Call It Magic

We sit in rows along a garden terrace.  White rose petals carpet the gravel aisle, and the sun’s glow stretches across a cornflower blue sky.  Grapefruit-colored rhododendrons line a low stone wall, a farm table sits under a trellis of vines, and below us a patchwork of woods and fields plunge into the distance. 

We will remember this as a moment outside of time.  We will remember the satin sheen of the bride’s dress, the flow of her train as she moves towards the wooden arch, and the tendrils of hair falling over her cheeks in the afternoon light.  We will remember the sun on our scalps; the feathery slow-moving clouds; the couple’s mirrored smiles bespeaking promise, expectation, kindness, and love; the soft flutter of a butterfly, riding the eddies of a breeze as it flaps its wings and floats before them, imparting a blessing; the sound of people shifting in wooden folding seats and the sense of oneness as we breathe a collective promise; the sensation as the mundane drains away while the groom stands captivated by the unparalleled blessing and beauty before him.  Later, we will remember the sharpness of cool air on the patio, the depth of night around us, the sinus burn of vodka with the heartfelt cry “Nostrovia”; the pungent smell of cigar smoke and peaty warmth of whisky sipped with old and new friends.    

A day later we will trundle down long airport hallways, rise to 36,000 feet and hurl along at 460 miles per hour through black, frigid skies and back to land, groggy and disoriented.  My wife and I come home to find the fridge has stopped cooling, there is water dripping from a latticed box on the undercarriage of the dishwasher, and the dog has worried a new thread from the entrance rug.  I have ninety-eight new work emails and an overnight hospital call.  But we will carry the sunbaked terrace, the image of the bride, her face beautiful and radiant, the groom suit-clad and beaming, and the way their eyes never left each other’s.  As I enter back into the rhythms of daily life, I will hold onto the sensation of sitting next to my wife, her hand in mine, as we shared in a collective dream.