Big and Beautiful Moments

One of my nieces got married this past week. I stream-shared the service with our extended family by recording a Facebook Live video. The one thing I can love about Facebook is that it was a way for our family spread all over the world to witness the service.

A wedding ceremony is such a beautiful event. And I'm not talking about the clothes or flowers or all the other ornate things. It's just such a big moment with big consequences that I always feel like life is suspended for that little while. A wedding is, just by itself, such a holy and sanctified event that, as a guest, I always feel like I'm sitting in the presence of angels.

Actually, I love all kinds of ceremonies for deep and meaningful things. I remember vividly the christening of my sister's twins. That was just the most amazing thing - to see those babies sleeping so peacefully while we had them blessed and prayed over. They weren't even aware that, no matter what happened all the rest of their lives - long or short - people had asked God to bless and keep them.

And funerals are the hardest ceremonies to experience. It's like the very public acceptance of the reality of death. Sad but, I believe, necessary. Funerals are never for the dead, but only a way for those left alive to begin dealing with their grief. A way to force us to deal with our grief.

Weddings though, there is just something so special about them. It doesn't matter if the couple is rich or poor, royal or common. The location and surroundings don't have to be exotic or formal. The biggest thing about the wedding is that two people are about to start a life together. That's a really big deal.

While I was watching my niece go from being a single person to becoming a family with this person she loves, I kept thinking of her as the little girl she used to be. When she was young, she could be shy, she could be daring, and she could tapdance on your last good nerve by pushing the rules. To paraphrase Stevie Wonder, she had once been a little nappy-headed child. Now suddenly, she was this grown woman standing at the wedding altar with this aura of joy radiating out of her. Just unreal. And the groom couldn't take his eyes off of her. He looked mesmerized and I wondered if he was remembering to breathe. I can't even properly describe how happy they both looked. They found something that not everyone does.

I don't care what modern vibes dictate, I still believe in old-fashioned commitment so I love everything about taking vows and coupling up. That's why I was fascinated by something the officiating minister did during this ceremony.  Before reciting the traditional rites, he handed the bride and groom cups of sand, each of a different color. He spoke about what it means to be two separate and single people, each with their individual thoughts, ideas, and emotions. He said that marriage was the act of those separate people willingly coming together, joining their hearts and goals to become as one. He then had them pour their cups of sand into a single bowl, explaining that, like the sand, they were now coming together to make something new. That was the nicest illustration of marriage that I have ever witnessed.

You need to know that the groom is already the father of a young child who stood next to the best man during the service. So, while I am already tearing up at the whole pouring of the sand thing, the minister went next level. He called the child forward and explained that was an extension of this new union between the bride and groom. Then he gave the kid a cup of sand to pour into the bowl.

Listen, at this point, I couldn't hold back the tears any longer. Not just me, but everyone in the church is sniffling and snuffling. I'm trying to hold the phone up to keep recording while I wipe my eyes and nose. I'm a complete mess. People watching the video are commenting that they can hear me crying. Yeah. Like they weren't all crying right along with me. We can, on occasion, be an emotional bunch of folk.

Anyway.

It's a week later, and am still thinking of the wedding. What a big moment for those two young people. Huge moment. I hope they cherish the magnitude of what they have done. I wish that I had appreciated my own ceremony and what it meant. I was so young and foolish. Thankfully, I truly believe that my niece and her new husband get it. I could almost see her shining with happiness and gratitude as she was escorted up the aisle by my brother. As she and the groom came down the aisle, on the way into their new life, they both looked so happy and giddy. Almost like they were thinking, "Did we just do this?" They were so dang adorable. And now there are even more people in my family to love.

So, yeah, that was a big, big moment. For the couple and for their child. I don't think I can take any more ceremonies of any kind for a while. I'm still feeling the emotional high from that wedding. I just wish so much that my mother could have been here to see her youngest son's youngest daughter getting married and becoming all in one day not just a wife but a mother too. Mom would be so proud. And she would have right there, crying with me.

Now I am over here, holding my breath, waiting for the next beautiful thing to happen, whatever it may be.

Peace
--Free

It's a little sugary sweet, but it's also perfect for this post

What the Ring Means

I was checking out a Tumblr post by a web buddy (okay, really we are sisters of the heart) of mine. She was talking about the 10+ club. It's a wife thing for women married 10 years or more. What a bitter-sweet read for me. Matter of fact, I didn't read the post through, because just seeing it literally put an ache in my heart.

One thing I took from the post was thoughts about love, marriage, divorce and life stages; choices, decisions, regrets, and acceptance.

The ring I put on as a first-time newlywed was more a symbol of hope and trust than it was of love. I didn't understand any of those three things. I had no clear plan of hope; trust was a concept I'd only learn by having it broken; and my love was not mature. I think now about the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer.

The ring I put on the second time I married was given all the respect the first ring deserved. That second marriage was penance of a sort. I paid for every childish mistake from before and probably put a down-payment on future mistakes I haven't even considered yet.

There are times now when I wear a cheap band or solitaire on my ring finger. I wear these when I don't want to be "hit on", or when I want to remind myself of what I've cost myself in missed memories and milestones.

Maybe, one day, I will wear another ring that is an echo of the first. If it's true that there really are no mistakes - just learned lessons - then I will be so much wiser. I am wiser anyway.

For women who have made it into the 10+ circle, I want to congratulate you. You hung in there and stayed even when the romance waned and "real life" took over. You can look back with smiles at the photographs of a dress and cake that were only symbols. Your time with the one you bound yourself to, the doubts you endured, the struggles - all those are what count. You chose to grow old with the one special person who also chose you and now, these however many years later, you can say you made it this far. Keep going. I hope all those ladies make the 20-year Club and beyond.

For the other ladies, like me, we've also endured journeys of our own. That we are still able to find happiness of our own is our special testament.

Peace
--Free

It's Business Time!

+Spencer Bryant started something with this the other day. I have a friend who sent it to me and whenever he calls me now, instead of "Hello," I hear, "It's bizness, it's bizness..." before he is laughing too hard to finish.

Had to share this with more than the Google Plus crowd...

I seriously cannot watch this without laughing out loud - loudly. (My roommate has a crush on both these guys now. They are cute and so damn funny, I don't blame her.)




Um, okay - I couldn't leave you with just that one. This next one is the one I tease my friend with now:

I'm going to become their B.A.G. - Black Alaskan Groupie! ROFL

Peace

--Free

Love & Options

Gotta love the ideas people come up with...

Branded!

This ring is available from a site called The Cheeky. I heard about this over at Daily Mail and my first reaction was, "Well now, damnit. Why didn't I think of that?" Then I talked to a couple of friends about it.

BFF T (female buddy) loved the idea as much as I did. For a nansecond. She just about commandeered my PC to get to the website. "Oh yeah. Getting my man one of those." Then her brain hit Pause.

T and I are kind of tight, so when her brain went back to Play, I could see in her eyes what she was thinking. I had to agree.

What good is love without trust? What is trust when you have to brand your lover to keep them faithful? That was what T and I came up with together. Then a special male friend of mine showed up. Damn, if he didn't break it all down to a whole other level.

His wisdom: "Branding a man like that will make him want to cheat."

Do tell. (Like I said, this is a guy is a bit special to me.)

According to this guy, men like a challenge (yeah, yeah, yeah) so if you try to lock them down, they'll just have fun breaking the combination. Give them that ring, they'll come up with a chemical or something to even the skin out instantly. Plant a tracking device in their ass, they'll find a way to trick the technology.

In the end, I sided with my gal friend (in my head and some of my heart), but made sure to praise my guy friend for being so insightful. Truth really be told: I'm just way past wanting to do anything obsessive, possessive or lunatic lavish to keep a man. If we're good, we're good; if we're not, we never were.

Poor T, much as she believes everything she said, she admitted she can't get the Chris Rock line out of her head: "A man is only as faithful as his options.

Me? All I can say is, I don't want to be an "option." I just want to be real.

Peace
--Free

P.S.: This is so completely off-topic, you'll think I'm Sarc'd out again. I'm not, but I just found out from another friend that my all-time favorite actor - the world's greatest - Kevin Spacey, is on Twitter. You can follow him at @KevinSpacey

Now I can get back to my "Grimm" marathon.

Peace
--Free

The Cover of Love

April, May, June and July are tough for our family. Two of my older brothers celebrate birthdays this week. Born a year and a day apart. Chuck and Joe.

My mother passed away in the month of April on Joe's birthday.

My father was born in the month of May and died in the month of July shortly after my June birthday.

Mother's Day this year is on the 13th of May.

It took me until just now to figure out why I have these blues. Happens like this almost every single year.

I really miss my Mom. Being lucky to have super-amazing people in my life, I think about the different ways we (all people, men and women) can be a Mother/Father comfort to one another. Or a "covering." I will explain that later.

Think about it, mothers and fathers just love. That's really the main job. Everything else comes out of that love. They care for, teach, lead, discipline, comfort, protect, push, challenge, inspire, encourage, advise, listen & hear, and just love. As children, we get different measures and degrees of all those things from our parents as we go the the stages of life, but it is never not needed.

Once, when I was around 30 or so, I went through some minor life crisis (can't remember what exactly) and my mother was sitting and holding my head in her lap one day. I was just laying there, watching the news with her, feeling miserable about whatever I was going through. One of our good friends happened to drop by for a visit at the time. She saw me being miserable and my mother being comforting and instantly just "got it." She didn't think was weird in any way that I had gone to my mother right after work to just curl up on the couch and be tended to. (My brothers would have joked about my being a big ole grown baby, but they would just be joking.)

As my mother always told me, I never stopped being "her baby." All of us, even my big 6 foot 1 brothers (okay, and the short one, too!) never stopped being hers. (Understand this, my mother stood about 5 foot 7. My brothers would not only stand still but stoop so that Mom could smack on across the back of their head. I think the last time she probably did it on a regular basis was when they were around 16 or 17. I know because they all laugh and tell those stories now.)

My father was just as bad. He didn't "baby" the boys, but they were still his "kids." My sister & I? Now, we were still "his girls." (Up until 2 months before my father died, he sang to me. "My Girl," "You Are The Sunshine of My Life," and "Sugar Pie, Punkin Pie"... My dad sang his love for me.) I have a picture of Dad and my older sister. She is all married & grown, but you can see that, to him, she is still one of "his girls." (And I will tell you something that means nothing at all to me as far as our family love: my dad was my sister's step-dad. People who knew us for, literally, 40 yrs or more and did not know about that until my silly-assed stepmother mentioned it after my father's death. Witch.)

When both my parents were gone, my sister & I became "mothering" to each other. My brothers became "fathering."

In marriage, my parents believed that your spouse was supposed to be what some Christians call your "covering." In other words, the husband becomes the wife's comfort or her cover: covering her worries, fears, needs and dreams. The wife becomes the same for the husband, but under his submission. (I don't care what your ideas about feminism or power are. This is the way I was raised and I have no problem submitting in love to love. Love, not abuse. Been there, done that.)

Because I am now not "covered" (wasn't ever really covered in the first place by the soon-to-be-ex), I am covered by the men in my family (blood & chosen). I go to them for advice and strength, I go to them the way I would my father. Until I am loved and covered by a man I choose, I have that comfort of the family.

With my mother gone, I not only have my sister, but I have my mother's friends and my own best friends you hear me talk so much about. For some of my friends, I am sometimes "Mom." Me - Ooe of the most childish adults around!

Uh oh. Somehow I forgot where I was going with this post, if I was going anywhere at all. I think I just needed to be writing after I realized where my recent mood was coming from. Now I know.

Peace
--Free

Games Married Women Play

Now that I have your attention.

On a talk show yesterday, a couple discussed their sexless marriage. (Sexless. Marriage. That's just single & wearing a wedding ring.) In the case of this particular couple, after 4 years, the husband was no longer "turned on" by his wife. Now, I'm not going to get all up in their business - even if they did put it out there - but, basically, the more the husband rejected the wife, the more she let her appearance go. To sum up, in the past 2 years, they'd had sex 5 times.Okay then.

Now I know that marriage isn't all about sex, but sex is important & unless you have some medical issues, I don't think there's any excuse for not keeping the home fires hot.

As a single woman looking forward to a Mr. Right-For-Me, I can't feel sorry for any married woman who plays the game of keep-it-tight-just-til-the-wedding-night. So, to all the married women who think that getting the ring was the whole & only point, I have a few things to say.

Ladies, if you "get" your man & then stop courting him, that's not love. That's entrapment. One thing that being single has taught me is that the best way to keep a man is to keep up with whatever you did to get him. I know because we Singles have to work harder in a relationship.

The whole game of Get Him & Then Forget Him works in some marriages (if those kinds of relationships are what you want to call "marriages.") We've all seen couples in those situations - they're the ones who shlump around in public looking bored with each other. I can spot them from around corners. (And you can just imagine what their sorry sex lives must be like: a little roll-over in the middle of the night, then rolling back onto their side of the bed. See? Boring.) Whenever I see these folks out there, just broadcasting their lack of hotness, I feel a whole lot better about being single.

Newsflash for all the neglectful married women: Damnit! You got a man. If he ain't abusing your mind, body or soul, or neglecting his responsibilities - either treat him right or send him back out to the rest of us. You picked him, so if you ever loved him, then take some Do & Don't advice from this single woman who'll be waiting for you to throw him back.

DO...

...Keep yourself looking, smelling, feeling & tasting good. We can't all be in Ms. Halle's orbit, but your man must have loved something about you since he married you. All I'm saying is keep that up.

...Remember to look at him the way you used to when you were dating. You know the look: the one where you're talking nasty with your eyes & he likes what they're saying.

...What a good mother always taught her daughter: be his lady in public & whatever he wants you to be in the bedroom. The whole "public" thing includes not acting ignorant or embarrassing (unless maybe you got a man who's into that kind of thing...I don't know what to tell y'all).
...Let him be as important to you as you want to be to him. Which is not to say you should lose yourself in his issues, but, come on girl, you remember how you used to bump something from the schedule to make a little time for him. And you remember how you loved it when he did the same for you.

...Have His 'n Her lives. You don't have to be all up in his space every time he coughs. You don't have to try sneaking yourself into all his plans with the "boys." And you do realize that this means you have to trust him? If you don't, you got no business together in the first place.

and now...

DON'T...

...Criticize so much. That's called nagging. Of course, you want to gently help him out with any minor flaws, but don't be pointing out his ashy feet if you got them jacked up never-had-a-manicure fingernails. Everybody has flaws. Work with it. If your man got ashy feet, then give him a massage with some oil or Eucerin or something. Maybe he'll treat you to a paraffin treatment.

...Forget that he's a man & that men just don't think the way we do. I know it gets on a nerve but, as one man told me: "I can't read your mind." You know what? Even if men could read our minds, they wouldn't know what to do with the information. So, the next time you're mad about something & he seems not to know why, either tell him why or drop the attitude. He ain't there.

...Get mad because he acts like a man. That's what men do. And I know, I know, I hate it when they do some of that guy stuff too - like like dozing off while I'm talking about my best friend & her mother having a crisis in their relationship. You should give your man a standing ovation if he even pretends to listen to one of these 2-hour monologues, because it's a wonder we don't bore ourselves sometimes.

...Forget that he is the man who made your heart stammer, caused your toes to curl & made you lose a little bit of your mind - and that was all just by looking at you the right way.

Most of all - don't ever forget that there are a lot of women out there with no morals, scruples, or self-respect. They won't even wait for you to throw your man back - they'll come all up in your house to get him.

You've been warned & if you've been slacking, you might want to make some Valentine's Day resolutions.