America, Act III
Here’s a question: Actually if you've been reading this, you've already read this question, twice, so who really needs to read it again? We love America! We love it!! So, instead, here's another question: If you had found the love of your life and were ready to get married and spend the rest of your days with them, would you choose a single, commitment-phobe, unminister who doesn't dress particulary well and hasn't had any real responsibilities for the last year to perform the ceremony? Yeah, neither would we.
Act III
As we got on the plane at LaGuardia last week (leg 3 of our 20-hour train-bus-plane-car journey from New Haven to Wallowa, Oregon), we were exhausted. And, I gotta admit, I was a little nervous. A year ago, my friend Cory and her fiancée Dave had asked me to perform their wedding, and after 12 months of thinking about it in various countries around the world, I was still completely clueless. Yes, I had my online ordination from the Universal Life Church and some sample ceremonies from my real-life Unitarian minister dad and an old professor friend named Gil. Yes, I knew that when you've got two people in love getting hitched in a beautiful place, all a minister's gotta do is stay out of the way and not fall over and everything'll take care of itself. But I clearly don’t have any first-hand experience at being married, and I know there are some ex-girlfriends out there who can vouch for the fact that I’m far from the world’s best boyfriend. Having quit my job for the second time in five years to feed my wanderlust, I’m not exactly a model of commitment. All in all, I seemed like a pretty poor choice to be dispensing marital wisdom as anyone's minister, but hey, how could I say no? Since I've never gotten to be a best man, groomsman, bridesmaid, ring bearer, or, sob, even flower-girl, I figured I couldn’t pass this one up.
Instead of writing a ceremony, I procrastinated my way through our transportation day, hitting rock bottom when I spent a decent chunk of the drive from Portland listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about some dudes who were recently hospitalized for having sex with horses. Man, I hate Rush, but still, I had to laugh when he hit his predictable punchline: "I wonder, I don't know, but I wonder, how many of those men were... Democrats?" Radical right radio rocks.
We made it out to Wallowa around midnight, and kicked off the wedding festivities the next morning around 7am with a two-day mulepacking trip into the mountains, giving us some much needed wilderness and wedding planning time. Since the mules were doing all the hard work, we were well-stocked with wine, tequila and Pringles for a few days. After some fishing and a hike up a 10,000 foot peak, Cory and Dave and I sat down in a field for an hour and somehow came up with a ceremony. The husband-and-wife-to-be had already done the hard work and figured out what they wanted to say, and all I had to do was help Cory convince Dave, cowboy poet that he is, that his vows didn't have to rhyme.
So after getting back into town and setting up some hay bales for the pews (narrowly avoiding an angry hornet's nest camped out in one of the bales), throwing on the most expensive outfit I've ever owned that wasn't made of vinyl, and cueing our guitarist to play the Tennessee Waltz for the procession down the aisle, they did it! Tears were shed, Cory looked absolutely beautiful, Dave was handsome as could be, they said "I Do" and kissed one another, and our friend Ritu sang "Come Away With Me" to wrap it all up. It was gorgeous, and I was relieved not to have screwed it up.
We made our way out to the ranch that Cory and Dave run, grabbed some kegs, set up some chairs, flipped some burgers, and watched the whole county stream in to dance the night away to the cowboy (not country, ahem) music of Wylie and the Wild West. You probably don't know Wylie, but you've heard him; he's the yodeler in the "Yahooooooooo" commercial. I borrowed some of Dave's tight-ass Wranglers, threw on a hat he had just bought for me for $2, and donned a psychadelic t-shirt that he insisted came straight from the closet of John Fogarty of CCR. After taking a look around the festivities at midnight, I'm sure of this: every wedding needs a yodeler and as many pairs of tight-ass wranglers as possible.
Meg and I scraped ourselves together the next day, signed a marriage license, and drove back to Portland, stopping for a blackberry shake and a Tillamook cheeseburger in someplace called Burgerville in The Dalles. We sprinted to REI to stock up on stuff for Latin America, and had a reunion with our friend Gurbrinder from India over Oregon microbrews. The next morning, after a hummus run at a local natural foods store, we got on the plane to Mexico, with a stop in Houston for some quality time with Cathy Pearson and her awe-inspiring chocolate-chip cookies.
And now we're in Oaxaca, still soaking in the love after our 10 days in America, and slowly kicking our sleep debt after averaging about 5 hours a night for the last couple weeks. We'll be gringoing it here for a month, so we'll save las cuentas mexicanas for another day. Somehow, the karaoke, the families, the pizza, the friends, the wedding, the yodeling all seem like a dream to us, as crazy and rockin' as anything we found among the nomads in Tibet or deep in the Serengeti. It was good to be home.
--rahul
Act III
As we got on the plane at LaGuardia last week (leg 3 of our 20-hour train-bus-plane-car journey from New Haven to Wallowa, Oregon), we were exhausted. And, I gotta admit, I was a little nervous. A year ago, my friend Cory and her fiancée Dave had asked me to perform their wedding, and after 12 months of thinking about it in various countries around the world, I was still completely clueless. Yes, I had my online ordination from the Universal Life Church and some sample ceremonies from my real-life Unitarian minister dad and an old professor friend named Gil. Yes, I knew that when you've got two people in love getting hitched in a beautiful place, all a minister's gotta do is stay out of the way and not fall over and everything'll take care of itself. But I clearly don’t have any first-hand experience at being married, and I know there are some ex-girlfriends out there who can vouch for the fact that I’m far from the world’s best boyfriend. Having quit my job for the second time in five years to feed my wanderlust, I’m not exactly a model of commitment. All in all, I seemed like a pretty poor choice to be dispensing marital wisdom as anyone's minister, but hey, how could I say no? Since I've never gotten to be a best man, groomsman, bridesmaid, ring bearer, or, sob, even flower-girl, I figured I couldn’t pass this one up.
Instead of writing a ceremony, I procrastinated my way through our transportation day, hitting rock bottom when I spent a decent chunk of the drive from Portland listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about some dudes who were recently hospitalized for having sex with horses. Man, I hate Rush, but still, I had to laugh when he hit his predictable punchline: "I wonder, I don't know, but I wonder, how many of those men were... Democrats?" Radical right radio rocks.
We made it out to Wallowa around midnight, and kicked off the wedding festivities the next morning around 7am with a two-day mulepacking trip into the mountains, giving us some much needed wilderness and wedding planning time. Since the mules were doing all the hard work, we were well-stocked with wine, tequila and Pringles for a few days. After some fishing and a hike up a 10,000 foot peak, Cory and Dave and I sat down in a field for an hour and somehow came up with a ceremony. The husband-and-wife-to-be had already done the hard work and figured out what they wanted to say, and all I had to do was help Cory convince Dave, cowboy poet that he is, that his vows didn't have to rhyme.
So after getting back into town and setting up some hay bales for the pews (narrowly avoiding an angry hornet's nest camped out in one of the bales), throwing on the most expensive outfit I've ever owned that wasn't made of vinyl, and cueing our guitarist to play the Tennessee Waltz for the procession down the aisle, they did it! Tears were shed, Cory looked absolutely beautiful, Dave was handsome as could be, they said "I Do" and kissed one another, and our friend Ritu sang "Come Away With Me" to wrap it all up. It was gorgeous, and I was relieved not to have screwed it up.
We made our way out to the ranch that Cory and Dave run, grabbed some kegs, set up some chairs, flipped some burgers, and watched the whole county stream in to dance the night away to the cowboy (not country, ahem) music of Wylie and the Wild West. You probably don't know Wylie, but you've heard him; he's the yodeler in the "Yahooooooooo" commercial. I borrowed some of Dave's tight-ass Wranglers, threw on a hat he had just bought for me for $2, and donned a psychadelic t-shirt that he insisted came straight from the closet of John Fogarty of CCR. After taking a look around the festivities at midnight, I'm sure of this: every wedding needs a yodeler and as many pairs of tight-ass wranglers as possible.
Meg and I scraped ourselves together the next day, signed a marriage license, and drove back to Portland, stopping for a blackberry shake and a Tillamook cheeseburger in someplace called Burgerville in The Dalles. We sprinted to REI to stock up on stuff for Latin America, and had a reunion with our friend Gurbrinder from India over Oregon microbrews. The next morning, after a hummus run at a local natural foods store, we got on the plane to Mexico, with a stop in Houston for some quality time with Cathy Pearson and her awe-inspiring chocolate-chip cookies.
And now we're in Oaxaca, still soaking in the love after our 10 days in America, and slowly kicking our sleep debt after averaging about 5 hours a night for the last couple weeks. We'll be gringoing it here for a month, so we'll save las cuentas mexicanas for another day. Somehow, the karaoke, the families, the pizza, the friends, the wedding, the yodeling all seem like a dream to us, as crazy and rockin' as anything we found among the nomads in Tibet or deep in the Serengeti. It was good to be home.
--rahul
posted by Meghul at 11:42 AM
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