It · Melts · Into · Wonder

Last weekend I went to the most beautiful wedding I've ever attended. A friend of the couple stood up with his wife and baby at the beginning to explain the significance of the Baha'i wedding vow, "We will all, verily, abide by the will of God." He explained how the vow transforms the concept of marriage, from a private, independent bond between two people, to a model for world unity, in which the couple plays their role by serving the community and striving to abide by God's will, and the community supports and protects the couple. Therefore, the entire world plays a part in a marriage, and in turn, the couple sheds their light upon the whole world.

I feel like what I'm about to try to say is, basically, that I grasp the enormity of Baha'i marriage, the significance of the vow I took. But I am going to talk about it in more depth, and lay out a few of the other surprises married life has brought to me as well.



( On being married. )

When I was a little girl, my father and I would say the same long prayer every night when he was putting me to sleep. Somewhere between the "If I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take" and the, "Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" was a part where we would bless all my family and close friends. I don't remember the whole string of blessings, but I do very acutely remember one part:

God bless Steven, God bless Peter, God bless Kevin, too...

( The sad news. )

I've been joking around with Nick that at the wedding when people ask me if I'm really happy, I'll answer, "Yes, I'm so happy. Only two more days until I can have some Hawaiian shave ice!"

Mmm. Shave Ice.

I'm just kidding, of course. I'm mostly excited to be married.

(And... to eat some Dried Lihi Mui Mango...)

Bring on the honeymoon. 17 days to go!

Yesterday, I ran seven miles in my new backyard.
Today, I did exactly the same thing.
So what if I'm sleeping on an air bed in my living room. I have a beautiful apartment with a view of Prospect Park. And I've graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University. I have NOTHING to complain about.
(Even my lack of internet access in my new place, which is why, coincidentally, I might not be able to post here very often for a while.)

I forgot that I am allowed, FINALLY, to publicly declare that one of the most stressful joys of this academic year has been working as an anonymous counselor for a late night listening/often crisis/periodically suicide-related hot line service offered on campus. I trained for it for four months and started in the fall. It meant many nights up until 3am (4am when scary calls ran late), many shady excuses for ducking out of my room at odd hours, and many very difficult mornings that led to many long, achy afternoon naps.

I learned that there is nothing in earth or heaven that will ever make me a "night person," that I have a lot to learn about myself and a lot to gain from others, and that, after all the hubbub and the cynicism, I might just be an empathetic human being.

The end of the my undergraduate career is turning into a creative and spiritual explosion!  The last week coincides with the expansion phase! It's messy, but also a whole lot of good. One second I'm putting together a 100 prayer packets, the next I'm proofing a final project and reading James Joyce's The Dead (Joyce for the last class?! Was this semester designed just for me?) All this and the second reception invitation fiasco has commenced! Our cherry blossom orchid luau bash will somehow manage to occur at the end of this mess!

My head is about to spin off my shoulders.
In a good way?

I saw pink gerbera daisies today, such a soft pink, the color of the bubblegum flavored popsicles I loved as a little girl, that said the name of the flavor in big bold letters along the side of the wrapper: COTTON CANDY, BUBBLEGUM, FRUIT PUNCH...

It made me think about youth, and beauty, and memory, and spring, and the fact that I incorporated gerbera daisies into my novel. Which made me think, why don't I just post that passage? Devan is my leading lady, by the way. I wrote this nearly two years ago. It brought up all kinds of nostalgia digging it up again. Beauty, youth, memory.

 

I discovered this week, in a happenstance way, something about how characters are born into one's fiction.

I still have not nearly enough time to work through an actual entry at the moment. For now, my mind consists of dates, dates, dates, while other things float aimlessly around. Buy ribbon for cake... assignment due on Wednesday ... stamps for invitations ... dinner reservations for graduation ... dress for rehearsal dinner ... club email needs to be sent ... call Palmer ... feed Kimchi ... take a nap ... bridal party gifts ... sleep? ... facilitate meeting ... go to class ... research paper ... sleep ...

April 21: First Day of Ridvan
April 27: Baha'i Club hosts Feast
April 29: Ninth Day of Ridvan
April 30: First dress fitting
May 2: Twelth Day of Ridvan
May 2-10: Expansion Phase
May 15: MOVE IN date for new apartment in Brooklyn
May 17: Father, sister, brother-in-law arrive
May 18: Barnard Graduation
May 20: Columbia graduation
May 21: Father leaves, Dress Fitting, Move-Out of Dorm
May 23: Declaration of the Bab
May 29: Ascension of Baha'u'llah
May 31: My first time entering the country of Canada.

Beyond this: July 11, Rehearsal Dinner, July 12, Wedding, July 13-18, Honeymoon, July 19, Second Reception, August 6-9, American Psychological Association conference in Toronto... and then what? Breathe? Live? GRE? Meditate? Sing? Coma? Get a job?

Then again, there are all these small good things. Wednesday, for instance, we will be studying Robert Hass, and indeed, Meditation at Lagunitas is on the list of poems to be discussed in seminar. Small good things weave their way through. I might even have some almond granola with yogurt this afternoon.

This wedding planning is frying my brain to bits.

My fiance just gave me a bouquet to celebrate the 95 day mark in our engagement. Isn't that sweet? He said, "Now we're Persian engaged!"

The flowers are mostly purple because that's one of my favorite colors. He had a magenta gerbera daisy tossed in for good measure, because that's my favorite flower. And I don't have time to drop them off at home, so I'm about to attend four hours of class in an over crowded room reading confessional poetry and beat generation stuff and postmodern craziness while cradling a bouquet of flowers without even having very much of a reason to be cradling a big bouquet of flowers, and that's just fine with me.

I'm happy, to short end it.

I can't seem to get out of my own way today. I just can't seem to find the source of the problem. I woke up too late for a run, went to work, came home, went to sleep, read a book for class in bed, canceled a meeting I had in the afternoon, and now my strongest desire is to get in another nap before my late afternoon class.

What is wrong with me? I feel like sleeping a whole day. I want to wake up from my sleep on one of those sunny late spring afternoons, and go sprawl out on a patch of grass and sleep even more. I feel like having nothing on the agenda for an entire day. I feel like my life-train needs to derail and fall like a slab of wood off the track, and just take a nap in the shade on the side of the road.

My body is reacting to this longing by completely shutting down, and my mind is going, "But the hours, the hours! Call your stylist, call the limo companies, call the brokers, call your fiance, call your family, call God and tell Him to get you up because you need the hours, all the hours you can get your greedy paws on!" Kimchi, who ate so much brine shrimp last night she is about as a fat as a pig, is staring at me bug eyed and pudgy cheeked and going, "Why are you still here?"

I can't even get myself to try. I'm writing this in bed, where I've been nearly all day. My body is totally giving up on my mind.

Where does that leave me?