July 19, 2008

7/19/08

I ended up attending two weddings last weekend, one between a couple who happened to be brother and sister to my other friends who married two years ago, and another union between a guy Iíd never met and his imported Russian bride.
Idaho is never boring.
I rolled in to Sun Valley the night before the rehearsal dinner. After high tailing it out of Sun City I realized Iíd written down the wrong date back when I was taking care of mom. I spent most of the extra time on the porch, though, listening to the aspen leaves and watching the Wood River go by, so it was not a bad mistake to make.
The next day we rode our bikes into town so my buddy James and his sister in law Lisa, a smoke jumper from Fairbanks, could pick up their t-shits for a half marathon on the day of the wedding. After running 16 miles in the woods, James looked no worse for wear as the other wedding guests as he poured champaign at the service. The only exception was the roll of Necco Wafers he snacked on periodically to keep from passing out.
The race went right by the house. The announcer started started shouting the names of finnishers at about 9 a.m., as though to punish the rest of us who had the decency to be hung over on a Saturday morning.
The rehearsal dinner had gone as rehearsal dinners go, with lot of beer, good food and a few heated games of croquet and boccee ball on the back lawn. Although every one of us was of legal age and we all had enough money to travel to a wedding in central Idaho, some of the bride and groomís friends paniced when Ethanís dad started putting away the wine and frantically hid bottles under their chairs for later.
We kept the party going at the other house before the five couples staying there began spooning all over the place. The whole group looked like the victims of a strange airborn virus that left them immobilized on the floor, clinging to each other in their last, desprate moment of life.
One guest - who it was explained earlier needed her own room because she had no problem screwing in front of other people ñ could be heard in the final stages of the disease that night, squealing as though her lungs were about to dissolve.
Iíll be 27 in August. Thatís a number on dangerously good terms with 30, but right then I knew I couldnít be too old if these kinds of things were still happening around me.
In the hours before the service, James, his brother and I made ourselves useful and ran into town for ice. By ìiceî I mean beer and hamburgers at a grungy little ski bar where the menís room was covered in the calibur of poetry you are likely to read in only the finest drinking establishments.
Back at the St. Clair estate I promptly passed out on account of the Benadryl Iíd taken for my cottonwood alergy and woke up just before the service.
It was a lovely affair on the back lawn. Dick, the father of both James and the bride, married Ethan and Mary Beth. He had also officiated the wedding of James and Lara, who happens to be Ethanís sister. Itís a good thing that the majority of the inlaws like each other.
A semi-retired judge, Dick gave a beautifully crafted speech about marriage, about responsibility, about love as a state of being. But Juanita stole the show. The happy coupleís miniature poodle served as ring bearer. As non-chalant as Ethan and his bride were about the wedding, it would have been tough to incorporate the dog into a ceremony at courthouse.
I was talking with Laura when we began to discuss how weíd all managed to grow up since the days when we got to hang out like this all the time. Ethanís an Architect. Jesseís a lawyer. Iím a reporter. James is a geologist. We once comprised a band called Fly By Night that wailed away at Allman Brothers tunes and blues riffs with titles like ìThe Never Ending Solo.î Combined, we had more hair than a St. Bernard.
Now we look more like a white-collar version of the Villiage People. I keep thinking one of us should gert a job as an Indian so at least weíre not all wearing the same thing to work.
Not everyone gets it figured out, though. I hadnít spoken to my sister since the funeral, and my dad had confirmed that she turned in her ticket to Boise. I'd planned to scatter the ashes after the wedding in a mountain town called Stanley where we would vacation when we were kids. I left messages on her phone every day to be sure, but it became apparent Iíd be going in the Salmon River by myself.
That was wasn't too hard to set aside, though as my attention turned to the Russian bride. The second St. Clair wedding on the agenda that weekend was small, family affair. It featured the left over keg beer from Ethan's wedding and the same retired judge to officiate. The bride was apparently brought in just for the occasion, and I gathered that it was the groom's third attempt at international romance.
I slipped in the back with Ethan and Marybeth and tried to act oblivious to the fact that everyone else was related by blood or marriage.
By the middle of the reception, though, I'd had some great conversation with the graciouos St. Clair's and listened to the bride's broken English as they welcomed her into the family.
The whole weekend was great. I took off the next morning after taking a hike with Ethan, Mary Beth and their poodle in a baby carrier. It's amazing how people will welcome you into their homes and their lives just when you feel the most alone. It was just what I needed.

The next day I went to morning staff devotionals at the Lutheran summer camp I went to. There's a chapel in Stanley that looks out onto the Sawtooths. It has a combination lock, but the combination is 1234, and everyone in town knows it.
I took mom inside and said a few prayers. I went to the river, behind the Redwood Inn discreetly at 8 a.m. In the cold water, only a few hours separated from the glacciers that created it, I waded across polished cobbles.
Mom was a mariner Girl Scout growing up in St. Louis. About a year before she died, she arranged a reunion of her mariner friends, now sucessful women who live all over the country,
During the funeral I read a tribute from one of them who said they joked about how girls from the Midwest could be so in to sailing given how landlocked they were. When she heard I was scattering the ashes in the river she said she was glad my mom would finally make it to the sea.
Driving away that day, along the river and toward my dad's house near Salmon it felt good to see the water. Sometimes there is a part of me that is overwhelmed with comfort, a feeling of certainty that my mom is ok, and that she wants me to be ok, too.
Driving along that tangled mountain road I felt that I would always be near her whenever I am close to that river, and whenever I am beside the ocean.