Rather Sentimental...

I don't know what to say because I have so much to say. I have nothing of significant importance to say but that is the glory of blogs. Significant is definitely not a requirement.

I guess first I should say that I am at my mom's this weekend in Marble Falls. Mason and I came down Friday afternoon and are going home tomorrow or wednesday. I can't decide which. I get here and everything is so easy and wonderful that I just really don't want to leave. Mason is having a blast although he is disappointed that none of his cousins are here to play with him.

He loves Geema's house for a multitude of reasons, probably the same reasons every grandchild loves their grandparents - tons of snacks, tons of attention, different toys, different backyard, and in Mason's case, a trampoline and swimming tank.

I love that he can enjoy the very things I enjoyed as a child growing up in this house. It's so fun to watch him splash in the big metal stock tank that has never once provided hydration to an animal, but only summer fun to countess children. It's special to me that he sleeps next to me in my parent's old bedroom, in the very room where I would once snuggle between my parents in a bad storm. It's nice to let him go grasshopper hunting outside without worry. I don't think I realized how special it is to be able to come home to the same place year after year, unchanged in any major way, to remember in great detail my own childhood that was played out in this very setting.

This place, 136 Lariat Lane, will always be home no matter where I actually live. The way it smells of outdoors and the air conditioning on a hot day, the sounds all the different doors make when they close and open, the many bugs and animals singing their nightly serenade as you drift to sleep, and the smells that flow from the kitchen as mom makes a meal that can never be replicated by any other, all provide a sense of continuity and safety only found here, at home.

I hope that I can create that same feeling for my own children as they grow up.

***

The timing of this trip was decided by a wedding. My childhood friend, Sarah, was married on saturday and I was so excited to see her big day. It was, in every way, perfectly and beautifully Sarah.

A few moments after arriving at the church, Sarah's little sister, who I swear should still be 10, came to say hi. She looked beautiful in her kneelength, strapless black dress, and she was certainly not ten, although her giddy smile easily reminded me of the Rebekah I used to play with at Sarah's farmhouse. She hugged my mom and I and then told us Sarah had asked to see us. We made our way back to that hurried, frenzied place that all weddings have in common where everything is in some form of controlled chaos.

After a few minutes of waiting, Sarah came out. She was absolutely beautiful. Her dress fitted her slender frame as though it were made specifically for her and her bare neckline was adorned by a simple string of pearls. Flowing over the dress, hundreds of beads and pearls made the dress sparkle. It was a dress that looked simplisticly modern or could be seen in a picture from an ageless wedding. We hugged the bride and asked how she was doing and she replied, "great!" with that kind of glazed look that brides get right before their wedding ceremony begins. But she was radiant. She defined radiant.

A few minutes later we were in our seats and the wedding was beginning. It's simplicity was it's perfection. Simple decorations, simple candles, but romanctic, intimate, classic. The Bridesmaids came in to the song "There is a Redeemer" sung by a guitarist. And then the music played for Sarah. It was a song I had never heard until then - "He loved me to the End." Slowly and quietly, the song filled the room, and then at the exact moment Sarah, escorted by her Dad, appeared, the music burst forth in what felt like a joyous chorus. It was amazing how the song became faster and louder but somehow the moment slowed down. There she was, Sarah, getting married. It's amazing how a wedding can create such conflicting emotions. I was thrilled for her, so happy to see her making that walk all girls dream of, looking like something out of a painting, knowing that she was walking towards the man of her dreams. But at that same moment, I was sad that she was getting married because it is just one more change in this world. One more reminder that we are growing up...grown up.

I wondered what her dad was thinking. I wanted to cry for him. I always want to cry for dads at weddings. How do they give their daughter away? If I, a mere outsider really, could see Sarah in her wedding dress and immediately flash back to our childhood days, what must her father be feeling and thinking as he makes that walk with a woman on his arm, not his little girl?

The ceremony was perfect and Jesus was there smiling at this new couple who so obviously have Jesus already at the heart of everything they do. And then it was over and they were introduced as the new couple they were and both smiled as though their lives had just begun.

The reception was at this old restored house that reminded me of some movie I had once seen. Since the wedding was at 10 am, the buffet was filled with delicious breakfast items and everything just seemed so timeless. When Sarah and I were younger we would watch Anne of Green Gables again and again. For some reason I kept feeling like I was in that movie. I don't know if that was because of the house, the food or the fact that it was Sarah's wedding, but the location of her reception was all her.

At the reception I had a chance to speak to Sarah's Mom and Dad again. Ned, her dad, is now touched by age, with a dignifed gray mustache and slightly thinner, frailer frame than I remember. But his voice is the same. I heard him speaking at a distance and, immediately, my throat tightened. It just reminded me so much of long ago...and my own dad. They looked nothing like but perhaps because I spent so much time at Sarahs and therefore saw Ned as like a second father, he will forever remind me of my own dad. Silly as it is, part of me wanted to run up to him and hug him as though he were my dad. But instead, mason and I walked over where we spoke for a few minutes and I did hug him. I was thankful I didn't cry because that would have been a ridiculously awkward thing to explain even if I am pregnant.

Steffani, her mom, evokes a similar reaction, but of a different nature. She has always reminded me of an actress as she has an ageless, graceful beauty about her that is simply beautiful. Her laugh is unforgettable, her smile so sincere. When I see her, I feel like I am the person she most wanted to see in the world. She doesn't make me sad when I see her. She makes me want to be like her, like my mom, like all the moms of my friends who welcomed other children into their world like they were their own.

Sarah and Michael drove off in a vintage car completing the ageless feel of the day. It was perfect.

Obviously the wedding (and perhaps the novel I am reading by Nicholas Sparks) has made me feel rather nostalgic. I know many of my blog readers (There are soooooo many ;) )do not know Sarah so this post was mainly for me, but I wanted to post it anyway.

I promise that in the next post I will attempt to be not only humorous, but brief. Well, at least humorous.