Married people

We attended a birthday party for my son in law’s aunt yesterday; she was turning 75. For some reason, it was among his large extended family of aunts and uncles and cousins doing the electric slide on the dance floor that it finally came home to me that he and my daughter are now well and truly married. We’ve been included in their family gatherings upstate for some years now, but this was the first one where my daughter was no longer the girlfriend, but the wife, an official member of their clan. And by extension we were too. 

My girl and her love have been house hunting all month, as their current lease ends on September 30, and the rent on their one-bedroom apartment will go up exorbitantly. “We’re paying for all these building amenities that we’re always too busy to use,” my daughter said. They’ve decided they are over shiny new apartment complexes with roof decks, gyms, media spaces, and event rooms. They want something older, simpler, with flaws that lend character, like a floor-through in a pre-war brownstone. Well, they may have found exactly that, a two-bedroom garden apartment in the Brooklyn neighborhood where they were hoping to land. 

Competition for apartments in the city being as fierce as it is—with bidding wars on rent pushing some places out of reach of mere mortals—my two reached out to the listing agent and preemptively submitted an application as soon as they saw the posting. They arranged to view the space yesterday morning before driving upstate with us. They did worry that the agent and owners might invite a bidding situation, thereby pricing them out of the running. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. While we were at the party, the owners, who occupy the brownstone’s upper floors with their sons, texted to ask if my daughter and her husband would come by to meet with them today as a step toward offering them a lease. 

This afternoon’s meeting apparently went well. The owners are a lovely French Canadian expat couple, and he works in finance like my son in law, and she works in marketing like my daughter. It’s not quite a done deal yet, but it looks promising. The apartment is not appreciably larger than my daughter's current place, but it's charming in an old world way, with an extra bedroom, whitewashed brick walls, an updated kitchen and bathroom, good natural light, and a private back patio that looks onto a garden—a rare thing in the city. It's also on a great brownstone street in Park Slope, for substantially less rent than they've been paying. I'm praying their new situation turns out to be harmonious in every way.

My daughter told me something the other day that I rather enjoyed. I had observed, not for the first time, that she and her love seem to manage big, complicated tasks with little conflict. She said, “Did I ever tell you about our ministries?” No, I responded, intrigued. “Well,” she said, “we each have our ministries. I am the minister of travel and Noel is the minister of finance. I was the minister of wedding planning and now he is the minister of moving. It doesn’t mean either of us is doing any of these things alone, but there is a definite project lead!” She gave a delighted little clap as she finished, which made me laugh and laugh.  

Update: They got the place! They sign the new lease tomorrow.

Just because (more wedding pics)

This morning, because it made me happy, I was looking through photos of my daughter's wedding again, and decided to share some of the ones we got later, from the wedding photographer and others, in this place where I put everything I want to be able to find again easily. That photo up top is one of my top two faves, along with the mood shot I shared in a previous post. Here are some other snaps of that charmed evening in Brooklyn, when my daughter was betrothed, and I gained another son.

 

My son walked me down the aisle first.

 

Then my husband and daughter appeared and my eyes were a fountain.

 

The look on my husband's face says everything.

 

Welcome to the family, son.

 

My son and his wife watched the first dance, remembering their own two years ago.

 The grade school lifers were out in force.

 

My daughter's godmother made the beautiful cake.

 

Let's take a moment for the breathtaking flowers and table settings.

 

The wedding was at Brooklyn Winery, which offered to have the bride and groom seal their vows in a box with a personalized labeled wine, to be opened, and read and sipped, on their first anniversary.

 

 

The dance floor was rocking all night!

Number one on the list!

I'm grateful to have been a part of this work, which my subject and I collaborated on in the deepest sense of the word. She gave her all, and then some. I'm grateful, too, for a publishing team full of grace, with every person involved operating from a place of love. But the credit for this bestselling berth goes most fully and completely to the Justice, who is having a magnificent book tour, and who is being enthusiastically received by book-buying audiences everywhere. People understand so clearly the historic nature of her appointment, indeed of her very being. The photo of the street mural depicting our Justice and her hero, Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to be appointed to the federal bench, was taken by Jamia Wilson, the book's wonderful editor.

Men talking and people reading

My lovely husband and son were deep in conversation when I looked up from scrolling on my phone and snapped that picture. Our boy comes over on Monday nights to serve as a personal trainer for his dad. He’s a good son. He cares about us, and shows it in concrete ways.  Also, for my own record, I’m saving here my favorite reader review of Lovely One on Amazon. The big dog, the New York Times Bestseller list, comes out tomorrow afternoon and trends suggest we have a good chance of making it. But whatever happens tomorrow, the book is currently the number-one-selling title in indie bookstores this week, and that’s golden, because independent booksellers are the people who will sell your book with their whole hearts. 

The light she brings

I'm still thrumming with excitement from the book launch event on Tuesday evening. It took place at the historic Apollo theater, a fitting venue to welcome to the world the intimately told and inspiring story of a history making woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. To have been chosen as the co-writer for the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States was truly the privilege of a lifetime. In terms of the book team, the entire project, beginning to end, could not have been more charmed. Everyone involved in bringing this story to the page was operating from a place of love, because that is the tone set by the Justice, and it was also our great good fortune that, after being courted by publishers everywhere, she chose this particular team. I loved every single person whose effort touched the book, from the publisher and the editor to the capable assistant editor who wrangled all the production details once the manuscript was written and formally accepted. 

The Justice wrote wonderful acknowledgements of our work together, thanking me as well as every other person who played a part in making the book. I won't name names here because this blog is mainly a place where I write to make sense of my own shifting emotions and record the highlights of my life and the doings of my loves. But if you want to know the names of those who made this book happen, turn to the acknowledgements. Truly, this was a labor of love that took a village, and what a village it was!

At the launch event at the Apollo Theater on Tuesday evening, broadcast journalist and CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King sat with Justice Jackson for a ninety minute conversation about the book before a sold-out theater. At one point, the Justice even broke into song, and darned if the whole audience didn't spontaneously sing along! Goosebumps! It was so clear how well loved she is. As Gayle King said to the audience at one point, "You know, I asked [a woman backstage] why we love her so, and she said, 'It's because she stood in her agency.'" 

When she first walked out onto the stage, the entire audience sprang to their feet and the applause was enthusiastic and sustained. This happened again several times during the event, which felt like it went by in a flash, leaving us wanting more. Afterward, the guests of the Justice remained in our seats while the theater was cleared, and then we were ushered backstage to greet our Supreme and take pictures. There were so many of her Harvard College cohorts there, as well as high school friends, and former law clerks and people from all eras of her life, because it appears that the Justice never loses a friend. One of her Harvard roommates, a woman I'd interviewed for the book, texted me the next morning. "The light inside her!" she wrote. "Now everyone gets to see it!!!"

I could go on and on, but instead I'll just share a few photos from Tuesday evening and hope that you'll pick up the book and discover who this remarkable human is for yourself. 

Greeting the woman of the hour

The Dream Team

The editor at right, the agent, and me with the Justice's husband, a top surgeon in his field, who steals hearts everywhere because it is enchanting to witness how completely he loves, believes in, and champions his accomplished wife, his big heart on his sleeve.

The man and me—oh it was a night!

The book is launched! (plus an update on pub day)

 

Our Justice—a nuanced thinker, a dazzling intellect, and a deeply kind soul. It has been so gratifying to take this literary journey with her over the past year. 

Update on September 3: During a segment with the Justice on Hoda and Jenna this morning, Jenna commented that Justice Jackson's memoir is about making history, but it is also a love story. I felt that. 

Also today, there was this review by McArthur Genius Award winning author Jacqueline Woodson in Elle—I especially love how she ends the piece:

Then she leans back and looks at me, and there is that smile again. Like so many other people across this country, I know her. She is the person we hope we are—feet firmly planted, clear-eyed, honest, engaged, and here because she deeply believes in a better world.

Even as I write this, weeks after our first meeting, I remain shaken. Once again, a gift has arrived in this country—brown-skinned, brilliant, and beautiful. Morally sound and truly believing in liberty and justice for all.

My final questions aren’t for the justice. They are for the rest of us: What will we do with this gift? Who will we become?