It's Not All About Me

It's also about my godson and nephew, Patrick Brian G.! We call him Party P. Ok, I call him Party P. I miss him and love him so much. I wish he lived in my city or my state or my region. He's adding to my already pretty serious Baby Mania. I love babies and can't wait to be a mom. I am so happy that Party P came along to fuel the baby fire in my belly! LOVE HIM.

All Dressed Up

I got the call that my wedding dress is ready for me to pick up! As with all things wedding, you can' t just drop by after work and pick it up. That's too easy. You have to make an appointment and then go into the store, try it on, ooooh and aaaaahh and then take it home and start the project of finding a seamstress to do alterations for less than $1,000.

This dress, a lovely strapless La Sposa "gown," has been the bustled locus of all my deepest anxiety and fear about the whole process. And I am not sure if "the process" is about getting married or having a wedding or both. To tell you the truth, I can't tell the difference right now. There is a part of me that is ashamed to admit that I like this dress. That I love it, even. There is something so iconic about a wedding dress. People refer to it as "THE" dress. I looked at dozens of bridal magazines before I ever stepped so much as a toe into any dresses. I will be more visible in this dress than in any other garment I have ever worn. I will be the only person wearing white (it's November north of Mason Dixon line so that makes sense on a variety of levels), celebrating an important event in my life, with a man that I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with and have a family with, and all of these people have flown in or driven during a holiday weekend to support us... that's a lot of pressure for one dress. And I have trouble deciding what to wear on Monday mornings.

There is a little sadness for me around making certain decisions around the wedding. For everything I do choose, there are hundreds of things I will never have-- because I plan to get married only once. I think about all the dresses and the styles and the ensembles that will never be my wedding dress and I feel some sadness about it. I will never wear a silky, slinky, low cut dress. I will never wear a wedding dress with a sash or a mermaid dress. These musings scare me a little bit and make me wonder if I got the right dress. Then I feel shame because, for the love of Christmas, it's just a dress and it's pretty self-indulgent to sit around thinking about whether, of the billions of dresses out there, I got the best one.

It's really all about what fits for me. Just writing that sentence makes me cry. I have tried in so many ways to fit into jobs, or relationships, or dresses, or molds that just weren't for me. As I do settle down and become willing to accept what fits me, it turns out that it's a fairly ornate, princessy, strapless wedding gown. I tried to reject this dress. I told myself it was ugly and cheap and looked like a young girl's Quincenera dress. Too frilly. Too gaudy. Too wrong. I was scared to just settle down and love it. People told me to go back to the store and visit the dress, so I brought 4 bridesmaids and a god daughter back out to the suburbs to help me see through loving eyes who I really am. We were almost sold on a few of the others, but when I finally tried on the one I had bought (that was also nonrefundable), everyone agreed: The dress was me and it was the best of the bunch by far.

Yesterday, I was early to a therapy appointment so I ducked into WalGreen's and wandered around until I found the magazine section. The Knot put out a big bridal issue for August and it has over 200 gowns in it. I found mine in the magazine and what I realized is that it's hard to own myself. In some ways I have resisted coming to know and accept who I am-- all of me, including my body, my taste, my style, my desire-- because I don't want to be put into a box, or nailed down, or stuck. I had no idea there was so much freedom in just settling down into who I really am, which is best expressed by making a decision. "This one is for me." "I want this one." From that position, I am free to have my feet on the ground and make choices about who to love, how to spend time, and how to make decisions that match me just like the La Sposa gown.

When Is My Wedding?

I keep telling everyone that the wedding is November 28. That seems like a reasonable fact to share with others, except that the wedding is actually November 29! At least that is what our invitations say. I am sure there is an interesting psychological reason for mis-remembering the date of the wedding. I think it's probably huge progress that I have the year and groom straight in my head. That's most important.

We just dropped my parents off at the airport, and I was very emotional about it. Right before we dropped them off we all went to the wedding reception/ceremony site to give my parents a tour. First of all, it's one of those very rare perfect summer days: nice breeze, 82 degrees, low humidity, and lots of happy sunshine. Days like today fill me with some kind of overwhelming emotion that may simply be gratitude, though it's hard to recognize since my fair city has the worst weather in the free world. My point is that this feeling is rare in the windy Midwest.

J and I showed my parents the different spaces in the site where we imagine we will do the ceremony, the reception and the cocktail hour. We haven't seen the space since it was remodeled in April. It looks really beautiful-- clean and classy and interesting. I am really excited. We aren't sure where exactly each portion of the night will take place, but it will be so fun to create the vision with J. My parents were great this weekend-- everything we showed them, they loved. They offered very few opinions about anything, having learned from my siblings' weddings that hurt feels can spark and snowball very quickly. They are happy for J and I to take the wedding ball and run with it.

I wish I could think of a better way to describe how I feel. It feels like the evening J and I spent in the Radisson in New Dehli after 2 weeks in India. I remember that evening-- we hung out at the Radisson before our midnight flight home-- sitting on a comfy couch processing everything we had just seen and done and eaten in the past 2 weeks. I feel a version of that fullness right now. It feels like I want to hold on to the feeling for a long while and savor how much feeling can really be held at once. Spending this weekend with my parents and J was honestly about as foreign to me as traveling to India. To be the daughter that has a wonderful partner and can take care of her parents-- that's like seeing an Elephant painted colorfully for Diwali just ambling down the street. This weekend's events included taking my mom to the Red Door Salon to have her hair styled by my stylist as practice for the wedding weekend. We also got pedicures. For the first time ever in my life, I treated my mother. It felt so good. The part that was especially moving was that it was the first time ever in her life that anyone had treated her to such pampering.

There is so much to say but it's so disappointing to see my feelings diluted as a factual record of what we did; where we went; what we ate; who said what. It's all too much. I still have no idea what to say about our trip to India. It was so hard-- one of the most challenging things I have ever done. And it was amazing, and I am so grateful I did it, and it was really overwhelming in every single way. That's how I feel about this weekend with my parents, and I barely left my own zip code.

Now I am at work paying the price for taking Friday off, as well as most of the weekend. It was worth it. Someday I may write about how Jeff and my parents dropped me off at work before they went to the airport, but when I got into the lobby of my office, I felt so grief-stricken to be alone and totally unwilling to be done with the weekend and the visit. I raced out the door and screamed at J to stop and let me back in. I rode with them to the airport and said another round of goodbyes to my parents and got to process the weekend with J. Or at least, start the process.

Running of the Brides

My parents are in town from that infamous big ol red state that is home to several generations of Presidents. I took the day off from work to pick them up from the airport and spend some time together. After lunch, I had to run an errand so I set them loose on State street to shop for about an hour. When we met up again at the Prescriptives counter at Macy's, my mom said she had gone over to Filene's Basement and there was a huge bridal event going on today. As it turns out, Filene's annual "Running of the Brides" event, which is held one day every year, was yesterday.

I had to see for myself.

If you have never seen this, then you have really missed out on a piece of bridal mania. In a section of the store, Filene's set up 16 racks of wedding dresses, in no particular order according to size, style or cost, and the cost-conscious, adventurous and hearty bride can spend the day wading through the ocean of lace and tulle and find a Priscilla of Boston or a Vera Wang for 250.00. The atmosphere was giddy and urgent-- after all, you only have until 10:00 pm to make this big decision. You can't take the dresses to the dressing room, so brides-to-be were standing in the middle of the racks in what can only be described as their underwear, trying on dress and after dress while crowds of shoppers who happened to be at Filene's for the day, offered unsolicited opinions. I saw brides who looked like they were no more than 100lbs trying on a size 14 dresses, trying to imagine how they could be altered. I also saw brides who belonged in size 14 dresses wondering if they could have a seamstress add enough material to make a Reem Acra dress work. I could feel the panic and the joy and the promise of finding the ultimate bargain. "I got my Vera Wang for 259.00 at Filene's Basement." I get a little adrenaline rush just thinking about it.

I wished that I knew a bride who needed something like that. I felt such a rush of joy that there is a way for the enterprising bride who is watching her pennies-- because she is young, or has been recently laid off, or has very little money for any number of reasons-- to have a gorgeous dress for under 300.00. I felt so happy about the prospect of someone with so few resources being able to have a taste of the designer world. There was something deliciously subversive about it.

It's a good thing it was only for one day because I keep thinking I should go back and get some wedding dresses to use for an art project or to wear to my shower. I joked with my mom that we should both get wedding dresses to wear to my bridal shower in September.

Literary Inspiration

When I was in highschool I couldn't wait to be an English teacher. The experience of reading was so transformative and liberating for me that I wanted to share that with students everyday for the rest of my life.

Well, I am actually not an English teacher, but I have decided that there is something profoundly grounding about literature, especially those books that played such a large role in my adolescence. I find it fitting that I am now returning to one of my first favorite books; one that first sparked a fire of feminism inside my growing brain and heart.

Yes, I am reading that classic from 1847, Jane Eyre, our favorite heroine from Currer Bell (aka Charlotte Bronte). Jane Eyre was the first heroine I fell in love with-- so in this season of love and transition in my own life, I am returning to her and Mr. Rochester and that pesky insane wife of his.

"Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present . . . . "

Jane Eyre gives a beautiful vision at the end of her tale: "I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest-- blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character -- perfect concord is the result." -- Jane Eyre

For the Bridesmaids

You have to click on this site. As Perez Hilton would blog, if you are easily offended, do not click here. But seriously, you have to click here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/fashion/24skin.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=style&pagewanted=all

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? There are brides out there who are having parties for their bridesmaids to all get botox together. Seriously. That's the most abusive and inane thing I have heard so far that brides are "treating" their bridal parties to before the "big day."

I have emailed this site to all of my bridesmaids (there are 7, and you will hear more about that in the coming days I am sure) so that when I beg them to dance at my wedding or to pose for photographs in front our therapist's office, they will say a prayer of gratitude: "At least she isn't making us have a group botox injection."

Feeling the love

Sometimes I feel sad that I am not a more emotional bride. I wonder if I am holding back the joy of the experience as I ponder the details: Where's the rehearsal dinner going to be? What color will the linens be? Where in Patagonia will we go during our honeymoon? . . . on and on, the details have a way of smothering the feelings.

And, then, out of the clear blue sky, I will be struck by deep emotion that surprises me.

Just now I got an email from a nationwide photography company whose work can best be described as cheesy. Somewhere along the way I filled out some form indicating I was a bride, and in an act of sheer lunacy, I submitted not only my email address, but also my cell phone number. I get no less than 3 calls per day inviting me to a bridal expo or to enter a drawing to win free flowers or photography for the wedding. It's like being stalked by an entire industry.

The email I got about 8 minutes ago was from this terrible photography company that calls me once a week. Something (boredom, perhaps?) made me click on the images and in the middle of the treacly collage, there is a picture of a bride dancing with her presumably new husband crying her eyes out. The emotion looks so real and unstaged. Well, guess who was crying at her desk the minute she saw that?

There is emotion in here! I am happy for the tears. There is a place, underneath the stress and pressure and planning where I am very much alive to the experience of becoming willing to be married. There is a place deep inside of me that is soft and trembling and giddy and emotionally available to the meaning of getting married to J.

I want more soul and more feeling and less details. That's my ardent hope for the next 128 days.

The Countdown!!!!

The Crate and Barrel website just informed me that there are 128 days until my wedding. For the mathematically challenged, that is approximatley four months. When I am thinking of how to gauge how long it will feel to get to a certain big event that is say, four months away, I ask myself what I was doing four months ago and decide if that seems long or short. When I think about what I was doing four months ago-- in March 2008-- it seems like only three weeks have passed. In those four months, the following has transpired:

1. Got engaged (nice first step before planning a wedding and getting married).

2. Attended nephew's baptism in Texas as proud God-mother.

3. Business trips in the following exotic and mysterious locales: Athens, Greece; Tallapoosa, Ga; Broomfield, Co; Horsham, Pa; Baltimore, Md.

4. Found a venue for the wedding and reception; found a dress; decided I hated it; went to buy a new one and decided I really did like the first one; found bridesmaid dresses; had fights with 2 bridesmaids; found a band; found an officiant; found lovely quartet to perform ceremony music; found photographer; started registering for gifts.

5. Bought a townhome with fiance in "up and coming" neighborhood.

6. Put my bachelorette coccoon up for sale in the worst housing market since Hoover was president.

7. Finished a huge project at work about which I will be very vague except to say that it involved a deconstruction of latent homophobia in a particular official state proceeding.


It's been the busiest and most productive 4 months of my entire life. I almost forgot to mention that I also started a regime of arm-toning exercises to prepare for the strapless dress that I will shimmy into in about four months. I can't tell you how little upper arm strength I have. Think of how Opie Taylor looked when he was out fishing with Andy Griffith. That fishing pole was stronger than his arms,which looked like they would snap if so much as a tadpole tugged at the line. Opie's arm strength is like Brutus's compared to mine. I literally can do about 1/3 of a pushup. A friend from work showed me some exercises that helped her get her "guns" for her wedding dress back in 2006. I have been doing the exercises religiously, but those damn resistance bands mock me every time I do my little routine. I did them this morning right before I got into the shower. I am supposed to do 30 seconds of each exercise, take a 30 second break and then go again.

It's not pretty.

I step on the middle of the bands with my legs hip-distance apart and then raise my arms straight out until they are shoulder height. In 30 seconds, I can do this approximately 20 times. By the 15th time I raise my arms, I am sweating and grunting. When I do it in front of the mirror, I get distracted because my face is so contorted from the sheer pain of lifting my arms. But, as I said, it's not pretty. We'll see if I can graduate to the "medium" strength band over the next four months. The "easy" yellow band has kicked my ass every time thus far so let's keep our expectations realistic.

These next 128 days, however, are not all about me and how I look and how toned my arms get. (Thank god.) I am a bride who can hardly believe she is getting married. I am over 30. I am over 33, actually. Where I come from, if you hit age 30 without being married, then you are pretty much an old maid. I am naturally pretty pessimistic. I wasn't running around with the quiet certainty that Mr. Wonderful was just around the corner. I was more likely to sulk around moping that ALL of my friends are married and life's just not fair.

And, it's true, almost all of my friends are married, and life isn't fair. But, the forces of the universe, or God, or fate or kismit or karma or whatever intervened and I met J and the rest is history. Next thing I know I am stepping on a yellow band every morning trying to tone my arms for a dress I will wear to become his wife. In 128 days.