Caesura

And, breathe.

A week ago was the bridal shower. A week from now we will have rehearsed, and will be just starting the rehearsal dinner, currently the part of the wedding I am most able to look forward to.

This wedding thing? I guess it is just a crucible.

And I can make my peace with that. A week ago I couldn't. In a little over a week it will be a story- memories, with the mementoes and photos to back them up. But tonight, all is quiet. Dark, cozy, and quiet. Dave is off to attend Abigail's sports award banquet and to pick her up for Thanksgiving break. They'll be home tomorrow on the late boat. The house (at least the first floor) is in still in some semblance of order from when I cleaned last weekend for company. There is still a certain amount of wedding cultch: the boxes from the shower I haven't brought to the burn barrel; the very heavy box of tablecloths and runners that just came in today; the dress in its bag lounging on the love seat whispering "attend to me..."

The place is slowly taking shape, actually, in the way that houses do. It's now about 338 days since we moved in here. And the place was pretty spartan. Today I came home and realized that it now officially looks like I live here. Those of you who were around for the Spinster Pad probably know what I mean. Variations on the theme of tea. The major differences being the gun cabinet, a TV, and the impressive assortment of commercial fishing outerwear about the place. Eventually in some other house I will probably find a way for Dave's three stuffed and mounted bears to look genteel.

At any rate, it was nice to come home and feel a bit more at home- and we do now have the amenities of a washing machine and dryer- and, thanks the the generosity of island women, matching towel sets. Don't even get me started on the matching glasses. It's funny, as slightly weirded out as I was by having a bridal shower- attention and gifts on any kind of large scale discomfit me- I think the shower was a turning point in how I felt about this whole awful process of having a wedding. Yep. People will gather around to and look at you. And give you presents.

And it will be okay.

I was raised with the "it is better to give than to receive" ethos, and have more than a passing affection for the prayer of St. Francis. So this recipient stuff freaks me out. That's part of why the wedding planning bothered me. If it is for my benefit, I don't like to ask much of anyone who is not blood family or friend family.

So asking for help, and asking people to abruptly make plans, and then to create a registry of stuff for people to buy for me? The people close to me saw my beastly bits- not only do I not like to ask people for things, but I am also pretty introverted, so don't have much of an internal drive to have people bear witness to anything. Plop that combo into the position of bride and there will be crankiness.

But then Heather fed me wine and showed me on graph paper that things could indeed work out. And the best possible housing opened up, despite a very strained friendship. And people I love reminded me that the people I love are really, really good people.

Tonight finds me home, in peace. Dave and Abigail will be home from New Hampshire tomorrow, and my adopted Abbigail (teach and you are bound to accrue children from time to time) is due home at eleven, or there will be hell to pay! Over the course of the week I was elected Executive Director of the affordable housing/economic non-profit for the island, and accepted a position on the board of the mailboat company. The big reason I moved the wedding was to better be able to focus on this kind of community work- happily settled, on the other side of this rite of passage.