Love All Around

It is a writer’s job to take a reader into his mind and plant them in a world where they can see and hear.  The physical senses are easy.  The writer pulls grass up through the reader’s toes, splashes colors on the walls of their imagination.  What writers often fail at is the transmission of the intangible emotion in the air.

In recounting the last few days of my sister’s wedding, I’m faced with this last challenge over and over again.  I’ve made an attempt, albeit long and inadequate, to capture the magic in the air.

For me, it started last Wednesday as I drove to Rehobeth Beach with my future brother-in-law, Garrett, for his bachelor party.  Besides my brother Josh, I didn’t really know any of the other groomsmen.  We picked up a few from the airport on the way and found ourselves in a condo in a repurposed church about a block from the beach.

Jon, one of the two best men, said it best a few nights later that often the best judge of a man’s character is the company he keeps.  From the moment the group of guys were together, a chemistry evolved that cannot be explained simply by the fact that we were an outgoing group.  We all came together quickly because of our shared love for Garrett.  The group came from all over the country and represented different but equally important stages of Garrett’s life.  These were the men that Garrett chose to stand by his side as he moved to the next one and they speak volumes about the man Garrett is and the man Garrett wants to be.

After some late nights and time on the beach, we drove back early Friday morning.  I was up before most of the others, so I took a quiet stroll on the boardwalk to watch the sunrise, one of the many beautiful sights I witnessed over the last week.  On the drive back, with my weary passengers sound asleep, I had some tranquility to absorb the new friends I had just made and think about the future of my sister and the guy passed out next to me.

When we got back, we met all the bridesmaids and joined in on the do-it-yourself wedding on the farm.  Tables were set up, ice was procured and a tent came alive on our front lawn.  Later, we did a quick rehearsal for the day to come - my sister made the rehearsal extra special by wearing the wedding dress that both my grandmother and mother wore for their weddings.

After, we met under the tent for dinner: pizza from Fireworks.  Fireworks is the Nesbit crew’s favorite pizza spot and the restaurant where Garrett asked my whole family to marry my sister.  We all had an opportunity to give a toast to Elizabeth and Garrett and I guarantee no one foresaw the emotional ride to come.  Garrett’s mom set the tone.  My mom read a letter from my late grandfather that he wrote to Elizabeth when she turned 18.  Garrett’s grandmother revealed a long kept secret: his wedding band would be his grandfather’s.  I told the story of how I got to know Garrett, where I grilled him over a 22 hour drive back to DC from Texas only to realize that he was a man apt for the challenge of being my sister’s other half.  My brother looked out under the tent and proclaimed that these were Garrett and Elizabeth’s cast of characters, echoing Jon’s sentiment that we are the company we keep.  Garrett and Elizabeth capped off the toasts with their understanding of marriage rooted in others, giving their thanks and requesting the support from the loving community that surrounded them.

For the last month, my mom and sister had been worrying about the weather.  Initially, it was forecasted that it would rain on the wedding day, a calamity for an outside wedding.  As the date moved closer, only a storm on Friday night, the night of the rehearsal dinner, was predicted.  As we sat under the tent that night, enjoying our delicious pizza, the storm clouds gathered on the horizon and we were sure we were in for a downpour.  However, the rain came and went, only clipping us at the edges and taking the heat with it.  Behind it, the storm left a double rainbow, a continued sign of good fortune.

After dinner, we moved to our backyard for a slideshow and s'mores.  The slideshow illustrated the importance of Garrett and Elizabeth’s “cast of characters” and friends and family lingered late into the night in conversation over unholy combinations of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows.

The following morning started with a friendly soccer match at Waterford Elementary School with mixed squads pulled from the bridesmaids and groomsmen.  Before the match, we had a quick round of “speed-dating” where the groomsmen and bridesmaids got to know each other a little more.  Somehow the bride and groom made it through the game unscathed.  Considering the bridesmaids represent pretty much the entirety of the Rice women’s soccer team and therefore may very well have some bruised egos about the game, I’ll just say that the bride’s team won and let sleeping dogs lie.

After the game, the set-up for the wedding continued and the wedding party went to work.  The boys moved hay bails into position for seating and set up the tent once again for another dinner.  The bridesmaids helped out with making things look picture perfect, hanging up pictures and setting up centerpieces.  There’s something to be said about the wedding party being so involved in bringing the wedding alive.  Our own hands contributed to the farm’s transformation.  It almost felt like the farm had been begging for an opportunity to flex its muscles all these years.  We could look around and see our part in it all, however small.

Before the time came, the groomsmen were gathered in the basement of my house, playing ping pong, foosball and watching TV.  In a poetic moment, Garrett passed out ties and suspenders to all the groomsmen only to realize that he forgot to get one for himself.  We joked that this was typical of Garrett’s character: he often forgets to think of himself before others, even on his own wedding day.  With two of his friends by his side, he rummaged through my dad’s closet and found a tie to wear.  Minutes before we headed upstairs to begin the ceremony, we shared a quiet moment together.  Strangers days before, we climbed the steps brothers.

Four grandmothers had made it to see their grandchildren get married and the ceremony kicked off with four brothers - Garrett, his brother Jeff, Josh, and myself - escorting them to their seats.  Next up came the mothers.  My mom, radiating beauty and love, had Josh and I take her down the aisle.  There was an almost imperceptible moment where she saw the two of us and stopped in her tracks.  With a smile on her face and slight tears in her eyes, that moment about threw me into the sky with emotion.  I was even more unprepared for the arrival of my sister.  Right before they reached the aisle, my sister shared a glance with my dad, who gave her a knowing and comforting smile.  The looks exchanged in these moments told their own stories. The ceremony seemed like a blur of emotion, picturesque. With the rolling hills behind them, my sister and Garrett got married underneath a beautiful tree.  Their vows encapsulated who they both are: serious and committed but unafraid to be silly.

After pictures, dinner (delicious crepes) began.  Throughout dinner, we saw Garrett and Elizabeth’s first dance (an awesomely choreographed affair), father-daughter and mother-son dances and some truly fantastic toasts from fathers, maids of honors and best men.  All these moments moved us forward through what seemed like a dream.  The rest of the night was spent dancing, laughing, smiling.  The dance floor was never lonely, with some surprise visits from grandmothers.  The newlyweds left the farm after walking through a tunnel of sparklers to the song “Firework”.  After their exit, the community of people who came to witness their union came together one more time to clean everything up in a flurry of activity.

But it felt like everyone was still holding on.  My brother and I drove to Leesburg to hang out with some of the groomsmen for a few more hours, shooting the breeze at some random wing place until closing at 2am.  Goodbyes and promises to stay in touch were exchanged in an empty parking lot.  On the drive home with my brother, we both remarked that for some reason we knew that those promises would be kept.

The day after the wedding, Garrett and Elizabeth met the family for one last meal before they left town.  After ice cream, my dad made a comment that if there’s a heaven, the last few days are probably a lot like it.  This got me thinking about what I had been feeling over the weekend.  It made me think of the last scene in Lost. There was an intense joy in that scene. I’ve been waiting to experience that ever since I watched the finale of Lost and I think the days surrounding that beautiful wedding were it. They were a dream. They were heaven. They were intense joy, inter-connectedness. The love was palpable, almost like you could reach into the air and grab it.  The whole experience felt like we were being let in on a big secret.  And what a secret it was.

Here and There

I’m back on the farm, away from the noise of the city. The tranquility has offered some space to think about my last couple of weeks in New York.

Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of being in the city one moment and then on the farm the next, but the one train of thought that I’ve been returning to is the comparison of the two places.

The city is loud, ripe for exploration, and stuffed with experiences.  It is defined less by its physical characteristics - the buildings and streets - and more by the diverse arrangement of its contents.  It’s a space in a constant state of redefinition.  Subway cars move from a state of tabula rasa to a unique combination of people as they are transported from one station to the next.  Coffee shops observe the ebb and flow of people, some dashing with their fuel to another location and others lingering for conversation, thought, work and creation.

The city is an organic being that hurls you into the abyss of the unknown.  A place like New York offers up an intriguing plate with the complex flavors that serve to continually remind you of their innumerable combinations. 

Every subway car, every coffee shop will present a new picture.  Zoom out of this picture and you see an ever-changing organism: the neighborhoods different parts of the body.  Zoom back in and the streets become limbs, individuals become cells.  It’s complexity within complexity, all in a state of flux that often surprises you with its jarring nature.

The farm does not escape change, but its metamorphosis is different from that of the city.  The force of nature goes at its own steady and unassuming pace.  It rolls over you like the movement of the sun, an evolution that you don’t notice until the darkness of night is total.

My favorite spot on the farm is the backyard deck that offers one of my favorite views in the world.  It extends beyond my family’s property into the hills that slowly roll into the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The sunshine of the last few days have only compounded this view’s beauty.  From this vantage point, I see the languid movement of nature. The trees lazily swim through the air, reaching ever so slowly to the sky.  Creatures large and small eke out a living.  Life is engaging in a long struggle towards equilibrium that it will inevitably win.

While this refreshing view of nature recharges me, I’ve decided that I want to be in a city for as long as I can handle it.  I’m in a stage of my life - ambitious, passionate, curious - that demands an environment to match it.  The city is a place of action, of movement and redefinition.  Some day I might want another change of pace, perhaps a place where the mountains capture your attention.  Until then, you’ll find me roaming the streets, curious to see what’s just around the corner and an open heart to the diversity that the chaos offers.

Homes

I think we have both physical homes and intangible ones.

The physical ones are easier to understand.  I grew up on a farm in Waterford, Virginia and that’s where my roots are.  This home is peaceful: surrounded by horses, trees and fresh air, it’s a space to think and relax.

Next up is Carnegie Mellon.  The dorm that I live in doesn’t match the comfort of my farm, but it has a distinctive character.  I’ve attempted to reclaim my small space as an RA as my own.  If you ever saw my room from this last year, you could tell that I was expressing my philosophy of minimalism and my increasingly global perspective.

This summer I’ll be rooming with my dear old dad in a small studio apartment in the Upper West Side – a great base to explore the city.  It’s a bare bones operation, but I think that suits the two of us well.  

This tiny shared space has me realize something about how the physical home transforms.

When I’m on the farm in Waterford, everything is contained with the serene space of the home.  I can read and nap on the couch, nurse a cup of coffee in the kitchen with a family member or grab a desk and get some work done.  There’s room to breathe and but also room to share.

Once I leave the farm and head to Pittsburgh or NYC, that reality shifts.  Sure, my studio apartment or my tiny dorm room is pretty self-contained: it has a bed, fridge, a desk.  But I’ve realized that I’ve moved part of my home to more public places: I write in a coffee shop, I hang out with friends in a lounge, I read in the courtyard, or I alternate work between hidden spots and my room.  I’ve had to export the function of home outside what I can claim as mine, and that’s an interesting concept to me.  Everywhere I go, I’m participating in a “public” home.

What I’m looking forward to in NYC is finding where I can map my home in the city.  Coffee shops, libraries, parks - they’re all an opportunity to form a new spot of home.  What’s exciting about cities is that you never know if you are sharing a little spot of home with another: our occupation of the space outside our apartments and dorm rooms are only temporary and we may never run into our fellow “house” mate.

More than our physical homes, the intangible ones have become increasingly important.  With family members who are often in different parts of the world - a summer in Malawi, a few weeks in Nepal, hanging out in San Francisco - rooting our communal sense of home in something physical is doomed to fail.  As much as older generations bemoan the pervasive role of technology in our lives and the dependency on connectedness that it’s created, it’s allowed my family to forge a virtual home through emails, texts, and tweets.

Home is an intriguing concept – we only really notice it when it experiences a transformation.  Often this transformation happens as we move from one stage to the next, like moving out of the dorm room in which you’ve spent a year laboring.  I think there is much to be said about taking a moment and thinking, “What is my home right now?”.  Regardless, I’m just glad to have one.

Emulations

Emulations are important — they tell you a little about who you are and who you aspire to be.

I was reaching for a glass to get some water today and I instinctively reached for a mason jar. I realized that I was emulating my late grandfather . Every time he visited us, he would always have a mason jar of water loaded with ice. I think it become one of the many symbols I associated with him.
Another is a longer story, but he and I had a ongoing joke that he was an apple core eater. I was eating an apple in his kitchen one day and I jokingly said that I thought he was the kind of guy who ate apple cores.

When pressed on what I meant, I created a personality of an apple core eater and gave a few examples: Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, and Abraham Lincoln. I deemed my grandfather worthy to be among other historical apple eaters. He got a kick out of it, so our discussions of apple core eaters throughout history and their distinctive characteristics became a recurring theme in our time spent together.

After my grandfather passed away, I began eating apple cores. I never actually asked him if he ever ate them, but I felt like every time I ate one I was reconnecting with him and aspiring to be an apple core eater.
Who we emulate tells us a little about who we are, who we respect and who we want to be. Sometimes small actions like reaching for a mason jar or eating an apple core can speak volumes.