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The weekend, and K and T's ceremony
May. 30th, 2006 08:17 amI should be happy to be at work if only because it's air-conditioned here. Yeesh -- it feels like August out there.
I'm feeling totally brain-dead and worn-out from the weekend, but it was quite worthwhile.
Saturday was a typical day escorting, then I stopped by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lunatickle and fabulousmisst's rehearsal, but only stuck around for the pre-rehearsal discussion and planning; once they got into the nitty-gritty of the ceremony itself, I wasn't necessary, and I was exhausted, so I headed home to save energy for Sunday.
Sunday I got to the park at about 11:45am, by which point it was already somewhere in the mid 80s, I think. Lunatickle and MissT had arranged their friends into various crews -- ritual, decoration, chair team, etc, set a lead organizer for each team, and designated me as "site manager" to coordinate the teams, put out fires, and be extra hands where necessary.
The end of each team's instruction packet had this:
Hey, there’s no way we could pull all this together ourselves, and we are both so grateful that you agreed to do this for us. You are a part of the ritual that is happening here; this day is a blessing of our intentions toward one another by the community who loves us. We know you agreed to work out of good will, and it empowers the ritual if you to approach the task with a spirit of open-hearted love and good wishes in your mind. This is what being part of a community is about, barn-raising style. Thanks for stepping up and being a critical part of this big event with us.
And it very much felt that way; there were a lot of good spirits and love going into everything, and although some of the volunteers hadn't met before (friends of K and T's from out of town and such), people really managed to work together amazingly smoothly and efficiently. Minor practical issues that came up were resolved with minimal fuss, and we were pretty much done with site setup by 1:15 or 1:30 (the ceremony was scheduled to start at 2pm, although it worked out nicely that people were arriving then, and the actual start of things was a bit later; maybe 2:30 or so). I ran home (the ceremony was at the park a block from my house) and changed (thanks tobec76 for loaning me something wedding-appropriate), and headed back in time to do a few last-minute setup things. Ironically, the one thing that none of us managed to notice in our final checks was the broom we'd used to sweep the gazebo and paths, sticking up between two chairs right in front -- luckily the guy sitting there noticed, and tucked it down under at the beginning of the ceremony.
I find it kind of funny that despite my total lack of interest in having any kind of wedding/ceremony myself (I've joked for years that if I get wrangled into having one, I'm going to have a stunt double, and I'll be going to Cedar Point, instead), I'm a total sappy mess when people I love have them. I was leaking before Lunatickle and MissT had even finished processing up the paths to the gazebo (they each came up a diagonal path from the corners of the park), and I was making copious use of the handkerchief Bec had been sensible enough to bring for pretty much the entirety of the ceremony (a couple of us were talking afterward about how odd and confusing it is to be sweating and crying at the same time). Their vows were particularly lovely and well-suited to them; I'm hoping they end up posting them in their LJs. And very appropriately for two deeply queer-identified activists, the politics of marriage weren't danced around; they addressed them very straight-forwardly in both the program and in the ceremony. All in all, the entire ceremony felt incredibly reflective of the two of them, and that certainly strikes me as a sign of success. And they were both magnificently beautiful, most especially when they were holding each other's hands and exchanging vows.
I stuck around afterward for takedown, and I think we had everything cleared out and put away by 4pm or so -- again, it went amazingly smoothly, with extra people just spontaneously volunteering time and energy. I, personally, felt very content to have been there from setup to takedown; it felt right and complete, and the best way to express my love for them in the kind of concrete ways I'm most suited to. The reception was fun, but I'm not much for big parties, and the ceremony was really the central part of my day, and where most of my energy went. I headed home reasonably early to collapse, but not before getting all weepy on Lunatickle when I tried to talk to her about my impressions of the ceremony.
And now I feel rather silly even mentioning Monday, since it was really quite anticlimatic. Lots of napping, lots of movies and X-files episodes (borrowed season one fromzodarzone, lots of bemoaning the icky heat and humidity. Not much else -- I was bored, but too low energy and hot to find good ways to entertain myself. Still, a day of recuperation was a good thing.
I'm feeling totally brain-dead and worn-out from the weekend, but it was quite worthwhile.
Saturday was a typical day escorting, then I stopped by
lunatickle and fabulousmisst's rehearsal, but only stuck around for the pre-rehearsal discussion and planning; once they got into the nitty-gritty of the ceremony itself, I wasn't necessary, and I was exhausted, so I headed home to save energy for Sunday.Sunday I got to the park at about 11:45am, by which point it was already somewhere in the mid 80s, I think. Lunatickle and MissT had arranged their friends into various crews -- ritual, decoration, chair team, etc, set a lead organizer for each team, and designated me as "site manager" to coordinate the teams, put out fires, and be extra hands where necessary.
The end of each team's instruction packet had this:
Hey, there’s no way we could pull all this together ourselves, and we are both so grateful that you agreed to do this for us. You are a part of the ritual that is happening here; this day is a blessing of our intentions toward one another by the community who loves us. We know you agreed to work out of good will, and it empowers the ritual if you to approach the task with a spirit of open-hearted love and good wishes in your mind. This is what being part of a community is about, barn-raising style. Thanks for stepping up and being a critical part of this big event with us.
And it very much felt that way; there were a lot of good spirits and love going into everything, and although some of the volunteers hadn't met before (friends of K and T's from out of town and such), people really managed to work together amazingly smoothly and efficiently. Minor practical issues that came up were resolved with minimal fuss, and we were pretty much done with site setup by 1:15 or 1:30 (the ceremony was scheduled to start at 2pm, although it worked out nicely that people were arriving then, and the actual start of things was a bit later; maybe 2:30 or so). I ran home (the ceremony was at the park a block from my house) and changed (thanks to
bec76 for loaning me something wedding-appropriate), and headed back in time to do a few last-minute setup things. Ironically, the one thing that none of us managed to notice in our final checks was the broom we'd used to sweep the gazebo and paths, sticking up between two chairs right in front -- luckily the guy sitting there noticed, and tucked it down under at the beginning of the ceremony.I find it kind of funny that despite my total lack of interest in having any kind of wedding/ceremony myself (I've joked for years that if I get wrangled into having one, I'm going to have a stunt double, and I'll be going to Cedar Point, instead), I'm a total sappy mess when people I love have them. I was leaking before Lunatickle and MissT had even finished processing up the paths to the gazebo (they each came up a diagonal path from the corners of the park), and I was making copious use of the handkerchief Bec had been sensible enough to bring for pretty much the entirety of the ceremony (a couple of us were talking afterward about how odd and confusing it is to be sweating and crying at the same time). Their vows were particularly lovely and well-suited to them; I'm hoping they end up posting them in their LJs. And very appropriately for two deeply queer-identified activists, the politics of marriage weren't danced around; they addressed them very straight-forwardly in both the program and in the ceremony. All in all, the entire ceremony felt incredibly reflective of the two of them, and that certainly strikes me as a sign of success. And they were both magnificently beautiful, most especially when they were holding each other's hands and exchanging vows.
I stuck around afterward for takedown, and I think we had everything cleared out and put away by 4pm or so -- again, it went amazingly smoothly, with extra people just spontaneously volunteering time and energy. I, personally, felt very content to have been there from setup to takedown; it felt right and complete, and the best way to express my love for them in the kind of concrete ways I'm most suited to. The reception was fun, but I'm not much for big parties, and the ceremony was really the central part of my day, and where most of my energy went. I headed home reasonably early to collapse, but not before getting all weepy on Lunatickle when I tried to talk to her about my impressions of the ceremony.
And now I feel rather silly even mentioning Monday, since it was really quite anticlimatic. Lots of napping, lots of movies and X-files episodes (borrowed season one from
zodarzone, lots of bemoaning the icky heat and humidity. Not much else -- I was bored, but too low energy and hot to find good ways to entertain myself. Still, a day of recuperation was a good thing.
