I know this blog was going to be mostly devoted to music, but I recently attended two weddings, one on each side of my family.  They reminded me of something I wrote a few years back after having attended the first wedding in my family of someone of my generation.  Since the righthand column of this blog includes the word “connection”, I figure this qualifies…

written August 18, 2005 [with a few edits]

This past weekend, I drove west to Schenectady, NY to celebrate the wedding of my cousin of 24 years. R is an only child. And as many like him, he was a tad spoiled when we were both very young, and I didn’t get to know him well until we both grew up a little.

He is now married, holds a good job, owns a home, and has a baby due in January. He is a Fine Young Man and one I’m proud to call family.

But I guess what is really of note is the event itself. The Wedding. Weddings are landmarks in a person’s life, and not just for those being married. They’re landmarks for everyone around them. They are planned, anticipated, documented, remembered, and romanticized. They signal a new beginning and tie a bow on the past.

When I was much younger, looking at pictures of my parents’ wedding or my aunts’ and uncles’ was like looking at a picture of Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster: The picures were often grainy and contained figures that I was not quite sure existed. Afterall, when you’re, say, nine or so, it’s difficult to grasp how anyone could have lived before there was you.

As I became older, my impression of those pictures changed from skepticism to mild interest to romanticism. These pictures showed me a life of possibility and promise. Everyone was happy. The good old days were really the Good Old Days. I imagined a time when grandparents and great aunts, now passed or sick or frail, still held a penetrating gaze at life with clear minds, full hearts, and full houses on Sundays. They watched with proud anticipation as their children did as they did.

And the apartments, the vehicles, the burglaries, the blizzards, the strikes, the jobs, are recalled fondly and with reverent detail. And the events, no matter how sad, inconvenient, or threatening at the time, have been rid of the fear and uncertainty that is a part of Normal Life. The mind is good like that.

And these events are happening right now. We’re the subjects of the grainy pictures that will be unearthed ten plus years from now and painted with a romantic brush. We’re the ones full of promise, energy, love, and expectations.

We’re becoming our parents.