Monday, October 13, 2008

The Wedding – Part 1 of ???

This is part 1 of I don’t know how many. Because when do you stop talking about something that didn’t feel real and was so incredible that people are still discussing it almost a month later?

Everyone had said it would be the best day of my life. Then again, “everyone” say a lot of things… I don’t necessarily believe “everyone” anymore. Not usually anyway… What do they know about me?

But once in a while an event or a moment comes along that stretches across the divide of age, of time, of location, of pronouncements and predicaments. I guess wedding days, for the most part, fall into that category. At least that’s what everyone says.

It was, far, far beyond any runner-up, the best day of my life. And looking at the pictures, I have to remind myself that that beautiful girl in the white dress, the gorgeous woman glowing, beaming, overflowing with confidence and joy – is the same person who usually focuses on her double chin and the protruding belly -- me.

There were no spilt ends that day, no bloat, no wrong foods. From the hair that wouldn’t stay up, to the bus that got lost, to the forgotten vows – it was all perfect.

And now comes the tricky task of talking about it, of putting it down in words that are only mine, without the backup of others’ experiences, which is why I have found it so difficult to get anything down at all…

Did it happen? Really?

Why did it end?

What now?

I want to call everyone who was there and get each and every person to talk me through it minute by minute, in slo-mo so I can relive the whole thing again

and again

and again

Ninety-nine times over…

D and I knew, from when we first started planning the wedding, that we didn’t want our night to have a set end-time. We wanted it to be a night unlike any other – Passover on crack, a night that would go on, with no rules, no “right” no “wrong”, only us and the one word that we kept bringing up throughout the planning: fun.

We didn’t want to get stuck fiddling with room keys at two a.m., or waking up in the same bed we had that morning. So we didn’t.

At nine the next morning, we said goodbye to the last guests.

But I’m getting ahead of myself… Because there are so many strands to this wedding, so many details to mention, to paint into the bigger picture, that it is easy to forget the bottom line: we are now married, D and I, and rather happily at that.

We keep staring at each other and sappily slurring “we’re married” – not because we’re drunk, but the words feel sticky, unused, as if they were just taken out of the box, or there is caramel in our mouths, or peanut butter. It doesn’t feel natural yet. Nor does “my husband” that I find myself saying as often as I possibly can. I still can’t say it without laughing. Only recently did I get over the hysterics involved in “my fiancĂ©”.

So here’s part 1 of many, or few, part 1 of the best day of my life, part 1 of whatever I can remember of that day, that week, that never-ending stream of people I love appearing and hugging me and wishing me well.

Much of the ceremony is a blur, but D staring into my eyes and urging me to remember that moment, remains clear. Because now that we’re back in the greyness of London, now that everyone has returned to their lives, I want it all back, and so I close my eyes and breathe in the air of the Judean Hills, the sun setting, and a friend’s perfume that reminds me that people have come from far away to celebrate with us.

What a day. What a week. What a life. I’m a wife.

((sorry… :-))

http://www.documentographer.com/GabrielaDavid