Category Archives: Wedding

Why Getting Married is Like Doctor Who

19 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by in Growing Up, Love, Uncategorized, Wedding

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Andrew and I celebrated our fifth, and last, dating anniversary on September 24th. Next year, we’ll be celebrating in a new month and starting the count over at one with our first wedding anniversary.

The home stretch of wedding preparations has been a tumultuous couple of weeks. Family stresses, work demands, and the last few pre-cana videos we’re trying to watch before, you know, the cana all bubble around and beg for attention, and suddenly I find myself thinking a lot about Doctor Who.

Specifically, the tenth Doctor. Even more specifically, some of the things he talked about near the end. My youngest sister best expressed one of the things I love about David Tennant’s interpretation of the character: “You can feel the weight of all the Doctors in him.” This is someone who knows who he’s been before, even knows that this isn’t by far the first time he’s changed. And even so, when he’s told his time is coming to a close, it’s an upheaval.

Even though Time Lords regenerate, the Doctor says, it’s still a kind of death. His face will change. So will his personality. He’ll keep some important parts of himself, but the way they are expressed may be very different. There’s no way to tell beforehand. The Tenth Doctor is afraid going in, and sad, and at least a little angry.

The beautiful thing, though, is the next season starts and we get to see what happens next. The face and voice are different, true. Some people miss the old Doctor. The Doctor himself has to work out what he likes now, how he responds to stress–who he is in this new context. But those important parts that are kept emerge quickly: intelligence, compassion, kindness, a sense of wonder, his memories of everything that has come before. And the new Doctor is more playful, and he is perhaps a bit less guarded with his emotions, and he is maybe more patient than he used to be.

Marriage is a regeneration. I’m starting to really sympathize when I see the Doctor exploding with that orangey-yellow light. I’m bubbling with change. My benefit is I know more about my future than the Doctor gets to, and get to transform in a much happier context than Time Lords do. I’m also guaranteed a pretty snazzy companion.

I do have moments when I think, “I am going to miss my name,” or “I am scared I won’t recognize myself as a wife.” Engaged couples don’t often talk about those moments, or at least not publicly. It feels cruel, or ungrateful considering the unfathomable blessing that it is to find someone you want to love for the rest of your lives. But I think they should.

And then I imagine those first days and weeks of marriage, still crackling with energy, still discovering how people see me differently, how they hear me, what I’ve kept or lost or gained. Nerdy as it is, it helps to see the Doctor flow from actor to actor. New face, new style, but on the most fundamental and important levels, the same wonderful character. I’m not going to start a whole argument about which Doctor is objectively better, but if I could pick which one I would rather be, I’d go with Matt Smith–the Doctor with a marriage.

Tomorrow, at 2:30 pm, I start the biggest adventure of my life. Geronimo.

And a Bride in a Purple Dress

26 Sunday Aug 2012

Posted by in Breaking Boundaries, Growing Up, Love, Wedding

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Andrew and I were thrilled to attend the wedding of two of our good friends, Jon and Ellen, early this month. Now, I know all weddings are joyous occasions, no matter the details of the day, and my personal soapbox is that bridal magazines have no right insinuating that your wedding isn’t “original” or “personal” enough if you go the traditional route. You’re marrying your favorite person in the world–isn’t that automatically and irrefutably personal enough? But even with that said, this wedding was something special.

Jon and Ellen are artists, you see, and they’re the cool, down-to-earth type. They like engaging with people and places, meeting the world where it is and creating beauty there. They are also relentlessly creative, finding outlets in paint, cloth, food, music–whatever they can get their hands on. So they convinced their pastor to marry them not in a church but in the middle of the city–in an alley, in fact. And not just any alley. This alley, found just off the corner of Howard and North in Baltimore, is known as a hot-spot for graffiti artists. The walls are covered, and constantly changing (when I took a break outside during the reception, I saw a tag that hadn’t been there during the ceremony an hour before). Some pieces are beautiful, many are tags, some are profane. Jon and Ellen took the very real risk that their wedding ceremony spot would feature some prominently spray-painted dicks, is what I’m saying.

Fortunately, the alley’s artwork seemed occasion-appropriate, for the most part. Maybe the fates smiled, or maybe the groomsmen did a quick sweep shortly before, cans at the ready, just in case. Who can say? But what was so amazing to me was the way the ceremony started to come together, guests standing or sitting, in summer dresses or cutoff shorts (“come as you are” dress codes make for an interestingly mismatched crowd), music I recognized from “Love Actually” playing over the speaker, the groom standing on a black wooden platform, and the bride, just a touch dewy in the August sun, teary and laughing at the same time, walking arm in arm with her father and wearing her lovely, understated but elegant purple dress. It was nothing Bride magazine or theknot.com editors ever talk about, but it made sense. The more traditional readings, the completely unconventional “unity graffiti” they made, taking turns holding the ladder for each other, the laid-back potluck-and-pie reception, all felt right for them, and it was such a breath of fresh air. It was a reminder, too, not to let other people bog me down with their expectations of the right way to do a wedding–or a book of short stories (and possibly some poetry).

I’m now eight weeks away from my wedding and just about eight months from putting out my first book. It’s going to get busy. A lot of people have a lot of expectations. I hope I keep my head straight, I hope everything turns out beautifully, but mostly right now I hope I follow Ellen’s lead in the upcoming wedding season and school year, keeping traditions that sing to me but never afraid to rock an unexpectedly perfect purple dress.

How Balinese Puppets Can Make You a Better Writer

04 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Art, Wedding, Writing

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After dreaming and drooling over photos of white beaches and turquoise water, Andrew and I narrowed down our favorite honeymoon choices and made our decision: we’re going to Bali!

Pictured: Honeymoon

I have a teeny-tiny smidgen of history with Bali already. My mother is Dutch, and while you wouldn’t necessarily connect Holland with Indonesia, you can. The Netherlands colonized Indonesia back in the day, and the result was that when WWII broke out, many Indonesian refugees made their way to the Netherlands (which must have been quite the culture shock). I grew up eating solid, one-pot, Dutch farmer’s dishes, but also kroupouk and nasi goreng and gado gado salad (even for Christmas dinner, one memorable year).

Rice, pork, leeks, egg, peanut butter sauce, hot sauce, and dried shredded coconut? Yes, please!

I also grew up with shadow puppets. I didn’t know what they were for years. They hung in our hallway, men and women with sharp profiles and richly detailed clothing, jeweled ornaments in their hair and long, thin sticks dangling from their wrists.

Sometimes I’d stop on my way to the family room or my bedroom to examine the details of their costumes, and more often I’d walk right by. They were part of my everyday scenery. Then I learned that, used properly, no one would see all their intricate beauty. Shadow puppets, as the name implies, are performed from behind a sheet, illuminated by candlelight. Their strange poses and angular faces are made that way so viewers can distinguish one silhouette from another, and to show the nature of the character (a demon would have a wilder outline than a prince, for example). I couldn’t understand why someone would spend so much time and effort on something that was going to be hidden from the audience.

Now that I’ve jumped into editing short stories for my upcoming collection, A Moment of Unexpected Closeness (it’ll be published in 2013!), I realized there are several reasons why it makes sense to put the time and effort into all that beautiful, unseen detail.

1.      It shows respect for your creation. Many Balinese shadow puppet performances are religious or historical, so they want characters representing deities or respected historical figures to look their best. My characters are made up, but I care about them, so I’m learning to flesh them out. A guy who buys the creepy artifact from the dusty old store is as stock as stock characters get. A former museum curator with a borderline kleptomaniac obsession with rare totems has a lot more at stake when he enters the store, and there’s a lot more that can go wrong.

  1. It reminds you not to show everything off. Knowing everything about your character is good—it means they’ll come across more natural and three-dimensional. Proving to the reader that you’ve got your protagonist’s report cards, dental history, and high school crushes memorized is no good. The people watching the shadow puppets don’t need more than the silhouette and good narrative. Provide the shape, and most readers will fill in the features for you.
  2. It proves that the characters don’t run the story—the writer does. Balinese shadow puppet performers are regarded as a kind of mystical blend of poet, philosopher, storyteller, and holy man or woman. A shadow show only has one person operating the whole cast of characters, and the performer is also responsible for chanting the narrative of the story and directing the orchestra with his or her feet (because obviously his or her hands are too busy)! It’s fun sometimes to talk about a character running away with the story, but ultimately it comes down to the writer’s invention, and I love thinking that the experience comes down to the well-crafted shape of the characters and the power of the performer’s story.

I’m hoping Andrew and I can make it to a shadow puppet performance during our honeymoon so I can see the art I grew up with the way it was meant to be seen. Until then, I’ll keep a picture on my bulletin board, to remind me what I’m trying to do.

Because Sometimes Spam is Poetry

20 Wednesday Jul 2011

Posted by in Poetry, Uncategorized, Wedding

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The other day, I was daydreaming about wedding things, and all the plans Andrew and I have for the next year and change of getting ready for our wedding. Suddenly, a brilliant idea occurred to me.

“I’m on WordPress,” I thought. “I bet you a hundred peaches there are bodzillions of wedding blogs on this thing.”

So I clicked the “Wedding” tab on WordPress’s searcher, and lo and behold, the very first featured blog post I saw seemed perfectly suited to my taste. It was titled “White Gold Wedding Band,” which is exactly the kind of ring Andrew and I are planning on selecting for ourselves. I clicked the link, eager to hear this blogger’s take on white gold, where I could find the best white gold wedding rings, etc.

I have since performed the blog post, “White Gold Wedding Band” as a piece of slam poetry for friends and family members, and now it’s time to share it with the world. I’ve added line breaks to guide the flow of the piece, but I have not altered a single word. Ladies and gentlemen:

Essential Items within Considerate: White Gold Wedding Band

White Gold Wedding Band universally stay in the finger
no matter what the wearer achieve,
plus when they do their responsibilities throughout the domicile.

This reflects how they clutch their dear thing
very dearly,
although it can in fact damage the ring.

White Gold Wedding Band.

are better place in a secure point whilst you accomplish your cleaning otherwise crop growing.
Pick a secure site in your bedroom or you able to lynch the ring on a choker, hence still when you are not togged up in the ring,
you still bear it
all-round
everyplace you walk off.

An essential thing to bear in mind is to use a clean collar band
completed of lace, twine,
if not thread
and hold in beneath your top for shelter points.

With intention of remain the sheen, White Gold Wedding Band.

should to be polished regularly treating appropriate cleaner.

White Gold Wedding Band.

can be full to a costume jewelry warehouse for skilled clean-up
otherwise polished at dwelling
using jewelry polish kit or watered down soft detergent solution.
An irregular enhance wish
also be the ring
in addition the charms
in a fitness.

For this, you should allow it to the experts.

The Proposal Story

11 Wednesday May 2011

Posted by in Love, Wedding

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By request:

So Andrew and I have been going to see the cherry blossoms in D.C. every year for the past three years. The first year we went, we were giddy because he had just come back from three months in England the day before. The second year it rained, we went after peak season, and I sprained my foot from the sheer amount of walking we did, but it was still fun–we huddled by the hot chocolate stand when we got too damp, took strategic close-up photos of remaining blossoms so photo evidence would look lusher than what we actually saw, and he offered to carry me back to the Metro station. This year was the third year, and, unfortunately, my schedule was super-full, and we didn’t get to go.

At least, that was the plan.

So on Thursday, my Sunday dinner plans fell through. I was disappointed, but couldn’t very well blame my friends for illness and last-minute project panic. I sent Andrew a quick email asking him if he wanted to go to D.C. with me instead, and he replied, quite enthusiastically, that he would.

So Sunday: he picks me up at the church where I work, still in fancy clothes (button-down, dress slacks). He told me he hadn’t had time to change after church. We drove down to the Metro and hopped on the Orange Line. Now, Andrew’s got budding Dad Pockets already, between wallet, a hefty bunch of keys on a lanyard, and phone, so I was teasing him by playfully grabbing at his pocket. He told me later that I actually grabbed the ring box at one point (I thought it was his phone!). Seeing as how I didn’t gasp or give him a knowing look, he started breathing again, and put his jacket on his lap as a protective measure for the rest of the ride.

The cherry blossoms were GORGEOUS this year. Big, frothy things bobbing up and down (one of the things I love about the cherry trees is no one prunes the runaway limbs, so you have to duck under them as you walk. It can be a little scary when you’re walking four abreast on a narrow strip of sidewalk with nothing separating you and the water and realize a huge branch is now blocking the way as well, but I think trees deserve to be allowed to make proper canopies. Besides, even if you fell in, you could grab a branch to pull yourself out!). Andrew and I meandered around, taking photos of each other and narrowly escaping arrest for illegally climbing flowering trees (so worth it).

Frothy blossoms!

My fantastic almost-fiance, illegally climbing a tree

I am not above flirting with a tree branch

Eventually, we started to talk about going somewhere for dinner. We headed off the path, just to notice a little clearing with some beautiful trees and almost no one around. Andrew said he wanted to “look at” these trees, and I’m like “Okay! Trees are pretty!” So we’re standing there, and I turn around and he has a card in his hand. I recognized it from a prior Valentine’s day–it’s a little card with two birds in a tree and one is singing to the other and it’s adorable. Andrew told me he had wanted to write me a card because we don’t do that often anymore, and again he’s romantic enough and I was oblivious enough that I took this at face value. The card was really sweet, all about how many things remind him of me every day, and how important it is to him that I am in his life. So we hug, and kiss, and then he says, “And…”

And I say, “There’s an ‘and’?”

And he tells me again how he will never stop loving me, and I tell him this too, and it was only when he said, “So I wanted to ask you…” that it finally hit that this was our moment, right now.

And he got down on one knee, and pulled out the ring, and I was crying, and he said, “Will you marry me?”

And all of a sudden I realized that I had my hands on my face and I was so happy I couldn’t speak. Which was a bit of a problem, because the man I love more than anything is on one knee and would probably like an answer. So I start nodding, and as soon as I can take my hands off my face I say “Yes,” and we spent the next 20 minutes laughing and kissing and crying and saying “Oh my God” way too many times and jumping up and down.

Neither of us wanted to wait through dinner before telling people, so we went straight home to my family and told them, and then to his parent’s house. By the time we got back to my car at the church, all the restaurants were closed, so we went back to my place and ate leftover spaghetti and split the last bit of wine in the bottle, and it was completely fitting.

Hooray!