It's been thirty-odd hours and the peace is still holding.
Saturday, as I had the opportunity to explain to the myriad of people whose ears I have the fortune of borrowing, was a tragic comedy by very definition and it is well and over and I woke up with the ability to swallow the shame of wearing a white satin dress and all will be fine. The civil ceremony will happen, the parents will be as satisfied as they chose to be regardless of my choices or actions, and we will be surrounded by a handful of incredibly generous and patient people who will eat and drink well and then we will return to Toronto for the organizing stretch of our real wedding.
Our dearest trollish officiant sent us a synopsis of the ceremony that we'd brainstormed over curry, and it feels good so far and in a few minutes Dave will be done torturing our new modem and we will go over it together, take notes, add to the wedding notebook, and tell our dearest trollish officiant just how much we appreciate his generous efforts.
On Friday in Montreal (chronology is for those still mired in the mundane) we sat and sipped and chatted and read and ran into my princess as well as a face I hadn't glimpsed yet this century. It was a liberating thrill to catch up about friends who'd been so thick with me that mad summer of retrieval, he is doing as well as he wants to be (and knows it and this in itself is inspiring) and the dear hearts of that summer have all found their deepest longings and are happy in their fortunes. I had the chance to think back over wanting, lonely conversations and realize that we'd all honestly wanted, been willing to work -- and therefore actually found, our answers. All of us. The universe truly does work if we are willing to listen.
On Sunday morning we were up and out early, laden with bagels and had spare minutes for a stop for garden supplies not available in Toronto. I walked through the parking lot to brunch a-tingle for spring and the work it would bring. My knees remembered the way mud flakes from them as I stand up from working the dirt and the thrill of last spring's first forays into my own garden are just as potent this year.
And then brunch. Two hours with... I wish I had a name for them. I have a hundred titles, the gang, the boys, the Montreal crew -- but there's a pride and peace and thrill that I find in every single exchange I've ever had with each of them, from that first conversation at that first party, to evenings discussing books to blowjobs to the state of the world and the likelihood of our individually conjured utopias.
The past few weeks have carried more stress than stressful times previous, either due to my own lagging endurance or due to the simple accumulation of individual items, or perhaps simply the fact that I know how wonderful my life often is that in comparison the conflagrations at work, with the civil ceremony, worry over Dave's healing, worry over certain friends and their happinness, worry over a hundred things that I just didn't have the strength to not worry about...
Either way. Weeks of consternation and confusion and inability to see myself in three months let alone three years in my career became utterly simple when put on the table in an over-crowded greasy spoon, as did every other thorn and splinter.
I laughed from my gut as I haven't been able to do in a while, over nothing earth-shattering, and yet my entire world shook with the force of it.
We threw blueberries and it was the most glorious thing in the world when I drained my cup to find a solitary berry in the fond.
I rubbed cheeks with faces that glow, smiled into grins that understand the priceless stories. I... I guess I just really enjoyed their company in a way that is very difficult to do sometimes. In every city I have had more friends than I deserve, I have touched wonder and laughed and pulled my pants down and stuck my finger in faces, and on and forth. There was just something there on Sunday, and in the warmth I found a strength and serenity that helped me solve nearly all the nightmares that had me shaking as I left the city on Friday.
I...
Yeah.
It's all good. Fortune smiles, but that's just cuz she's ticklish and some of us (like the whole crew) have finally found her sensitive spots.
Or something.