And finally, it's October 11, wedding day for Kurt and Claire, Claire and Kurt, or, if you will, Clurt, who will be married this afternoon in the midst of family and friends, here in Maine.
Wrote that sentence, more or less, in my journal this morning and noticed the alliteration. Family and friends go together conventionally, paired up with that initial shared letter. "Married in the midst" was more interesting this morning, a reminder that marriages, while they are a private, shared space between two people, exist within communities--communities that may have introduced these two people to each other, provided space and occasions for developing a relationship, and that now come together to celebrate today and promise to support these two people in the days to come.
My own 24-year marriage ended with my husband's death 19 years ago. If you solve the addition problem built into that last sentence, you'll see that as I remember my own wedding day today, I'm looking at 43-year-old memories. Are they memories of the actual way things happened? Or memories of the photos? It's been a long, long time.
And so many other things happened in the years since, one of which is, of course, Kurt.
Kurt, my youngest. Kurt the basketball player. Kurt who while trying to keep up with the big boys fell out of a tree, picked himself up off the ground, and announced "Walker, Texas Ranger, will return" before running, crying, into the house. The story comes from his older girl cousins. He probably doesn't remember, but we all had a good long laugh when Lauren told it last summer. Undaunted would be a good word for Kurt, one that holds for all the many things he's gone after in his 33 years, the way he's kept going, kept wanting and working and becoming himself.
Undaunted would be a good word for Claire as well, along with creative and kind and curious, and more words that I'll discover in the years ahead. I am so very grateful for her care of Kurt. That undaunted-ness in the both of them keeps them looking forward, facing into the wind and working at doing hard stuff.
And now, creating a wedding out of nothing, at least not the conventional stuff. No wedding planner, no banquet-hall venue, no color-coordinated linens. But they have a vision: friends and family frolicking on a farm on a beautiful fall afternoon, with a Wes Anderson vibe. Plus dancing under the stars, followed by overnight camping for the hardy ones. And they've gathered friends and family around them to make it all happen. To arrange the flowers and set the tables, build a photo background, set up conversation areas in the barn, move chairs, serve drinks, and be eco-warriors at the wedding so that all the compostable paper products end up in the right bins.
This is no passive "married in the midst." It's an invitation to create the day together. To create the future together.
Today's weather forecast says sunny, with highs in the 60s. The ground is dry, the woods here in Kennebunk are gold and yellow and green. The day smiles. The wedding website requested prayers for good weather, and people came through. So God came through.
That's not good theology, but it's the kind of overly simple connection we poor humans like to make while God smiles benevolently. We're small but somehow we're connected to that wide and merciful Unity, that is the source of all love. God's presence is felt in the love Kurt and Claire discovered together. In their adventures, in their work, in their lives amid family and friends.
And for me today, in the connections between past and future. Utter the word vision and my husband Lon, movie lover, would inevitably add, "Hell of a vision." He was quoting Captain Woodrow Call at the end of "Lonesome Dove," "Hell of a ..." encompasses a lot in that story: hard work, love, pain, maturity and loss. Can't see them at the start, but inevitable.
If Kris, Kurt's older brother were here to give marital advice, he'd be quoting what his father-in-law told him: "Happy wife, happy life," the reality of dedicating your life to someone else's welfare. Kris, of course, would be bouncing around the wedding venue, working the crowd, and beaming, so crazy-proud of his little brother for winning the love of a woman as awesome as Claire.
