M.
I’m getting married to someone I love. It is a ritual of significant meaning to me. But how should I approach it? What does marriage mean in our world these days?
GN
Dear M.,
Relieved to see that the ritual has significant meaning for you—I struggled to find a way to enhance your meaning or place it into the world these days, as you ask. Which is not to your detriment. Only that that the meaning of the ritual is up for grabs, and that your meaning will dictate the event, or you can decide how much of that meaning you want to pervade the ceremony and how much of it you want to remain outside of it. I’ve gone to some more traditional weddings where the architecture of the ritual made good space for the celebration to resonate among couple and family and friends. And I went to a very moving quaker wedding for two friends on a beach, and there was so little architecture of ceremony beyond that of speech—the couple talked to each other, then others talked to them.
I’ll share two poems, one from Rosmarie Waldrop in her legendary book Reluctant Gravities. And I’ll share one, addressed to her, from her husband Keith Waldrop. First Rosmarie, then Keith.
Yours,
Grace
