Our daughter's bridal shower was last Saturday. It was a joy to see the different sides of the bride and groom's families, and their various friend groups cheerfully mixing and getting to know one another. And baby Harper was the hit of the party, padding around laughing and pointing like a little tipsy person in her fire engine red sandals, thoroughly entertaining and entertained.
I'm wrangling low level anxiety today, the sort that is a tangle of worries, none of them perfectly clear, just a looming sense of unease, which might very well be chemical or else based on imaginings rather than anything real. I'm absorbing the sorrows of the world again, it feels as if I have no protective outer membrane. I plan to just stay close to home today and try to distract myself from thinking/brooding on things that may just be life inexorably happening. What must it be like to have a quiet mind, as my husband does? What must it feel like to walk through the days with a settled heart. I’m reminded of the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in which a character declares, "Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not yet the end." I'm here, my friends, trying to trust that as I concentrate on drawing full breaths.
My niece Leisa told my daughter that even though she is sad about losing Munch, especially in the way he died, she should still allow herself to feel happy, because she is getting married to her love, and this is also a joyful time. There it is again, the trick of holding two competing truths and allowing them both to be fully what they are. My daughter seemed to manage this on Saturday. She enjoyed her shower and her beloved did too. She told everyone gathered that they were “feeling the love." And truly, to me, she was pure light. Here are more pictures.