April 14-17, St. Louis

I drove down from Minneapolis to St. Louis for a close friends wedding, leaving on the 14th, and returning to MN on the 17th.

I like St. Louis. The old parks and buildings are beautiful. They have a worn, subtle, grandeur- not quite like other places I’ve seen. It’s not like Europe- not as old or huge. It’s not like DC either… in a sense DC is almost too well-manicured. I like it. I spent most of my time in the Central West End and Grove neighborhoods. The Grove seems to be going through a kind of renaissance… the community there seems to have something really good going…

The whole wedding weekend was a really fun, memorable, special time. Featured image is of the wedding rehearsal. For me, the weekend was a chance to spend time with some people who are really important to me, to catch up with old friends, and to become closer to some more recent acquaintances. It’s just a really… special time… with everyone coming together to celebrate a good thing.

I’ve been to many weddings over the years- (If I really think about it, around 20 weddings over the past 15 years.) My thoughts about the actual event of a wedding have…evolved. For a long time I thought weddings were an awful thing- expensive, stressful, arbitrary, with weird unreasonable expectations all over the place, and relationship landmines everywhere… never wanted a wedding of my own. (I still think this bullshit remains true about weddings generally, but I just think the good outweighs the bad, and a lot of the bullshit can be managed.)

I guess I’ve come around to the idea of weddings as an event… inasmuch as applies it applies to my own hopes about having a wedding myself. It’s kind of a scary thing… I’ve never explicitly really thought about the notion that I’d ever want a wedding. It also necessarily implies that you want to be married at some point… which I guess, honestly, is the scarier part. That’s not the point tho- you can want to be married without wanting a wedding. (I suppose you could also want a wedding without being married… but that’s a whole different kind of crazy.)

Back to the main point- it’s the idea of inviting people into being part of the stuff of your life. That is, celebrating the good stuff, and riding through the heavy stuff, with other people- (and not alone.)

Bigger things require a bigger party perhaps. That’s basically what I think a wedding is, when it’s stripped of all its insane religious/cultural/societal/historical baggage. It’s a celebration of an important, good thing in your life, with people you care about (and vice versa.) It’s about involving people from different parts of the story to all be part of a major turning point in the plot… and starting a new chapter with everyone there.

I guess I wonder who the characters and coauthors in the (my) story are. I’d rather write a story where stuff in my life is shared and intersects with other people who know me and are important to me- (…and to make the obvious explicit, not a solitary kind of story.)

I suppose all this rambling to say, I think there is something valuable about the idea of gathering with people you care about and share life with, to mark certain occasions or whatever. I don’t do it much- I suppose just as a function of my personality… but I think I’d like to change it some. It doesn’t even have to be huge shit like a wedding, funeral, or having kids. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. It’d probably be a good thing for people (me) to be more purposeful about meeting up with people to celebrate/mourn more mundane shit… (like mourning the tragedy of stepping in dog poo or celebrating the epic victory of those awesome poops where you only have to wipe like once. i’m not sure why it’s all poop related. i’m so sorry…)

Anyway…

The wedding was beautiful and I was really happy to be a part of it.

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