Celebrate, We Will

As I was making my way from Penn Station, to the subway, onto Fourth Avenue, four blocks to my door-- in sadness, I'll admit-- I happened to notice something. It seemed that everyone was staring at me. I thought it strange, at first, on the train, but it'd been only one person, and he was around my age, and scribbling thoughts into his moleskine notebook. I often find myself looking around and jotting things down, so I thought that perhaps he was just feeling inspired by my boredom. I was nearly to my front door, three hours after I left Philadelphia, when I realized what they were staring at. Behind me, I lugged a suitcase, and over my shoulder was my usual huge pocketbook. I wore jeans, and a sleeveless sweater, a normal outfit. In my hand, however, I was carrying a bridesmaid's bouquet of perfect, purple flowers.

If I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to do any justice to the wedding. It was nearly perfect, and by far one of the best times I've had at a wedding in my life. Tree was beautiful, the food and champagne were excellent, the DJ was actually funny and everyone was there. There were quiet giggles in St. Laurence when the flower girl ran to the altar mid-the exchange of vows, there were bug bites on the lawn of the church as the bridal party squinted into the setting sun for photos, there was a nervous toast from one of the two best men, "Born Free" played while the bride and her father danced and sang to the entire crowd, we wore tank tops over our dresses when announced at the reception and there was pizza and beer at three am. I am confident that everything went precisely as everything should have gone.

It wasn't, however, the perfect events or even the funny moments ("Well, basically I got yanked by Wank, so, you know..." The Final Countdown, the wedding crasher catching the garter, just to name a few) that made it so beautiful.

When those New Yorkers were staring at my flowers today, they saw them out of context. People's eyes actually lit up, and on a few occasions they even smiled, at the sight of the brilliance, of a purple bouquet amidst the gray around us. There are no flowers here. Not growing beside us, or even in windows. There aren't people walking around Fourth Ave. with bouquets and the beauty of mine, its overwhelming purple hue, its inconsistency with its surroundings, was what people noted with surprise. It isn't that I had flowers that was actually so shocking, it was where, and under what circumstances I had them.

This wedding, from the outside, would seem like any other wedding to you. It was all of the things that weddings are and for all of the reasons I listed. But what made it so catching, so outstanding above other things, was the same as for the flowers. It was brilliant, seeing such very real love in action. It was surprising to see people who would normally never be friends, dancing, laughing, hugging. I could smile, just knowing that these people were from every avenue of Tree and Bear's lives, and they were here, for two days, as a result of nothing more than the fact that they have officially become a team. And that is what struck me more than at any other wedding. And I am not a cheerleader of love, and I am a cynic, and I am not a poet, and I do not subscribe, as it were, to the theory of happily ever after. But I will tell you...sitting next to my perfect, purple flowers, that I have never seen love do such powerful work on what would have been an otherwise ordinary weekend.

People believe in things, mostly only when they see them. I saw real things this weekend. The kinds of things that cynicism forbids through my walls sometimes. (Flowers on Fourth Avenue.) We are changing, ever changing, and growth comes from that belief that you sometimes only find in others. I can't tell you how Tree has inspired me over the years; the countless times she's supported me without question, believed in me for no reason at all, given me strength where I lacked. And to be able to stand next to her, and watch those things about her being met and returned, and the celebration that that has created...

So celebrate, we will.