings. Bah, who needs it? I don't.

That was probably a direct backlash to the years I spent planning every aspect of The Perfect Wedding. We shall refer to these years as Adolescence.

The thing about being a wedding scoffer is that it indirectly makes you a scoffer of Love. Because really why would anyone put themselves through the drama of a wedding if not for Love?

I think now, and have for a few years, so don't go pinning this on The Boyfriend, that love might just be the best thing in the world. Worthy of at least one celebration, if not many. And for sure a great big public fete.

Lets backtrack there for a second to that whole notion of "public."
I am not a terribly public person. Sure, you know a lot about me. And some of you can read me like a book. But, that does not make me a public person.

And shut up about the karaoke right this second OK?

It's hard to imagine myself getting all dressed up and presenting myself to EVERYONE I know and then having to speak ontop of all that. I can give orders with the best of them, but take vows? Uhhhh...

But this is not me scoffing. This is me in awe of these folks. These fine, fine people paving the way and showing me the light of a good wedding.

So yes mom, I am learning something this year.

I am learning that, in spite of the public nature of a wedding, it really is all about Love. And, as much as you appriciate and enjoy the company of the public you have invited to witness and celebrate this event, your wedding is all about those moments when you can sort of forget they are all there and just be with this person you love. This person whom you have just vowed to spend the rest of your life loving. You need to be able to meet on the dance floor and it be magic.

Because you know what? To everyone sitting down to fancy salads and rustic breads, it IS magic. It is absolutely surreal to watch two people you know and hold dear to seem to all of a sudden be transported out of the room. They go to Faraway. Right there in front of you. It's a bubble. It's a place we all sort of yearn for. Even the most pugnacious of us...when they fall in Love...they fall so hard and so amusingly.

(I had to look up pugnacious too. Just to make sure the usage was correct. And it totally is. Today's lesson: dictionaries RULE.)


Right, so now I sound like a sap. Some of you are laughing. Go on, laugh.
Then deny it.

Ha.

Ok so that was my mull on weddings.