I went to a wedding yesterday. On my roof. Crazy young people rushing headlong into a commitment to each other based on love.
It was a low-key affair, pot-luck, with dogs and kids and really good music. A touch of Burning Man: silver elves with stars of David on their nipples, red Santa corsets. Both families were there. Though they looked somewhat straight and a bit out of place in our little art community on the second floor, they all seemed tolerant and supportive of their young people doing this traditional thing in a most nontraditional way.
The couple had food and an open house first in our communal living space overlooking Market Street. Then there were some really great toasts. Then we all went up to the roof and under the December moon the couple stated their vows. They were impromptu, unwritten, unrehearsed. Unmediated. Somehow that made the words sound so much more true. There wasn't a dry eye in the circle of 42 people that surrounded them, including mine.
Watching two people take the plunge into the unknown while holding hands was so moving. We all want them to succeed, especially knowing the odds are against them.
Living with someone through all the trials. I just don't know. Can I recommend it?
The good things about marriage:
1) it's easier if you're going to have kids - more helping hands, two forces against the gaping chasm of kid needs
2) someone to take care of you when you're sick
3) someone to share the joys and sorrows with: alleviates loneliness
4) someone to challenge you to look at your shit and help you grow
5) someone to have sex with
6) someone to complain to
7) someone to share the work required to live in our society
The bad things about marriage:
1) it's hard to agree on how to raise kids - harder to make decisions and stick to them
2) someone you have to take care of when he/she is sick
3) your partner may not share your joys and sorrows: can be even more lonely
4) someone who WILL challenge you to look at your shit, whether you like it or not
5) having sex with the same person can get boring
6) it's hard to hear the same complaints for years on end
7) your partner may not want to work as hard as you do, or vice versa
On the whole...it's right for some and definitely not for others. I guess the key is being honest enough with yourself about which kind you are. I guess I'm the marrying kind.
The nuclear family seems outdated, though. It's too isolating. I'm much more interested in circles or networks of friends who share values, living close enough to each other to provide needed support. Especially when there are kids involved. Not like the commune or the old-style kibbutz where the kids were raised by designated kid-specialists. That we know doesn't work. But the whole 'It takes a village' thing may sound corny and over-used but it's so f-ing true. It does take a village.
After the wedding, Zoe came with me to Woolf's, my girly private studio where I go to be alone. I had told her for years that when she turned 25 I'd let her read my journals. She's 25. Last night I let her read the journal from 1986/87, before and after she was born, my impressions of her as a baby, what it was like being a mom for the first time, how we were all so in love. Me, Joe and Zoe. Travelling through Mexico together in our VW Squareback for six months, camping on the beach in unknown surf spots, and eventually moving to San Francisco.
Zoe remembers growing up as part of a large extended family we still call La Familia. She asked me why we eventually went nuclear and "upwardly mobile." I didn't know what to say.
It was a low-key affair, pot-luck, with dogs and kids and really good music. A touch of Burning Man: silver elves with stars of David on their nipples, red Santa corsets. Both families were there. Though they looked somewhat straight and a bit out of place in our little art community on the second floor, they all seemed tolerant and supportive of their young people doing this traditional thing in a most nontraditional way.
The couple had food and an open house first in our communal living space overlooking Market Street. Then there were some really great toasts. Then we all went up to the roof and under the December moon the couple stated their vows. They were impromptu, unwritten, unrehearsed. Unmediated. Somehow that made the words sound so much more true. There wasn't a dry eye in the circle of 42 people that surrounded them, including mine.
Watching two people take the plunge into the unknown while holding hands was so moving. We all want them to succeed, especially knowing the odds are against them.
Living with someone through all the trials. I just don't know. Can I recommend it?
The good things about marriage:
1) it's easier if you're going to have kids - more helping hands, two forces against the gaping chasm of kid needs
2) someone to take care of you when you're sick
3) someone to share the joys and sorrows with: alleviates loneliness
4) someone to challenge you to look at your shit and help you grow
5) someone to have sex with
6) someone to complain to
7) someone to share the work required to live in our society
The bad things about marriage:
1) it's hard to agree on how to raise kids - harder to make decisions and stick to them
2) someone you have to take care of when he/she is sick
3) your partner may not share your joys and sorrows: can be even more lonely
4) someone who WILL challenge you to look at your shit, whether you like it or not
5) having sex with the same person can get boring
6) it's hard to hear the same complaints for years on end
7) your partner may not want to work as hard as you do, or vice versa
On the whole...it's right for some and definitely not for others. I guess the key is being honest enough with yourself about which kind you are. I guess I'm the marrying kind.
The nuclear family seems outdated, though. It's too isolating. I'm much more interested in circles or networks of friends who share values, living close enough to each other to provide needed support. Especially when there are kids involved. Not like the commune or the old-style kibbutz where the kids were raised by designated kid-specialists. That we know doesn't work. But the whole 'It takes a village' thing may sound corny and over-used but it's so f-ing true. It does take a village.
After the wedding, Zoe came with me to Woolf's, my girly private studio where I go to be alone. I had told her for years that when she turned 25 I'd let her read my journals. She's 25. Last night I let her read the journal from 1986/87, before and after she was born, my impressions of her as a baby, what it was like being a mom for the first time, how we were all so in love. Me, Joe and Zoe. Travelling through Mexico together in our VW Squareback for six months, camping on the beach in unknown surf spots, and eventually moving to San Francisco.
Zoe remembers growing up as part of a large extended family we still call La Familia. She asked me why we eventually went nuclear and "upwardly mobile." I didn't know what to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment