One of the Reasons Why I Said Yes

Sometimes Life is Beautiful

I have never said
that northwest Ohio
from the view of the turnpike
is cinematic.

Tonight,
as we drove from Detroit to Pittsburgh
the pink and orange sky
served as a backdrop
for the fifteen birds
flying in V formation.

I do not know
what type of birds they were
or how far south
they were headed.

To you,
they were a reminder.

From the passenger seat,
you looked at me and said:
Sometimes, life is really beautiful.

I answered,
as I turned on to the highway,
Yes.  Yes it is.

How It All Went Down

On March 16, 2014, the day after my parents' 45th wedding anniversary, my partner asked me to marry him.  As I opened the fridge in my parents' kitchen, I noticed a clear box that held a bride and groom origami.  The box was covered in flowers and there was a gift inside the clear container.  I had no idea what I was looking at.  My partner and I had talked about getting married quite frequently and neither one of us had any doubt that it would happen.  We chose what type of ring we wanted and the gem.  We settled on a very simple band for the ring and chose a man-made diamond for the center.  There it was, in front of me, the ring and the funky presentation of it all.  I still had no clue what was going on until my partner got down on one knee.  At that point I just started laughing and crying.  Neither one of us is traditional so I couldn't figure out why he was on one knee.

The fact that we were surrounded by family and that the proposal took place in my parents' kitchen seemed absolutely perfect.  This was the same kitchen where I would lie on the floor, moaning about how "sick" I was, in the hopes of being able to skip church.  The same kitchen where I would throw myself on the ground and pretend to be a sizzling piece of bacon.  The same kitchen where so many arguments, conversations, holidays and moments of life occurred.  So much life took place in that one tiny room.

It's true that I was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and had no make-up on that day.  It's also true that I was hungover from  the night before and barely awake.  But when I flip through the photo album of our engagement that my dad made for us, I couldn't be more convinced that everything unfolded the way it was supposed to.

Now, the actual planning of the wedding? That's another story.

Introducing Lazy Bride

In junior high, I was in love with the idea of dramatic love.  I was a quirky kid who read books about the disappearance of the rainforest and became anxious about the dying Amazonian frogs.  I listened to the Indigo Girls, Bruce Hornsby and the Range, and Tracy Chapman.  I fell for songs about lost love, unrequited love, gut wrenching love.  While I loved love in my teenage years, I never dreamt about my wedding or whom I would marry.  Those thoughts seemed out of my range and even too traditional.  I was going to become a writer and writers, good writers, don’t marry!

So, what happens when that quirky, asthmatic kid falls in love with another quirky kid who used to collect Garbage Pail Kids?  They decide to get married and take on the task of planning a wedding for under $10,000.  Throw into the mix that my fiancé and I are not big picture people, we do not organize life in a clear or even logical manner.  It often takes us thirty minutes to decide where to go to dinner.  It should be noted that we usually end up at the first place one of us suggested hangry and bitter towards one another.  However, the biggest challenge here is to not spend the money allocated for alcohol before any of the wedding festivities begin.

And so it begins…