Family Wedding

It was good cake. Each layer had a different flavor, so there was variety as well as beauty. It was decorated with fresh flowers, as I think wedding cakes should be - so much nicer than roses made from that Crisco icing. The culmination of a fine celebration.

Weddings have always amused and puzzled me. When I was a child, I thought marriages started at weddings but, in fact, the commitment has already been made once the wedding rolls around. So, it is really just a celebration that the two have found their other half. As the minister put it at this wedding, "They have not found the one they can live with; they have found the one they cannot live without."

Celebration, and public pronouncement. It's hard to go back on your word when everyone you know and love heard you promise. You can do it if life turns out to be otherwise unbearable, but it's difficult, as it should be. Unless you're a Kardashian. Enough said.

My Beloved and I went to Phoenix, Arizona last weekend to celebrate my nephew's wedding and for a chance to reconnect with the rest of the family, and to learn about the new branch of the family that was being grafted on. Luckily, we like them and even found some kindred spirits among them.

I got to see both of my brothers in the same room - since they are 16 years apart in age, it's fun to note the differences, and the similarities. And to see my brothers' children and even my older brother's grandchildren. It's a pleasure to get all the kids together and a miracle to see how healthy and relatively happy they all are. We recognize that our family is blessed in a very real sense.

While we were there, the issue of same-sex marriage came up. Knowing we are from liberal San Francisco, heads turned toward us when this topic arose and I didn't disappoint. I gave them my liberal views on the matter. They were polite and no one argued with me; if they held dissenting opinions, they were too well-mannered to say so.

To me, it's all about love and who gives a hoot about what people do in their bedrooms? Sex, although you wouldn't know it from the emphasis and attention it gets in our culture, takes up a relatively small part of one's day, unless one is on one's honeymoon. What's the big deal? If people are in love and the loving makes them happy, shouldn't everyone just rejoice in their union as we did for our heterosexual couple? To whom they make love seems less important to me than that they do love and support one another.

Anyway, we had a splendid time. We ate too much at too many lovely parties. We laughed and kidded each other. We drank gallons of water in that amazingly dry desert and too much champagne. We toasted two family members who couldn't make the trip. We took a zillion photographs in addition to those taken by the professional photographer, and some of them were pretty good. We'll be sharing those photos and those memories for years to come. It was a good family wedding.