Monday, August 4, 2008

we all do



eventually, our siblings will marry and our friends with get pregnant, and we will be forced to realize that we are no longer children. our families will expand and our friends will become parents. this crazy fact is both beautiful and alarming. and as we watch our brothers say I do, we think of our own weddings. and as we watch our friends change their daughter's diaper, we think of our own plans.



my brother just got married. it was a simple wedding set in the woods of north idaho. the bride wore flip flops and the groom wore a tuxedo t-shirt. the wedding party was comprised of their three children. it was truly a beautiful ceremony that made even the mountain men shiny-eyed.

our family was together.

when you see your family grow as the vows are made, you realize how complicated such a thing as family can be. if you're lucky you will like all the additions, but that doesn't always happen, and then what? do you love your sibling less for the mess of a partner they choose? and what if your friend bears and then raises a bratty child? will their choices drive you apart? life is this shifting thing that we are always wanting to hold still. but the calm we seek would make us crazy. life and love and family and friendship are complicated things, but we partake in them because the alternative is so quiet. we fill our lives with the things that make music. sometimes it is beautiful music and sometimes it just sounds like noise. but the absence of this music would break every experience. and so we keep surrounding ourselves with the sound and complication of love and we dance when it moves us and accept all the other times when we want to plug our ears. the lonely of quiet keeps us listening to the music of life.

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