Squinty selfie
When my hubby Steve and I attended the local Wedding Crawl a few weeks back, we snapped a photo on the top deck corner of the Rooftop, Center in the Square. It was our attempt to reprise, in a spontaneous selfie, a shot taken from the same perspective on our wedding day, almost seven and a half months ago now. Behind us, in the background, you can see the peak of one of our Blue Ridge Mountains–which, I’m not sure–and slices of the roofs of the art museum and City Market building in our beloved downtown. The sky above and behind us is a bright, clear robin’s egg blue, the sky I’d hoped for the day we got married. In the foreground, we squint. The sun is so fiercely bright, we duck our heads forward, as we smile and try to open our eyes even a sliver against the glare.
The day we walked down the aisle, the sky was filled with clouds: rolling, steel-hued, oh-please-don’t-rain-clouds. That day, clouds were a disappointment. On the day of this photo, as we grimaced against the light, it became clear those wedding day clouds might have been a blessing. Now, as I gaze at the resulting picture, I’m reminded of a lesson I first learned on another set of cloudy-then-sunny days, long ago: you can attempt a repeat performance, but to reprise anything with any accuracy is nigh impossible.
♥ ♥ ♥
One summer during my twenties, I met up with my friend and former roomie Sara for a visit that included a trip to Six Flags, an amusement park just outside of Atlanta. It was a bit overcast that day, so the park was less crowded than usual. When the cloud cover broke into rain showers, the park all but emptied. Sara and I made a circuit or two of the indoor Monster Mansion ride during the worst of the rain. After it let up, we hit Splashwater Falls and made several trips down Thunder River—we were already damp, and there were practically no lines, so why not ride our faves multiple times, no waiting? When the rain stopped after an hour or two, we circled back to the car and put on the dry clothes we’d brought just in case. We returned to the park and stayed into the evening, playing Skeeball and enjoying the still-short wait times for a couple rounds on our favorite roller coaster, the Great American Scream Machine. We had such a great day and so much fun we decided to reprise our trip the following year.
Fast forward: when we arrived at Six Flags the next year, it was sunny—and steaming hot. The lines were outrageous, and, if I recall correctly, one or both of us developed a nasty headache. Sara and I had hoped to relive the fun of our first visit, but the attempt failed utterly. And our disappointment was doubled because our expectations were so high. We met up for a girls’ weekend almost every summer for several years to follow, but we never went back to Six Flags again.
♥ ♥ ♥
Aside from the dramatic change in weather, there were other obvious differences between Steve’s and my wedding day and the day of the squinty selfie. The day we married, we were dressed to the nines, color-coordinated, with hair and makeup (mine anyway)—not to mention the photograph itself—styled by professionals. We were surrounded by friends and family, high on love and adrenaline. On so many levels there’s simply no way to recreate that day. And maybe that’s as it should be; a wedding is, by definition, a special occasion, heightened in meaning and significance.
But not even an ordinary day can be exactly recreated. To paraphrase the wise words of Greek philosopher Heraclitus, no one can step in the same river twice: it’s not the same river, and you are not the same you. Time moves forward, and so do we. Perhaps a less eloquent way of putting it: there are no do-overs. Each moment in our lives is its own singular experience, and that’s good. That is, in fact, a gift. If we recognize it as such, we’re more likely to be present in the present. “Clinging to moments,” writes memoirist Helen Brown “is futile. The trick is to appreciate their beauty, do your best by them, and let them go as graciously as possible.”
In our reprised photo, Steve and I are a little older, a little plumper, a lot more casual, and decidedly more crinkly around the eyes than in our rooftop wedding portrait. In the months since we married, we’ve shared many more smiles, had a couple more arguments, shed a few more tears, and laughed loudly and often. We’ve snuggled and questioned and kissed and comforted through cloudy days and sunny. Each day, we discover and understand one other anew.
Yet even as the world changes and we change with it, we still stand side by side, surrounded by the town and mountains we call home, looking forward together. The view is pretty spectacular. Now we just have to be sure to keep our eyes wide open, so as not to miss a moment.
Forty-Something First Time Bride 