Here’s a question: is there such a thing as out-and-out happiness?
Before giving my answer, I am going to describe one of the most lovely of wedding ceremonies I’ve been fortunate enough to attend (and doubly lucky me, participate in). C and C decided to marry. Theirs was probably not unlike other Massachusetts’ weddings, in that this couple had already thrown a celebration, a commitment ceremony 14 years earlier. So this wedding was not a redo. What it was, an affirmation of their love, surely, and of this institution—marriage—opening its doors in Massachusetts—at least—wider.
Rather than another large-scale event, C and C decided to gather dearest friends, just two couples. They chose Flower Hill Farm in Williamsburg, a small eco-friendly B&B that has as its calling card a living landscape the likes of which makes one’s jaw drop every single visit. Carol Duke, steward to the landscape, B&B proprietor, floral artist, photographer and blogger attended in order to snap a few photos. I’d been brought in, via Carol, as minister (in my case, it’s license over the Internet, as you often read about when brides’ or grooms’ friends or family act in this role mentioned in the New York Times’ Vows section).
I brought a rain shower with me. By the time Carol gathered umbrellas, the shower had just about passed. The soaking cooled things off and pushed the humidity away. Irises had been set into a circular shape and small battery-operated votives were arranged beside each flower. Champagne glasses sat on a small table. C and C’s big golden dog wore flowers round her neck. The scene had such ease: barefoot brides, cheery friends, clouds hanging to see what the people were doing, and a frightened robin complaining about the dog on the lawn too close for comfort.
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C and C had their friends speak. C and C reread their 1996 vows—and rightly deemed them still beautiful and true—and then they shared updated thoughts and commitments before honoring their friends. Fourteen years ago, they were already “in” relationship and by now, that much more so, so their words spoke to love and friendship and family and all they did together and also their endeavors further out in the world.
Beyond the obvious rhetorical political question—what threat to anyone’s values about living well and true do these women (or other men or women) pose—what sprung to my mind was how beautiful it can be to have occasion to celebrate one’s love long past the starry-eyed beginning or even later. To stop and hold a moment of shared reflection and celebration, that’s a gift of the Massachusetts’ marriage revolution and I personally felt grateful to tangentially be part of it C and C affirmed that love is not exactly complicated but that’s it’s complex; it’s complex because our lives are so intricate and when we choose to share our lives—with one special person, and also with our friends and our families and our communities—the complexity grows. They described shared happiness and sadness, feeling easily joined, being in conflict, supporting and affirming and holding and letting go. All of it, they articulated how the accumulation of years contains all of it, and that the love cherished and nurtured becomes even more precious over time.
I thought about how rocks under rushing water smooth and develop a lustrous patina over time. I thought about how sometimes a person travels with the water and other times that same person is the rock or the eddy, the still pool. Relationships anchor us and allow us to float along, to go with the current and even to have the courage to swim against it.
In regard to the politics, Massachusetts and a few other places now affirm that marrying can be a positive political action. Whether places like Massachusetts are swimming against the current or going with the new flow, a sea change is occurring.
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As for out-and-out happiness, what I saw through C and C’s eyes was this: out-and-out happiness isn’t composed of blind glee and sunshine and puppies and unicorns; out-and-out joy comes with sharing sorrow and mundane concerns and all kinds of weather and memories and promise, each one an integral component. That kind of joy is the river and the rocks, the sunshine and the rains and the absolutely gorgeous clouds that sometimes follows. That kind of joy is the willingness to notice and acknowledge it all.
*Photo: Carol Duke
