Wow, it’s October first and Seattle just decided that it’s time for fall. Over the weekend? Gorgeous and sunny, sort of windy and very clear skies, but certainly not too cold or anything. Last night? Closed all the windows and put an extra blanket on the bed. I didn’t put a sweater on to come over here to Carl’s house, and I was a little uncomfortable. Brr. Fall. Here it is, all of a sudden.
I have a short week this week because My Friends Anna and Rob are coming to visit on Thursday for a long weekend. I’m taking half of Thursday and all of Friday off. I’m so excited. I’ve been saving up all these things I want to do for when they get here. I’m planning to laugh at all their jokes and eat lots of yummy food and watch movies and go to SketchFest and make dinners and walk around and look at stuff and maybe go kayaking on Friday if it’s not too windy. I’m not going to clinic this week, and it’s embarrasing, but I’m greatly relieved. I was making appointments last week with my clients, and I said to every one of them, “Well, I’m not going TO BE HERE next week, so we’ll have to do it at four the week after,” and it’s great to see that I have nothing scheduled in my appointment book for that day. I’m going through another one of my “therapy is stupid” phases. Wait. Did I ever get out of the other one I was in? No? Hmm.
I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately, about relationships and especially Relationships. As usual. I think about those a lot, actually. I’m like a fifth grader, always asking if my friends like like someone. Now that so many of my friends are married or in serious relationships, though, I have to admit that the pleasures of gossiping about Who’s Doing What With Whom have paled slightly. “No, girl! You mean to say you’re in a mutually satisfying egalitarian relationship, one in which both partners respect and nurture each other? I can’t belieeeeeeeeve it! That is so crazy! Okay, now tell me about when the two of you got back from taking a walk at the Arboretum and then watched a video together! You are so crazy!” You know? Not as much fun. So since the entertainment value of all my friends’ liaisons is down (“You went to Home Depot and picked out paint colors! I thought you were glowing!”), the propensity to think about some of the Bigger Issues is up.
You know: How do you know if your Someone is The One, how do you let go of your baggage, how do you just live with someone, every day, even if sometimes this Someone gets on your nerves or leaves the sponge wet in the sink. What’s it really mean to love and cherish and honor someone until one of you dies? Huh? Huh?
As you may have guessed by now, your friend Chiara went to a wedding a couple of weeks ago. I have the two-CD box set the couple made as favors to prove it! This was the marriage of Another Anna and her lovely now-husband Sean two not this past weekend but the one before. They had their wedding on a beautiful sunny Sunday evening, when Mt. Rainier was really clearly visible, at a little garden near Carl’s old neighborhood. They did that thing (which I love, by the way) where you take a Polaroid and then stick it into a guest book right then and there. They had four different flavors of cake and a band that I’m pretty sure came straight off the set of City of Lost Children. I made a toast and got really nervous about it. Carl and I danced a tango. The bride and groom were both very beautiful and very happy, and as always, part of the fun was getting to know their friends. The day before, Carl and I had gone over to lend a hand with the CD burning, and we’d been spending a lot of time with the whole group during the week before. Actually, Carl lent a hand with the CD burning, and I went off to get a manicure and the first pedicure of my life. I’m sold on those, by the way.
I just loved sitting there getting my feet rubbed and hanging out with the bride and her friends and her very very cool mom, reading trashy magazines and chatting and picking nailpolish colors and generally relaxing. Once again, it really felt as though the marriage was bringing all sorts of people together as new friends…not just the wedding, but the marriage itself. I got an invitation to a Halloween party from one of the other girls and everything! I think I want to go as the Princess And The Pea this year, by the way, but I’m having a hard time finding a pea costume that will fit me.
But back to Love. (Up there, see? Up a few paragraphs). A couple of weeks ago I asked Another Anna how she knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with her now-husband, and she said she just knew. Everyone says this, have you noticed? Everyone just knows. “But how? How do you know?” I always ask. And they smile and then list off a bunch of things they love about their partner, and then they sigh and say, “It just feels right.” And that’s that. And I’m left scratching my head and thinking about the people I love, and especially about a person named Carl that I love, and a lot of the time…most of the time, now that I think about it…I get it. Most of it. You choose to love someone, every day. Every interaction, every gesture, every word. You act lovingly even when you hate them and they are making you crazy and you’re going to shoot them in the head if they say one more thing to you. Sometimes just pretending you love them (even when they are clearly being stupid) helps you love them more. You love consciously, as much as you can and in all the ways you can. Most of the time. Right? So, are people saying, when they say, “I just knew,” that really they “just know” that they’ll always have it in them, somewhere, to choose to love this other person? Or is it that the choice to love this other person is the only one that makes sense? Can someone explain this to me? Seriously, if you love someone, and you “just know”, could you email me and school me out? I’d appreciate it.
Weddings. Friends coming to visit. Fall. Love. Pedicures and pea pods. Throw it all together and you have an entry!