Mazel tov! Wedding Show Fun (Just add 50%)

Well, my son proposed to his girlfriend after four years together. He's 21 and she's 24, so I suppose it's to be expected, and his bride is wonderful...but that my youngest child should be the first of my three to wed is as bizarre to me as the fact that I can no longer claim to be 25.

So today my son and I went to our first Wedding Show.

If you believe the entrepreneurial spirit is clipped by this slow economy, you're wrong; economic malaise heightens competition. And in our state of Washington, same-sex marriage has been legal for a year, bringing a new market of locals and customers from out of state to a burgeoning crop of vendors seeking their share.

In addition, weddings entice families to splurge, with the justification that it's a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Two studies found that vendors charge significantly more when the same event is called a "wedding" versus a "family party." Photographers, party gear rental companies, caterers and musicians all add a surreptitious surcharge just because they can. Potential profit drew all sorts of businesses to rent booths at the Seattle Convention Center, and their presence spurred brides and their emotional moms to shell out $17 each to enter.

Which my son and I did today. What did we find? Long rows of colorfully-decorated booths with brochure-thrusting attendants. Tables of samples of cakes. Performers plucking harps or repeating soppy standards on violins. A fashion show of wedding gowns and tuxedos, punctuated by choreographed jazzy interludes of groomsmen cavorting with brides in matching black fedoras. A section filled with wedding dresses to try on. None of the gowns I saw, in the entire showroom floor and hundreds of feet of racks, had any type of sleeve, and the vast majority were low cut and strapless.

The chaos was oppressive, like sitting in traffic while everyone's honking. The cacophony of musicians and boom boxes blaring from booths, the voices of hustling vendors, the squeals of delight and disgust melded to a headache-inducing mélange, visually amplified by ubiquitous bouquets of orange, magenta and lime. Each product played into the romantic ideal with its own twist. One invitation company imbued its papers with seeds so its recycling would flower. One decorator created an arch of old books, rentable for about $900. A party goods company offered rustic cedar tables, mismatched tableware and mason jar glasses. Travel agents peddled Eco-honeymoons and photo-booth purveyors snapped freebie samples of passersby borrowing feather boas.

I discovered my son likes purple and white floral arrangements. That he doesn't want a

photo booth, and he'd like a friend to take pictures. Being kosher, all the caterers with their fake hors d'oeurve platters couldn't lure us, and venues like an old castle, an inn on Hood Canal and a barn won't be replacing our synagogue. What we learned is that too many unnecessary options distort the focus of weddings from the spiritual toward the material, and that false requirements can cause couples to spend on accoutrements ultimately forgotten except when paying off credit cards.

One's definition of a "perfect wedding" can be elastic. I recall my own wedding planning, so entranced by my future husband that I didn't assert any preferences, borrowing a dress I'd never seen and letting him choose our wedding rings, simply because nothing really mattered at the time, except that I marry him. In about two weeks, we will celebrate our 29th wedding anniversary. I remember many aspects of our wedding, but not the menu, not the table decorations (generously executed entirely by friends) and certainly not the honeymoon, which we skipped in favor of the Jewish tradition of "sheva bruchos," seven nights of celebrations hosted by friends and family. The most costly wedding expenses were the most forgettable, and the most important were irreplaceable and come without price.

The Wedding Show was fun and informative, but my son and I agree we've been there,
done that, and his gentle-spirited bride has been spared its chaos. My son and his fiancee have plenty of decisions to make, but religious precedence removes much of that pressure, and keeps them focused on the centerpiece of their life together.

Wife Keeps her Name at Marriage--and Other Ways to Get Respect

An article last week in in the New York Times argued every-which-way about changing or retaining names at marriage. It provoked a huge response, because the central issue isn't really about keeping a name, but retaining respect as an individual.

The piece mainly described women's dilemmas and choices, noting that men haven't rushed to claim their wives' names. A Lesbian couple made their own mashup: Ms. Rothman and Ms. Gerkin became the Gerkmans. (Seems odd; classmates of any future children could taunt "Jerk-Man!" and their choice includes "man" when neither partner is one.)

"Third wave" feminists, the now-marrying generation, often take their husbands' names, even though their own mothers kept their original names out of conviction. The older moms seem disappointed when daughters don't follow their examples, but one youth suggested, “Your generation did all the work, now we can go back to having our husbands’ names.”

One hundred twenty comments, almost all by women, reveal the passion this issue still evokes. The majority of writers insisted that keeping their names preserved their identities, and posed no difficulties. But awkward stories threaded through the rest, bemoaning confused contexts, hyphenated horrors and attacks for choosing the traditional path.

One couple avoided the entire his/hers issue by making up a euphonious Tolkein-esque name and both changing to it in court.

Now that marriage is optional, divorce ubiquitous and unmarried parenthood acceptable, what's the big deal? The crux of the passion is a need for respect as an individual. For many nowadays, taking another person's name feels like a surrender of one's persona, a loss of the unique individuality established and nurtured throughout life.

I think people should be called by whatever they prefer. More crucial for engendering respect than a name, however, is title. "Dr.," "Ms.," "Mr.," and even "Miss" or "Mrs.," if desired, should precede whatever name someone uses, because titles confer respect.

Graffiti, foul language in public (and in media), and pushy drivers all reflect the same decrease in respect for others that dropping titles demonstrates. It's a societal malaise--haven't you noticed it?

Lack of respect begins when a youngster's allowed to address adults casually, by their first names, teaching him there's no difference between children and elders. When a well-meaning teacher tries to "get close" to his charges by going by his first name, students learn that they and the teacher share similar status; children become elevated and the teacher loses ground. The snot-nosed kid gets snotty because nobody's ever superior to him; no one else's position or needs trump his own. Self-esteem's great until it destroys deference to anyone else.

When a store salesperson calls me by my first name, I'm unpleasantly surprised, because the context dictates that he cater to me. A doctor should address her patient as Mr. or Ms., and a child should use those titles for neighbors, because of something becoming startlingly rare: common courtesy. Courtesy is at root respect for others.

Respect is the entire point, the nexus of name-passion.

Feminists want acclaim for their own accomplishments, not as extensions of someone else. They'll get it no matter the last name if we insist upon courtesy and respect for every individual in every circumstance. Titles are one small and perhaps superficial means to remind all present to recognize and honor others. The secondary results might be less inclination to vandalize others' property, cut in when in traffic, and dull sensitivity to politeness with public swearing.

As one of those earlier-wave feminists, I thought it dumb that tradition saw wives as
husband-extensions--and then I fell in love with someone I was proud to extend. More precisely, I was honored that this particular man wanted me to share his future, and delighted we could create our own family united under a single moniker. Suddenly it didn't bother me anymore that I would "lose" my name, because in marrying, I was entering a new phase, as a partner in a new enterprise, the adventure combining my husband and me.

This is the key to what I believe is the value of marriage, and a couple sharing a single last name simply symbolizes it: the whole of the two individuals creates something that is different from, and better than, what each person can be alone.

Each individual deserves respect. But so does the entity of a family, the commitment of two people to each other. If that universal respect was restored, perhaps more people would guard and protect their marriages. And if problems arose, they might work to overcome them, rather than divorce, hurting so many others, and destroying the history and combination they've built.

Going Home Again--to LA

Just about to jump on a plane from Seattle, my home for the last 15 years, back to Los Angeles, where I was born and raised.  Peculiar that much as we feel the same as ever, everyone and everything else is so different.

Los Angeles was a great place to grow up, and of course I took it for granted.  When the daughter of an army buddy of my dad's met me for the first time, she was awed that I came from the land of movie stars.  She was from Goshen, Indiana, a tiny town known for manufacturing motor homes (at that time, "trailers"), not far from Elkhart, Indiana, known for its violins.  When I visited her one time, I was the celebrity; California was the golden land where everyone was perpetually tan and beautiful, as seen in the news stories about Muscle Beach.  I was even asked to write a feature story for her high school newspaper about my fabled home.

In those days, a yellow-gray scum of smog hung over Los Angeles like a heavy blanket.  Gasoline was 19 cents per gallon, which, given the incomes then, wasn't so very cheap but fueled the car culture.  One of my best school chums moved away because the 5 freeway "took" her home.

We had guavas growing in our back yard, and avocados and lemons, and pink hydrangeas that bloomed all year long.  We had bird-of-paradise in our front yard, and a jacaranda tree that dropped lavender bells onto the grass every June.

The flora are probably still there, though the last time I drove by my childhood home, the owners had brought out its fake English styling by digging a mini-moat in the front yard with a bridge as part of the walkway.  The smog has lifted, one of the beneficial effects of environmentalism.  But the car culture has now become oppressive.

This is the LA I know now:  traffic.  What used to take me half an hour to drive now takes two.  When I worked downtown, in the early 80s, I used to play a game on my way westward on the Santa Monica freeway.  Even then, it moved sluggishly at 6 pm, a stop-and-go trudge.  But if I carefully managed my use of the accelerator on my manual-transmission Honda Civic, I could sometimes make the drive without having to press the brake.  Now, such a mind-occupier wouldn't be necessary.  The freeway stays at a stand-still for minutes at a time.  Merging onto it is a wrenching push against drivers who would sooner risk a ding than let you in.

Pico Boulevard was a magnificent thoroughfare that carried cars effortlessly from my west-side neighborhood all the way downtown.  I could walk to Pico Drug, not far from my home, and sit at the old-fashioned soda counter, looking at myself in the mirrored wall behind.  A cherry Coke, served in the classic inverted-pear-shaped glass, was 5 cents.  That's Coca-cola with maraschino cherry juice in it. A nickle.  I like to talk about it now, but I think I got two of them in my life.  Even then, I was taught that carbonated drinks were unhealthy.

Over the years, I watched the town change.  It became a magnet.  In the same way New York was the Big Apple, some started calling LA "The Big Orange."  Now, anyone who wants to enter show business has to go there.  And that superficiality, the emphasis on competing to "make it" in a field based as much on connections and appearance as talent, lends what was a family-centric place a different emphasis.  Both my parents were born in LA, and my dad recalled driving as a kid with his folks across open bean fields between downtown and the beach.  The Valley was orange groves, and in fact an uncle of mine became quite wealthy subdividing a swath of it.  There was room to play, room to expand.  But now, with the hopeful throngs, that competitive mentality has carried over, and the traffic symbolizes it all.

I'll be back there tomorrow, staying with my brother-in-law and his family. They never left the region, but bought a home just over the Ventura County border.  His commute to work is an hour each way, on a good day; two if it's rush hour.  When we moved from Santa Monica 15 years ago, we had to pay more for the house we bought here in the Northwest. Since then, our old home has quadrupled in value; the "more expensive" one we still live in has increased by maybe one-fourth.  This reflects the new urgency of LA; gotta be there, gotta get there, gotta elbow the competition out of the way.

I still have good friends and wonderful memories in LA.  The beaches are still deep and white, the palm trees line the Venice Boardwalk where Harry Perry still roller skates playing his electric guitar (now only allowing a photo if you buy his self-promoting t-shirt).  The weather still lures me, and Jewish life there is vibrant and abundant.

In fact, I look forward to dancing at the joyous Jewish wedding of a girl whose birth announcement I remember well.  Her dad, our rabbi, stood at the front of our beach-front synagogue and explained the name of his sixth daughter.  He'd named her something forever identified with the city where she will now, as a married woman, make her home:  Tamara, Hebrew for the palm tree, and I do hope she keeps her wonderful young head above her surroundings, like the palms' lofty view of the confusing scene below.

A Wedding, and a Sidewalk Encounter

The Wedding
It's wedding season, and on Friday evening we were thrilled to attend the wedding of a girl, now 22, who we've watched grow into a lovely young woman, since we met her when she was 11. Shortly after we moved to he northwest, her parents, who listened avidly to talk radio and home-schooled the two kids, sent us a wonderful letter, and the bride and her brother made personalized bookmarks for our kids. We were mutually smitten once we got together, and the click between us--despite our religious difference, has remained.

We don't go to many Christian weddings, but the sincerity and celebration in this one was beautiful. The couple, both deeply and actively religious, began their wedding with worship, and many, including the bride, sang with arms raised. The pastor's comments and the couple's interaction were both sweet and inspiring, and when, after saving the momentous act for their joining at the altar, the new husband and wife kissed--he leaning her backward--the throng cheered.

For Jews, the wedding is rather prescribed, according to ancient custom--and takes about ten minutes. By contrast, with videos of the bride and groom growing up, their engagement and coupling, as well as communion, signing documents, lighting of lantern candles throughout the church and personally "dismissing" each guest with a hug and happy words, this ceremony lasted more than an hour. Jews tend to go crazy, however, at the reception, dancing with such wild ecstasy (men and women separately) and eating and drinking, followed by "schtick" and more frenzied dancing until guests are drenched in perspiration--that the relatively brief nuptials become merely the prelude. While this Christian celebration was wonderfully joyous and sentimental, the refined meal, toasts and few traditional dances (bridal couple; dad with bride, etc.) were high on fellowship rather than perspiration.

The Encounter
Because the wedding ran into Shabbat, we stayed at a hotel about a mile away, walking back about 11:30 p.m. To get there, we passed through a less-than-savory stretch, and a "Jewish vagrant" who spied yarmulkes latched onto us, accosting us for blocks and blocks, insisting it was our duty to find an ATM and give him $20. Rather than engage him to respond that any observant Jew doesn't touch money on the Sabbath, we tried to ignore him, but he became more and more surly and finally, before leaving, told us "There's a special place in hell where you'll burn for not helping your fellow Jew!"

It was only one block further when my husband missed his step on the uneven sidewalk and took a nasty tumble, emerging bloodied on his hands, arms and legs, barely able to hobble the block further to our hotel. Lots of washing, ice, antiseptic and bandages cleaned him up, though he was in pain and still bleeding through the night--it was only once we got home after the Sabbath that he could properly address his wounds. Thankfully, they seem to be minor.

The Moral of the Story
We so enjoyed the beautiful evening with the breathtaking bride, her new husband and her family, whom we love dearly. Not even my husband's up-close-and-personal meeting with the sidewalk, or the verbal assault of a homeless guy could diminish the event. And the next day, when we heard of the passing of Tony Snow, someone my husband had known and respected, we realized again, how fortunate we are to be alive and well; how blessed and privileged, and how precious and momentous each day can be.

Mazel tov, and a life of love and happiness to you, Laura and Ben! We love you, Dale, Deb and Brett!

A Beautiful Wedding: Why Did I--and 200 Others--Cry?

Having just returned from the wedding of a young woman who--and I can't believe this--I've known since she was born, I am once again touched, just in time for Valentine's Day, with the significance of love. Sounds corny, but I'm not alone--at crucial moments in the proceedings, I observed, through wet distortion, faces twisted in sentimentality, and tears glistening on revelers cheeks. The groom, when approaching his bride, wept; the bride then became lachrymose, and the entire assembly, perhaps the bride's macho brother excluded, broke into a unison of sobs and sniffles.

What were we all crying about? Could we even verbalize it? Is there something profound we tap into when we are choked-up? Is it the same sentiment that I feel when viewing a sappy phone company commercial as when watching this young woman, who I observed growing and developing, become the magnificent bride I cheered last Thursday night? Both experiences are an indescribable welling-up of emotion that overcomes me and removes me from speech and logic.

There is something deeply visceral in the loss/gain/profundity of two people committing their lives to each other, to shared goals, moving the time spiral another increment, passing human momentum from one generation on to the next. In these two people facing each other, with unspeakable emotion, we are infused with an awe of possibility, exaltation of continuity and, I believe, awareness of the transcendent.

I can't quite remember the Jewish source where I read it, but this idea stuck with me: tears are the filament that connect the spiritual with the physical worlds. They are the physical manifestation of a non-physical reality.

Can an atheist cry at weddings? Perhaps Christopher Hitchens (actually a darn good writer) would say yes, because he's touched by the love and connection shared by these people, by the significance of their shared destiny. But what is "touched"? What, for Christopher Hitchens, is "spiritual?" He might say these thoughts come from highly-evolved neurons in the brain that when visually stimulated, chemically provide an illusory perception.

Hmm, is an illusory perception "reality?" Aren't these tears that feel wet, taste salty, reflect the light embarrassingly in the sanctuary, and blur my vision, the result of something actual? Something I didn't choose to have descend upon me when decked out in mascara and eye-liner?

I, for one, don't like feeling out of control. But viewing the bride's lithe white vision of tulle and anticipation removed my cool and replaced it with the same outpouring of feeling that enveloped two hundred others in that suddenly-sweltering room. And as for its source--I doubt Christopher Hitchens or any biochemist really have a clue.

Mazel tov, Ruthie and Asher...