What There's Time For

Books and Where They Come From

Growing up, we got books from the library.  It was a small library and the books were generally five to ten years old (plenty of them from before I was born!  they seemed so mysteriously ancient!), but I loved going there and coming home with an armload of new information or stories or crafting instructions.

Then, a Borders opened near my aunt's house in Ohio and we would go there sometimes when we visited.  Borders was a revelation.  The books were new, the store was new, it was all beautiful and relaxing and decadent.  I remember being a little in awe, feeling like probably if the store knew I wasn't really going to buy a book every time I came in (who could afford that??), then their friendly attitude would vanish and they'd stop letting me hang out there.

And then the Internet happened.  Borders (and Barnes and Noble, both of which by then had moved into my own area) was still a delightful place to plunk down on the floor and loose hours scanning the shelves and flipping through volumes of history or linguistics or the foreign language section (I can remember spending the precious Christmas giftcard on an Old English primer once and a Teach Yourself Welsh book with cassette tapes another time).  But the Internet was serious competition.  It was a bit harder to find what you actually wanted (there was no Google and Alta Vista wasn't the greatest, but it's also probably true that there just wasn't a whole lot on the Internet), but it was a perfectly good use of an anti-social high schooler's free time to go following link after link through a web of Society for Creative Anachronism members' pages on how to brew your own meade (never tried), dye yarn with woad (tried and failed), or make your own lace (did that, but with a real book to help).

Then came Amazon.  At first, it was a strange and seemingly dangerous idea to buy anything on-line — hackers might steal your credit card! — but within a few years, it started to be that the books I specifically wanted were not on the shelves at the previously-unimaginably-well-stocked bookstore... but could be delivered to my door in a few days with a few mouse clicks.

I understand that Amazon is a tough competitor, that publishers and bookstores are near death, but the chain stores are a misery to me now and I won't cry when they finally disappear.  Filled with junk books and things that aren't even books and shelves of educational toys I must drag my children past to get at the real books that I wanted to show them, then scads of Disney and Dora and other TV-based junk books drawing their attention even when we've gotten past the toys.

So, I avoid taking the kids.  We go to the library (which has computer games and a few toy bags, but is still much better than the bookstores).

But sometimes, I want a book, in hard-copy, today.  Like when I'm listening to The Better Angels of Our Nature, an incredibly fascinating deconstruction of the history of violence (and non-violence) and there are so many numbers and so many details I'd like to refer back to again (and it is quickly working it's way up my best non-fiction books I've ever read list) that I really feel like it would be absolutely worth it to just buy the paper book even though I'm still mostly going to listen to it on Audible (plus, I'm thinking it might be easier to skim the upcoming chapter on Sadism with my eyes than with my ears (which is the only way I got through the chapter on medieval torture without breaking down)).

So, I walk briskly into the store, thinking for sure this will be easy to find because it's only a year old and the author is famous and the book was recommended by... the Economist?  I think?  Mainstream!  Important subject!  It will be on the shelf.  Several copies.  I am sure.

First problem:  which section should Better Angels be in?  History?  Sociology?  History of Warfare?  Politics?

It's not.  Not in any of those sections.  Some of what is in those sections is pretty appalling, though.  Books on how Obama is "destroying" our republic, for instance.  And the usual cram of this strategy, this battle, this war, this loss, this victory kind of narrow war history that galls me to no end.

In fact, Better Angels is not in the store.  

But we can order it for you!

Yeah.  I'll order it on Amazon, thank you.

Loaves and Fishes

Growing up, our neighborhood didn't have the best wiring. We lost power for a few hours with almost any storm, which I suppose was a hardship but always felt like a big treat.

It's so quiet when the electrical hum cuts out, so exciting to watch mom and dad cook dinner on the camping stove, warm water in a pot to wash our faces, to get ready for bed by flashlight or candlelight.

But when the power is out for days and the temperature is hovering around 100, I can understand the romance fading. What luck, then, that we kept our electricity supply, but still got a fun adventure, hosting first a family of friends and rescuing the contents of their fridge and freezer, then taking in the family reunion that was scheduled for my mom's place... and feeding them all the windfall food that had just filled our fridge! :)

It's been awfully fun, if a bit of a logistical kerfuffle, but now the power's back on at my mom's house and our latest power outage adventure is coming to an end, passing into the happy realm of childhood memories for all the cousins.

Five

I remember my fifth birthday, or one clip of it on repeat — I was outside in the sunshine twirling around and feeling special because it was my birthday and I was turning five and I was wearing a pale blue dress with ruffles and white lace and puffed sleeves and I had a button pinned to my chest that said "Happy Birthday!"

Perhaps Mr. Pants will remember wearing his new crown (which he declares is better than the paper one he got at school, a complement I cherish) and his new cape (from his great-grandmother!) and feeling special because it is his birthday and he is turning five.

It feels like a big deal, this crossing into the age of lasting memory. He just asked me this morning, "When did time evolve?" and in a way, sometime between the age of four and five might be a reasonable answer, in a poetic sort of way.

Welcome to time, Mr. Pants. :)

*********************
The crown pattern and instructions can be found in Amanda Soule's "The Creative Family" - I promise it's cute, though you can't really tell from this picture!

Shadow Puppets on Canvas Tutorial

When I was a kid, we had family slide show nights, because all our family photos (including from back when my dad was a kid) were on slides and you couldn't look at them, really, unless you pulled out the slide projector after dark and took that one picture down to make a big blank wall and waited patiently while Dad fiddled with the boxes of slides and the inevitable jams of the projector.

It was big fun.  Sitting in the dark, choosing which events to go back to, smelling the heat of the projector's lamp, listening to the loud ca-chunk of the next slide dropping into place.  And in the blank spaces between boxes, our parents showed us how to make shadow puppets with our hands.

When I first thought of immortalizing shadow puppets on painted canvas for Shmoogie's room, it didn't really occur to me that our kids have never seen a shadow puppet.  Ever.

But now they have.  And they both chatter excitedly in their own way about watching me trace DiDi and PaPa's hand shadows of a mama and baby lama (that's what we're calling them).  The bunnies and bird (the old stand-bys of my childhood) were done after bedtime.

This was a simple project, so if you'd like to try it yourself...

Supplies:

• pre-streched artist canvas (I got these at Michaels in "value packs" of two)
• acrylic paint in your choice of background color and black (also from Michaels)
• brushes you feel comfortable with
• a pencil
• a light source (we were actually able to use the chandelier in the dining room, but a flashlight, bare bulb, or projector(!) would give a clearer shadow)

Instructions:

1. Paint the canvas with your background color.  You'll need at least two coats for a reasonably even coat (like you see here).  More coats if you don't want to see any variation.  Remember to paint the edges!
2. Let dry.  At least overnight, to be safe.  These sat around for weeks before I had willing helpers for the next step.
3. Get at least one helper.  Prop the canvas up in front of your light source in a dark room.  
4. Arrange your hands or the helper's hands into the puppet you want (you can google "hand shadow puppets" for ideas).  Remember that you can move your hands in three dimensions to change the two dimensional shape that lands on the canvas.  Try tilting towards or away from the light source to make the shadow as long as possible or foreshortened.  Move closer or further from the light source to change the overall size of the puppet shadow.  Take rings off or use them in your design.
5. Trace the shadow onto your canvas with your pencil.  Work quickly because your model will have a hard time holding perfectly still for very long!  (You should have them prop their elbow on something to help stay steady.)  Try to keep the pencil line light and accurate and just inside the shadow, because you will want to paint over it so it doesn't show.
6. Mix a bit of black paint into some of your background paint to make a shadow color.  You will need much less black paint to make a good shadow on a light color like the yellow than on a dark color like the purple.  (From my experience: the yellow turned very green looking with black in it, but dried more grey.)
7. Use a small brush to paint the outline of your shadow, then fill in with a larger brush.  Let dry (this won't take long) and add a second coat or more until you are satisfied.  The darker your shadow and background color, the fewer coats you will probably have to do.  I only needed two coats on the lama and bunnies, but four on the bird and that shadow is still not very even, but we've decided we like it that way.  Remember to extend the shadow around the edge wrap of the canvas!
8. Let dry and hang.

Have fun!  I like how these turned out, especially the sentimental factor of my childhood memories and the shadows being the hands of family members.

 

"Trust that the dots will somehow connect"

Of all things, I was planning to write today about what exactly I'm planning to do with my "shiny new GRE scores," which is... pretty much the only thing you can do with GRE scores (other than shove them in a file for ten years and then not be able to find them) — apply to grad school.

You'd have to know me pretty well (I think?) to be properly surprised that I now want to go to grad school and, unfortunately for any still-curious readers out there, I'm not up to quite the level of existential navel gazing today that would be required to properly explain why.

But a lot of my change of heart is, ironically, thanks to Steve Jobs.  Not because my elementary school's biweekly Logo sessions on Apple IIs hooked me on programming before I ever saw a color monitor (sadly, I remember those sessions being dull as dirt and utterly unilluminating).  Not because I've been in love with Macs since before I was born (I haven't; we stuck with Windows even through the brightly colored iMac craze).  And certainly not because I ever met Jobs or even, honestly, knew who he was before, say, 2002.

The thing is, I always considered myself an artsy type.  And everyone knows (well, everyone knew; the paradigms have been seriously shifting) that artsy types hate computers.  By the time I was in high school, an artsy type might deign to, say, write fiction using a word processing program, but Computer Science, a fairly new elective offering, was clearly to be avoided at all costs.  Too boring.  Too soulless.  And — above all — too hard.

Fast forward a few years (remember the sound cassete tapes used to make when you fast forwarded?) — I was in college, majoring in Linguistics, and my father was getting worried that I'd never earn a living wage.  

Similar though we were in many ways, Dad had always been fascinated by computers.  He even took a programming course in college, back when the huge final project was to write a chess playing program (I think it played against itself?  I don't think you could interact with it while it was running) and (I'm pretty sure I'm remembering his story right) the whole thing had to be done on punched cards, which sounded just miserable.  I think it was the misery of punched cards and the low-level languages that went with them that turned him off the subject, actually.  If he'd hit college ten years later, he might have gone into Computer Science for good.

Anyway, I finally promised him I'd take one Computer Science course and if I didn't hate it, I'd get a minor in it.  I'm pretty sure my intention was to prove to him that I knew myself better than he knew me... by taking a course I knew I'd hate and... hating it, obviously.

He was too wise to rub it in, but he won that wager handily.  I didn't just not hate Computer Science, I actually almost loved it.  I kicked myself for not trying it sooner, when I still would have had time to get the major.

But, I wasn't utterly sold.  Computers were still ugly and I still wished I could give it all up and be a sheep farmer (for the wool; I was a vegetarian at the time; now I eat meat but have discovered mutton isn't worth the trouble, anyway).  I was more in love with sewing, knitting, even spinning and plain old art drawing, because in those crafts I could imagine something useful and beautiful and then make it so.

It wasn't until two years ago, when I got an iPhone for the first time, that I was able to see programming in the same way.  Just like I can imagine a useful, non-ugly sweater and (with enough skill, time, and perseverance) knit it into reality, I could now imagine a useful, non-ugly computer program and (with some skill and a whole lot of time and perseverance) program it into reality.

It was Steve Jobs's vision of beautiful, enchanting computing made reality through his leadership that opened that door for me.

So, it's thanks to Steve Jobs and thanks to my dad that I'm hoping to go back to school in Computer Science.  Even though I still don't know exactly how all the passions of my life connect with each other, it feels like the right thing to do right now, and I felt that way even before I read Jobs's inspiring commencement address from 2005.  You should read it if you haven't already.  Or even if you have.  It bears rereading very well.

Trying to Remember

When I watched the Twin Towers collapse on TV, I remember thinking — and I knew it was crazy at the time — how beautifully they imploded.  Unable to comprehend the fact of thousands of people inside those buildings, my brain noted instead the surprising symmetry of the powdery grey plumes shooting up as the steel and glass just fell away.

On TV, the collapse was silent.  And slow.

I remember realizing that although I knew with absolute certainty that today was a beautiful day, that today was a Tuesday, a Tuesday in September, I had no idea which day in September it was.

One part of my brain started searching for the date, while another part hugged what it knew were the last few moments that I would ever not know that date.

I remember that afternoon, a backyard potluck with neighbors, waiting for some other shoe to drop, grateful that my family was all together (my dad had walked in his suit and dress shoes all the way in from D.C., past the smoking Pentagon), wishing that Mr. Right wasn't out of town.

I remember the surreal drone of fighter jets overhead at night.

I remember falling asleep on the couch that night, watching the news and waiting for the heartening stories of survivors I was sure would be rescued from the rubble.  There are always survivors, I reasoned, someone will be found.

In my memory, no one was.

The newspapers filled for weeks with stories of grief and horror, thousands of times over.  It was impossible to take in, the thought of so many people being killed like that, of so many families being robbed of father, mother, child.  I didn't know any of them personally; it took years for me to realize I was feeling a stealthy kind of grief.

I remember strangers being suddenly friendly and kind.  I remember feeling part of something huge and wonderful as a flush of red, white and blue flags bloomed over everything to the edges of my daily life and beyond, like desert flowers after rain.

As the days began to build up on the other side of the watershed, I remember my eyes stinging with pride and awe at the first sight of a commercial jet in the air again.

I remember Mr. Right finally getting home, his big strong hug, walking with him to the hill near the Pentagon to bear witness to the hole and the four-story flag hanging next to it.  It didn't look real.  It looked like someone had special-effected reality.

In the months and years that followed, I remember struggling.  As hard as it was to take in the enormity of the loss, it was probably harder for me to understand that, truly, there were twenty people (and, logically, plenty more) that had dedicated their entire being towards shredding the lives of thousands of other people they didn't even know.  Because I couldn't integrate that kind of hideous intentionality into my worldview, I found it almost impossible to feel anger or blame.  I was just incredibly sad.  And scared.  I definitely remember feeling scared.

I remember wondering — stunned as I was and viewing the whole thing as a kind of horrific natural disaster, eons of blind evolution producing people over there and people over here, destined to smack into each other in this toxic incineration — if the names of the hijackers would be read aloud at the national memorial service.  I worried about their mothers.

I remember a lot of confusion and fear.  I remember keeping my mouth shut.

I remember spinning my mental wheels, trying to imagine a transformative way out of the fog that wouldn't mean more death and grief.  I don't remember getting very far, only so far as to hope someone would ask us to do something more inspiring than buy a new truck at 0% APR.

I remember wishing the fresh, painful years that loomed ahead could blur by easily, that it would be the tenth anniversary of September 11th and we'd all have perspective and the wars would be over and things would be making sense again.

And here we are.

There is some perspective.  Mostly, for me, my experience of that day and the years after feels like a natural part of the strange, cruelly wonderful experience of growing up.  Of understanding that terrible things happen.  That wonderful things happen.  That safety is always an illusion but that fear doesn't much help.

The wars aren't over.  I worry for friends and family when they deploy and relax a bit when they return.  I still grieve for the civilians and soldiers I don't know, for their families, and for the people "over there" whose lives I barely understand, but who are swirling around in this horrible mess, too.

Things do make some sense again.  There are crazies on all sides, as Mr. Right loves to point out, but I feel like the space of public discourse is wider, has fresher air, and is lit with a clearer light than it was in the first years after.  It's honestly hard to remember how strange that time was.

And, finally, it's hard for me to remember that on September 11th 2001, I still had five and a half years ahead of me before motherhood.  Mr. Right and I weren't even engaged.

***

It's also hard for me to remember that Mr. InnocentPants doesn't know what happened ten years ago.  We went to a memorial today and he asked why there were so many flags, so I started to explain a little.  I was encouraged by Ask Moxie's post on talking to kids about 9/11 (my only caveat is that I try hard to make the subtle distinction between bad *actions*, which I feel I can judge, and bad *people*, which I feel is less clear cut and less helpful).  And it reminded me of a very moving interview from On Being, which also pointed to the idea of "looking for the helpers" when bad things happen.

Something I'd Forgotten We'd Been Missing

Watching thunderstorms from the porch.  Maybe I do love summer, after all.

Three Stories About the Weather

I

Remembering Rain

When I was little enough that I don't remember how little I was, we were visiting my aunt in Wisconsin and my dad and my little sister and I walked with her a few blocks to see her plot in the community garden.  I remember sunshine and a basket and an impressive explosion of plant life.

I remember waving goodbye to my aunt as we headed out the gate and then, in the sudden and confusing way that things happen to you when you are five years old, I was running flat out through thick bucketing rain, running next to my dad, who was carrying my sister.

It might be my first memory of caring for my parents' feelings — I could feel Dad's anxiety (just a little), feel that he was worried that I wouldn't be able to keep up, that he was asking too much of me, and I remember both being a little surprised to realize that he was not entirely in control and also feeling that I wanted him to know it was ok, I would keep up, he didn't have to worry about me.

There was no way to say anything, though, the way it was raining I'm surprised we found any air to breathe at all, so I just ran on and on through wall after wall of water, my white sandals slapping into the river that was the sidewalk, unable to even see the next step, concentrating on my dad's feet splashing next to me, concentrating on not falling behind.  Then suddenly we'd reached the door and there were towels and my mother was laughing and exclaiming about what a sudden storm that was and my father was relaxed again and telling me what a good job I'd done.

II

Lucky Shortcut

I wasn't thinking about that on Saturday when we were having another last glass at a Heuriger the next ridge over.  I wasn't thinking about it as we walked home, either, the sky starting to darken and the wind picking up a little.  I really wasn't thinking about it as Mr. Right insisted he'd rather drag the stroller up the Stieg (a sort of pedestrian street of fifty-some stairs) than go the usual loong (but stair-less) way around.  What I was thinking about was how ridiculous it is to drag a stroller and two kids up fifty-some stairs.

A half an hour later, we were home and putting the kids to bed when rain slammed the window of Mr. Pants's room without prelude and we opened the shutter a bit to look out on whiteness, whiteness that was partly the thickest kind of rain and partly thick streaking trail of hail.  We looked on in fascination and the hail grew to the size of grapes, hurtling down from the sky and ricocheting off the walls, the roof, the windows, collecting on the lawn thick enough to almost hide the grass.

And then I realized we ought to help Mr. Right check windows in the rest of the house, so Mr. Pants's got a short reprieve from bed and a better view of the ice ball blanket covering his friend's yard.  It was hard to tear him away, even after the show was over.  "Say, 'Good night, hail,'" I told him, which is often helpful in these cases.

"Good night, hail!" he said, "Good night, hail; you are so cute!"

I laughed and asked Mr. Right if he'd heard that.  He had.

"Yeah," explained Mr. Pants, "It's very little, that's why I said that."

In the end, Mr. Right wanted lots of credit for taking the crazy 50-stairs shortcut home and I started wondering, seriously, what would we have done if potentially deadly hail had opened up on us halfway up those stairs?

But it wasn't until the next morning, thinking it over as I marveled at a few balls of ice still huddling in the corner of the terrace, that the rain story popped itself out from my subconscious.

III

An Adventure and a Half

Two days after the hail storm, Mr. Right was working late wrapping things up and I had spent the whole day cleaning for the landlord inspection and was not about to let anyone eat anything in the apartment.  Luckily, a wonderful group of amazingly kid-tolerant friends were getting together (at yet another Heuriger) and I figured I could walk the kids over there, feed them Schnitzel, then pour them into bed.

One friend walked with me and we both thought we knew where we were going.  It looked like it could rain, maybe, so I mentally checked the stroller for rainshield (to cover kids) and jacket (to cover me).

Weather being what it is in Vienna and my friend's and my memories for locations being what they apparently are, we were just getting on track to circle back the right way to the place when a few sprinkles turned to a light rain, which turned to rain that made Shmoogie cry.  We were trotting by this point, as much as we could on a narrow vineyard road that isn't meant for real vehicle traffic but was being used that night for all the traffic through the valley because the main road was closed for a street party.  I threw the rain cover over Shmoogie (Mr. Pants refused the stroller offer) while we waited for a car to pass and we started running.

We only had maybe a hundred yards to go (although we didn't quite know it at the time) when the celestial flood gates opened.  Just imagine the relief when we finally saw the right sign.  Just imagine it washed away when we found ourselves not at a door, but pushing up a steep and rivuleted gravel driveway.

But another friend was waiting for us with useless-but-encouraging umbrellas and helped me shove the stroller up the last bit, although I kept looking over my shoulder worrying that Mr. Pants (holding my friend's hand) was falling further and further behind.

In the end, it worked out well.  There was no hail.  The waitress was friendly, even though we had pretty much carried a river with us into the restaurant.  My friends helped entertain my children.  And the long walk home (the buses had been somehow stopped by the rain) was a little chilly, but Mr. Pants showed no signs of hypothermia.

Feel Like Royalty in Three Layers of Silk

This is it for my royal wedding retrospective, I promise, but I can't pass by the chance to talk about the dress!

It was gorgeous, I thought.  A few details I wouldn't have picked for myself, but overall really stunning.  Having designed and sewn my wedding dress, I can't help but be a little fascinated.  I'll admit I searched for detail photos Saturday morning, with little luck.  Oddly enough, though, I did read the lace was constructed by cutting motifs out of a variety of laces and appliqueing them to silk tulle, which is quite similar to how I worked my own dress.

And since I don't have the rights to post royal wedding photos and this blog is all about ME anyway (right?), let's have a look at my dress today, ok?

It was princess-seamed with a full A-line skirt (no train, but my veil dragged the floor a bit, I think).  I didn't wear a crinoline to puff the skirt out, but sewed wide horsehair braid (not really horsehair these days, but we still call it that) into the hem to give it body.  The dress has three layers, each cut and assembled separately:  a silk chiffon overlay, a silk shantung main layer, and a china silk lining.  (Seen here on a dress form set very short and sitting on a table while under construction.)

A custom-fit dress in three layers of silk will definitely make you feel like royalty.  I was so comfortable in that dress, I wish I could have worn it more than once!

It had 23 self-covered buttons with self-fabric loops up the back (trick of the trade I learned in the process:  the buttons and loops are real functioning things, but they close over an invisible zipper, which keeps the closure nice and smooth and secure).

I had a definite vision of how I wanted the detailing, a textured naturalistic floral design that would give the effect of a bodice subtly separate from the skirt, with the lace trailing down in points at each seam and the center front (the longest points at the side seams).  It took several tries to get a look I was happy with.  At first, I thought I would embroider the whole design myself with silk thread, but I couldn't get an effect that looked at all professional or as dimensional as I wanted.  In the end, I bought a quarter yard of silk venetian lace that was very stylized, a bit like this...

...and I cut each of those strands apart very carefully (I checked first, it didn't fray; lace generally doesn't, but you DO check these things when the lace costs what it cost).  Then, after completely assembling and finishing the dress (except for hemming), I put it on a dress form and pinned each leaf and stem where I wanted it.  The vines didn't lie flat because I was bending them so far from their original curves, but that added to the naturalistic effect I was going for.

I left it pinned up there for a few days to consider, rearranged a few things, then stitched it all down to the chiffon layer only (with much less precision than the royal dress; I think I put two or three stitches in each leaf and probably every 1/4 inch along the stems; not carefully around the edges, either, but just stab stitched straight through the lace; you really couldn't see the stitches and letting the edges of the lace stay slightly free gave a bit more dimension and freedom to the design, I thought).  In the process, I added a cluster of three glass beads to the center of each three leaves, which barely show up at all in the photos, but which did add something to the overall impression in person.  You can see the lace detail and almost the beads in this picture:

Also, I found this one:

I'm sure Kate was not sewing her veil to her diamond tiara with dental floss an hour before the wedding because she forgot to pack white thread.  She must have people who remember to bring the white thread for her.  ;) 

 A few other construction details for those interested:  

• The seams of the chiffon overlay were finished with a narrow serge.  I wanted to use french seams, but the professional I consulted with (good idea to do on a project like this!  I only needed an hour and learned so much!) convinced me that the key was to keep the seam finishes as smooth and flat as possible.  Serging an entire full-length princess-seamed dress of silk chiffon requires courage, though.
• The horsehair braid was sewn inside the hem of the lining.  All three layers of the dress were hemmed separately.  The lining and shantung layers were swing tacked together at each seam and the chiffon layer was left free.  I hemmed the chiffon layer by sewing a white silk ribbon (the kind they sell for embroidery; I think it was 1/4 inch) overhanging the raw edge from the back side, then flipping the ribbon up to the right side and stitching along the other edge.
• The self-fabric covered buttons and loops had to be done in the double layer (chiffon on top of shantung) to really match the dress.  That was daunting to consider, but not so bad in reality.
• I did no corseting or boning in the dress itself, but wore a modern bustier underneath.

Thanks for listening!  :)  Something different tomorrow.

Mass Emotion

Until two hours before The Wedding, I didn't even realize it was happening on Friday, that's how clued in to the whole wedding hoopla I was.

But then I opened my browser and the front page of the BBC site was covered in headlines featuring the words "wedding" and "today" and I finally figured out...  The royal wedding is today!

So I watched it (the live stream I complained about on Friday got fixed in time, yay!  and Shmoogie napped, double yay!).  And I loved it.

I know lots of people think it's ridiculous to care, that it's a waste of British tax payer dollars and unseemly in the face of budget cuts hurting people who are already hurting...

But there's something about a wedding, isn't there?  I thought the Bishop of London said it perfectly, "In a sense every wedding is a royal wedding."  

Indeed, our wedding was nothing like the royal wedding... and yet exactly like the royal wedding.  Our friends sang Sicut Cervus every bit as beautifully (even more beautifully, in my memory) as the Chapel Royal Choir sang Ubi Caritas.  I know the bride's bouquet smelled like heaven, because mine had lily of the valley, too (which was, in February, a less virtuous choice on my part).  The love and happiness our friends and family beamed toward us felt like the adoring cheers of besotted billions.  And the trumpet fanfares in my heart could have filled any cathedral.

I love going to weddings; each one reminds me of ours and the joy and solemnity of life-long commitment.  Which is why I think the interest in this wedding was not entirely about it being royal (how anachronistic!  how unseemly!), and a lot about it being a wedding.  We the Public hardly ever get the chance to collectively watch any wedding, much less one of such grandeur.

On top of that, who can help feeling moved any time great masses of global humanity are united in emotion over anything?  For the most part, I think, that's a wonderful thing.  The hope when the Wall came down, the excitement over the dawning of this new millennium, the joy that finally came for the people in Tahrir Square, the sense of triumph over a blighted history that came with the election of Barack Obama, even the grief shared around the world on September 11th or after tsunamis and earthquakes.

What's frightening is how easy it is to feel the same heart-swelling collective emotionalism when the root is something more sinister.  Anger, say, or empathy-squashing triumphalism.

I think it's wrong to cheer for death, no matter how awful the person that's died.  And yet, when I read about the jubilant crowds in front of the White House last night, cheering the news that Bin Laden had been killed, my head thought, That is wrong; wrong and dangerous, but I can't pretend my emotional system wasn't already pumping whatever it pumps to make my eyes prick and my chest burst with sympathetic feeling.

Our natural instincts are both wonderful and awful.  At least on Friday, those instincts were channeled towards celebrating love and hope for the future.  (Though I grieve that the news from Syria keeps being buried, I'm not sure that's entirely the wedding's fault.)

***

Let's end with music, shall we?  We don't have a recording of our wedding service, but this is the same song our friends sang for us (we had sung it in college choir together).  The text is from a psalm and says roughly As the deer longs for flowing water, so does my soul long for you, God.