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Patience

Right before I walked out to meet my dad and walk down the aisle to get married, my friend B insisted that I needed one more coat of mascara.  I'm not very adept with makeup in the best of circumstances, and she had steadier hands than me, so I sat as still as I could and she gave me gentle orders.  I could hear the music starting up, and could imagine my father pacing, the crowd quietly looking over their shoulders, waiting.  B pulled back, then dabbed at my eye, clucked, and came back at me with the mascara wand.  My stomach was turning over.  The music lifted its way to us.  "They'll wait," she told me, and surveyed her work.  Not quite right.  She gave the edge of my right eye a couple of light strokes and looked again.  I could hardly stand it, and wanted to get up and get out there, where everyone was waiting.  But I trusted her, and she was squinting now at my left eye, appraising, even while the photographer looked over her shoulder at my father, jingling his hands in his pockets on the porch. 

Lots of the rest of my wedding is a blur to me, but I will always remember those few minutes: the swelling anticipation, the beginning strains of music, my anxious heart jangling and jumping and the perfect composure of B's hands as she held the mascara wand and took her time. 

"Oh, the comfort
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together,
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
-- George Eliot

Shower Me

My four favorite galpals, Ruby, Sapphire, Harpo and Wibs, threw a shower for me last week.  Women friends were asked to contribute their favorite beauty secrets.  Here I am showing off a couple of them.  I'm generally an unwilling participant in showers of all kinds, but this one was so full of warmth and laughter that I was delighted to be part of it, and bowled over to be at its center. 

Not pictured: the false eyelashes I received.  They are sitting on my bathroom shelf, where I wonder when I will have the courage to try them on.

Here We Go

The moving van is crammed full.  The house is empty, except for echoes and a few clumps of dust.  The house closing is today, and then we drive north -- NBT, his dog, and I.  I'm still getting used to thinking in "we" instead of "I".  It's mostly wonderful, but for about the last 16 years I've made most of my decisions, big and little, alone, and the adjustment to being half of a pair continues to surprise and stretch me.  NBT is much better about collaborating than I am.  He's better at lots of things. 

It's scary to get what you've always wanted.  I keep doubting whether I deserve it, and waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Play Along At Home

I'm wrapping breakables and packing boxes. 

If the thought of bubble wrap give you a jealous pang, you can pop some online, here.  It's still fun. 

Or you could meet us in Maine on Wednesday, and help us unload the truck.  There will be lots of bubblewrap for everyone. 

Reconsidering A Life of Crime

Today NBT handed me two of his credit cards and a Costco membership card and sent me off to run some errands.  I don't share his last name, of course, and even with my hair back in a ponytail, I don't think I look much like a "James".  But at three stores I nervously rehearsed the explanations I would tell the police when the cashier signaled to security guards, and at all three I was able to use his card without anybody asking me for ID or anything.  I didn't know whose name to sign on the credit card slip, mine or his, and in any case I couldn't really control my hand, so I started out signing his name and ended up with my own.  Nobody gave it a glance, anyway.  I started thinking about the law school exam fact pattern I could write up -- who was negligent in these transactions, and if NBT contested the charges, who would be left holding the bag? 

Not long ago, Turboglacier and I went back to a Chinese restaurant in a mildly posh suburb that we'd eaten at the night before, wondering if we'd left a credit card there.  The friendly woman behind the counter smiled and handed us a little wicker basket containing five or six cards: "Is it one of these?"  In fact our card wasn't there, but Turbo and I spent the drive home talking about how we should have looked through the basket and taken a couple of the platinum ones.  I spent a fair amount of time concocting elaborate but plausible schemes to explain why the name on the card wouldn't match my name.  Turns out not to matter, I guess.   

Blue

I'm sorry I haven't written.  It's been too grey to take any pictures, and drizzly cold, too.  There are powerlines and trees down and water inside where water shouldn't be. 

NBT and I did take a walk in the sunshine, by the water, and he gave me a ring with a stone that makes me think of the sea and the sky.  I can't stop looking at it, the way it sparkles in the light.  Women who don't know me see it and tell me I've found a good man.  I am torn between a disgusted outrage -- how on earth can you tell that from looking at my finger? -- and a vigorous and delightful agreement.  I have found a very good man. 

Vague But True

I have a brave and thoughtful friend, who asked me for help with a letter she's been working on.  It's a hard, hard letter, telling an intimidating person a difficult truth.  There's an easy way out -- my friend doesn't need to speak up -- but saying something is the Right Thing To Do, and people who will never know about it will benefit if the truth is spoken. 

I don't see, very often, people making hard choices.  I believe that in the world regular folks choose to do the Right Thing and to take on discomfort and acrimony in order to be helpful and truthful.  But I don't think it happens as often as it might, because so often the choices are invisible and can be sidestepped or avoided without anyone knowing.  Rush Kidder says that ethics comes from thinking carefully about what is the right thing to do, on a daily basis, and that a habit of ethical decision making in small ways prepares you for the big challenges -- the Chernobyls and the Challenger o-ring disaster and the Duke lacrosse situation -- if and when life sends them to you.  I feel lucky to see this particular ethical dilemma, and to have a small hand in helping my friend do the difficult and right thing thoughtfully and well.  And I feel wonderfully lucky to have a friend as courageous and honest and principled as this one. 

Notable For Its Absence

You may have noticed that this blog, and its predecessor, have been almost entirely free of any posts about wedding planning.  I am attempting with all my might not to be one of those women.  Holy cripes is it hard.  There is so much to say, and to sort out.  The logistics aren't the hardest part; it's the emotion and the expectations and the fear of disappointment. 

A wedding makes explicit things that are usually invisible: love, first of all.  But also, at least in its conventional form, a wedding asks you to make a heirarchy of your friendships and family relationships.  It asks you to group people together in certain ways and dress them up and make requests of them in accordance with how important to you they are, and it asks you to do all this in ways that indicate your social class and the devoutness of your spiritual beliefs and your economic status and your aesthetic preferences, and to parade it all before an enormous gathering of everyone you know, for their enjoyment and support and approval.  As a project, it is hard to think about doing mindfully, without getting into grasping and covetousness or else escapism or else desperate, eager-to-please crowd pleasing or conformity. 

Anyway, I don't intend to write about it, because even though I have been living a portion of my life on the Internet for about four years, I think a lot of those things feel pretty private.  And the process of muddling through, with NBT, how we feel about them and how those things might be different than the way our friends and relatives feel, also feels private.  But, lordy.  It's a big project. 

I Can't Keep A Secret

I held my tongue for a week, well past the recission period.  Now I think it's safe to tell you:  NBT proposed last weekend, and I accepted.  That's right.  I met my future husband on the Internet.  What a lot can happen in a year.