Yes, We Are Finally Getting Married

It's only eleven days now. We were sitting in the bank today, adding me to her bank account. The teller looked at us with a look that verged on alarm. "Eleven days?," she said, sitting up straight. Then came the sympathetic glance. "You must be going crazy," she said. Yes, yes, we nodded solemnly. Crazy.

And we are, I guess. But things are getting better now. It was the month of May and June and most of the beginning of this month that were crazy. The sympathy would have come in handy then. Now it's getting easy. The sun is just behind the hill, it seems; the morning light is rising.

And that's because things have now begun to run themselves. It has begun to feel as if we are on some monstrosity of a rollercoaster ride, hanging on to our stomachs and our loose change. We are pitching and rolling and diving, but the thing has pretty much taken over now. A couple details to wrangle. A few miracles to pull off. But mostly now, it's become its own driver.

For instance, the summer weather has settled in. Hot and dry. The evenings are long and beautiful. The relatives have bought their plane tickets. The hotel rooms are reserved. The dresses and the suits are fitted and ready to go. The music is mostly selected. The menu is nearly set. The flowers. The tent. The band. All there.

Last week I had headaches and backaches and hardly slept. This weekend she and I talked for a long time about how to remember the important stuff. I need those kind of talks from time to time. More now than usual. Tonight, instead, we had friends over, barbecued sausages in our new back yard in the canyon, played a silly game of margarita-laced beachball volleyball while sitting in our lawnchairs, all before taking a long night walk.

So hold on tight. Here comes the steep part. Then the loop. Then we round the corner and bring it home. And that's where the story really begins.