Wedding Party

Last night Doc and I had the pleasure of a visit with Madame E and Espresso Toast. They both came down to the Lodge and we had a few drinks and listened to a mix CD I made of my favorite tunes of the moment. We were having a very good time catching up with each other and actually occupying the same physical space, rather than communicating via email or commenting on each other's blogs.

As we sat at the bar, the conversation turned to our friend Matt once again. And since it was handy, Doc grabbed a framed photo to show to Ms.Toast so that she could see what Matt looked like. Slipped in the corner of the frame was a very saucy wallet-sized Glamour Shot of me. I have bare shoulders and have a black feather boa around my arms. It's a profile shot and I'm looking up and off to the side with the slightest little smirk on the corner of my mouth. It was one of many shots that Doc and I had made for our engagement portrait. Doc asked Madame E and Ms. Toast if they recognized the girl in the picture. It took them a few moments to realize it was me, after all, it was taken eight years ago.

Once they recovered their shock, Ms. Toast mused that she didn't think she had any pictures of herself from eight years ago. A beat went by and I suddenly remembered that I had one and I told her so. She stopped and looked at me. I said, "At my wedding; you are standing at the corner of my church and you were wearing a short skirt and black tights and boots..." Then Madame E chimed in, "Don't you remember? You wanted your picture taken outside of the church because it was the church Marilyn Manson grew up in?"

At this point, I dashed into the back room and found my photo album. We flipped through the pages, laughing at all of the silly people in the pictures. Doc and I handed out disposable cameras at the reception. I highly recomend this practice because the people who attended my wedding took some of the best pictures.

As we thumbed through the photo album, we came to the shot of the table full of my friends. It struck me: The people seated at this table, for the most part, are people whom I consider my very best and closest friends. Madame E, Ms. Toast, Big Orange. Joanne and her husband are there and so is an old pal, Steve. I'm not as close to Joanne as I used to be and I haven't talked to Steve in years, probably not since my wedding day. Although, If I were to run into Steve, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to pick up where we left off as if no time had gone by.

We finally came to the picture of Madame E and Ms. Toast, which was taken by my friend Joanne, with her own personal camera. They are standing at the corner of the church, under the sign. Madame E is looking at the camera, smiling sweetly. She is wearing a long black coat with her hands in her pocket. To her left stands Ms. Toast, who is turned to the side and with her hip aimed at the camera, vamping like Catwoman while flashing her white boxer shorts covered with blue sheep drinking coffee. It is a priceless photo. We were beside ourselves with giggles. I vowed to have copies made for each of them and Doc declared it a shot worthy to hang on the Lodge's Wall of Fame.

I was suddenly overcome with a warm feeling of gladness. It struck me that my best friends were at my wedding and they are still in my life. We may not have been as close then as we are now, or we might have been closer then than today, but we are still in touch. Time will never diminish our shared history. I felt so grateful. When I got married, it was at a time in my life when I didn't fully understand what it meant to be a good friend. Sure, I was a good listener and I liked to have fun, but when the boat would start to rock, I'd usually opt for swimming away rather than staying the course. I'm so grateful and relieved that these folks stuck around, even though I may not have deserved it. I felt grace.

It is so special to me that I'm friends with people who witnessed my wedding. For such a long time, I lived in a place where I knew very few people and I had to start from scratch building trust, building shared history. It was hard work and I had to kiss a lot of frogs, so to speak. I was sad to leave those new friends when we had to move 300 miles to the north. It was not just because I'd be missing those folks, but I was faced with the gravitas of finding new friends. I worried that my old friends would have written me off and I'd have to start all over again.

Forutnately, I discovered that this was not the case. For the most part, I have fallen right back into step with my old pals: my friend from college, Terry; my cousin and her boyfriend; Madame E and Ms. Toast; Big Orange and his Good Wife. They didn't forget me and they didn't give me too hard of a time that I had been so remote for so long. And as good friends do, we mended fences, if we need to, and picked up where we left off: laughing, goofing around, dancing, talking, and toasting each other's good health.