Thursday, January 06, 2005
Three Rings
Our holidays are coming to a close around here.
I guess most everyone's holiday season expired on Monday, but I'm off from school for another few days. I'm cherishing the few days left, though I have already started reading ahead for next semester.
The holiday was busy. Lots of travel and a little bit of wedding planning. We are trying to take advantage of the time off, before we get back into school and get suddenly swamped with large volumes of material that take a long time to complete. We go for Tuesday to have our engagement pictures taken. I do not mind all of these experiences, really, but sometimes I take a step back and think, "wow, there sure is a lot of fuss that goes into one single day." And that's even considering that we've been making an effort to play this down and make things as simple as possible.
When I think about all the fuss it becomes easy for me to want a small wedding, with few preparations and few people, in a quiet room with simple words and a few dozen vibrant flowers. I'd never want to be rid of the beauty and elegance of sacred ceremony, so always in my imagination the scene is dignified, with my bride in her beauty and I dressed to the nines. There would be need for only the smallest reception, perhaps a truly extravagant dinner of the sort one eats only once or twice in one's life, with a peaking bottle of ancient Champagne.
Susanne and I have talked of how nice it would be to have a smaller wedding, but we have other people to consider. Why consider them, though, I wonder. Isn't it our wedding?
Yes, it is, in the sense that Susanne and I are marrying one another, and we are doing this because we love one another, not because anyone has arranged it for us or because either of us feel some external pressure or expectation to be married.
And no, it isn't, in the sense that Susanne and I feel we pieces of several different communities, and the change in our identity as husband and wife means a change in the identities of these communities--they are reconstituted because their constituent members have changed. I think we both want to allow our communities in on the change, because we are a part of them, and they are a part of us.
"Wow," I say, "there sure is a lot of fuss that goes into a single day." And while that's true for Susanne and I, in that we are chief organizers of a large party (though most credit must go to Susanne, and much as well to our families), what I'm even more consistently more surprised about is how much fuss it means all of the different members of our different communities are willing to go through to celebrate that with and for Susanne and I. The larger this wedding gets, the more humbled and blessed and amazed I am to be a part of it.
I guess most everyone's holiday season expired on Monday, but I'm off from school for another few days. I'm cherishing the few days left, though I have already started reading ahead for next semester.
The holiday was busy. Lots of travel and a little bit of wedding planning. We are trying to take advantage of the time off, before we get back into school and get suddenly swamped with large volumes of material that take a long time to complete. We go for Tuesday to have our engagement pictures taken. I do not mind all of these experiences, really, but sometimes I take a step back and think, "wow, there sure is a lot of fuss that goes into one single day." And that's even considering that we've been making an effort to play this down and make things as simple as possible.
When I think about all the fuss it becomes easy for me to want a small wedding, with few preparations and few people, in a quiet room with simple words and a few dozen vibrant flowers. I'd never want to be rid of the beauty and elegance of sacred ceremony, so always in my imagination the scene is dignified, with my bride in her beauty and I dressed to the nines. There would be need for only the smallest reception, perhaps a truly extravagant dinner of the sort one eats only once or twice in one's life, with a peaking bottle of ancient Champagne.
Susanne and I have talked of how nice it would be to have a smaller wedding, but we have other people to consider. Why consider them, though, I wonder. Isn't it our wedding?
Yes, it is, in the sense that Susanne and I are marrying one another, and we are doing this because we love one another, not because anyone has arranged it for us or because either of us feel some external pressure or expectation to be married.
And no, it isn't, in the sense that Susanne and I feel we pieces of several different communities, and the change in our identity as husband and wife means a change in the identities of these communities--they are reconstituted because their constituent members have changed. I think we both want to allow our communities in on the change, because we are a part of them, and they are a part of us.
"Wow," I say, "there sure is a lot of fuss that goes into a single day." And while that's true for Susanne and I, in that we are chief organizers of a large party (though most credit must go to Susanne, and much as well to our families), what I'm even more consistently more surprised about is how much fuss it means all of the different members of our different communities are willing to go through to celebrate that with and for Susanne and I. The larger this wedding gets, the more humbled and blessed and amazed I am to be a part of it.
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