Living Consciously

It was a great party. The occasion was a family wedding, which is pretty much the same as a family reunion, only with nicer clothes.

Which raises the question: Why do so many of life's significant events take place in uncomfortable shoes? No wonder, once the dancing started, the bride exchanged her dressy sandals for tennis shoes. Another cousin replaced her high heels with her favorite cowboy boots. A couple others were brave enough to ditch their shoes completely before they hit the dance floor. And the nine-months-pregnant cousin had been smart enough to wear flip-flops in the first place.

The wedding site was an ornate 1920's theatre that had been restored to its original Art Deco glory, from the fabulous chandeliers to the swans-head faucets in the ladies' room. The setting was beautiful. The ceremony was beautiful. The bride was the most beautiful of all.

Weddings, of course, are about new beginnings. This one seemed to carry a special commitment to hope, love, and life itself. Perhaps that was due to the memory of the bride's recovery a couple years ago from a brain tumor that turned out to be blessedly benign. Perhaps it was the presence of the bride's frail grandmother, in a wheelchair, at what may well be the last family occasion she is able to attend. Perhaps it was the undeniable vision of the future that was present—a whole herd of well-behaved but energetic small children.

The majority of them spent the interval between the ceremony and the dinner running laps around the balcony that surrounded the lobby of the theatre. After refueling at the banquet tables, they were among the first ones on the dance floor. At one point early in the evening, every couple on that floor consisted of an adult and a little kid. They may have been mismatched in height and age, but their enjoyment of the party and one another's company seemed perfectly in synch.

Most of the pint-sized dancers were still going strong when I left to take my parents back to the hotel. Thanks to my brother-in-law, I found, first, the parking garage, second, my car, and third, the exit. I drove around the corner and picked my parents up at the front door of the theatre.

Getting back to the hotel should have been simple. It was only four or five blocks away. I had a map which had been thoughtfully provided by the bride. Besides, I had driven from the hotel to the theatre in the first place.

But the earlier trip had been in daylight. I couldn't simply retrace my route, because the blocks around the theatre were a maze of one-way streets seemingly designed to confuse hapless visitors from out of town. The map would have been a great help if I hadn't left it in my hotel room.

I turned onto the first one-way street. Then the next one. One more, and we were heading up a long hill. Finally I knew where I was going—in the wrong direction. We needed to be headed downhill, toward the river. I may have been completely confused as to north and south, but at least I still knew up from down.

With the general direction of the hotel established, eventually we got back to the correct one-way street. It took us back past our starting point, the front doors of the theatre. As we came near, I saw the bride and groom on the sidewalk. I didn't understand why they were outside until I spotted the photographer on the other side of the street.

I think I saw his flash go off just as we drove by, right through the middle of his shot. There's nothing like having photographic proof of your navigational errors.

Oh, well. It was just another useful life reminder for the newlyweds: No matter how carefully you make plans, you'll always need to work around those unexpected interruptions.

The program described it as a "modern classic of children's literature." The children's theatre group with our local community theatre recently presented "Free To Be . . . You and Me." It was created by Marlo Thomas way back in the olden days of the 1970s, when nurses and elementary teachers were women, cops were men, and people were arguing about "women's lib."

As a junior in high school in the late 1960's, I wanted to take the mechanical drawing class. Sorry, I was told. That class was just for boys. A boy who dared to be interested in taking home ec would probably have known better than to even ask.

Forty years later, things have changed so much that songs and skits about gender equality seem almost beside the point. Still, the show was great fun. Two newborn babies tried to figure out which of them was the boy and which was the girl. A dainty young thing's cry of "ladies first!" backfired when she and her classmates met a group of hungry tigers in the jungle. A strong-minded princess didn't wait to see which young man would win her hand; she entered the competition right along with them.

Gender equality? Absolutely. Let's hear it for female astronauts, diaper-changing dads, and teachers, doctors, and presidents of either sex. It makes the world a better place.

Of course, "equal" doesn't mean "identical." We were reminded of this during the "Free To Be" intermission. A little boy came down the aisle with a manly four-year-old swagger and what seemed to be a growth sprouting from his face. It was a snap-type clothespin, clipped between his upper lip and his nose.

Why? Who knows? Maybe he was pretending it was an elephant's trunk, or maybe he just wanted to walk around looking as if he had a booger on steroids. Whatever his reason, it was definitely male. Walking around with a clothespin on her face is something a little girl just wouldn't do.

Certainly not the little girls who came to my daughter's face-painting booth at the children's fair last week. One of them, especially, was dressed all in dainty pink from her shiny shoes to her hair ribbons to her frilly tutu. My daughter asked what design she wanted on her face, expecting a pretty butterfly or some delicate flowers. The little pink princess said, "I want to be a vampire."

Thank goodness for a world where little girls in pink tutus are allowed to be vampires on the side. And where we assume a little boy will grow up knowing his way around the laundry room—but in the meantime he is free to find utterly little-boy uses for the clothespins.

Sofie. It's a pretty name, with its two soft syllables. It has a hint of old-fashioned delicacy.

Not that Sofie, born early in the morning of April 4, Easter Sunday, is likely to grow up either old-fashioned or delicate. As the youngest of six, my newest grandchild will probably learn quickly that delicacy won't serve her very well. Chances are she'll be diving into the melee and demanding her turn by the time she's a few months old.

Her two preteen brothers, old hands by now when it comes to babies, will probably toss her around casually and treat her with the offhand affection they would give to a new pet. Her sisters will probably play dress-up with her and experiment with her hair when she has enough to experiment with. They'll press her into service as an extra plaything when she's convenient, and shut her out of their room indignantly when she's not. Of course, all four of them have already taken her picture to school to show everyone, and they fight over who gets to hold her next.

Her littlest big brother, age two, shouted at first sight of her, "It's a baby!" Presumably this was a sign of joy, although there's always a chance he was disappointed because he had been expecting a puppy. He whispers loudly when she's sleeping and says her name with tenderness in his voice.

He will inflict random attacks of affection on his tiny sister in the form of sloppy kisses, energetic hand-pumping, and enthusiastic pats on the head. She will learn to tolerate this toddler tough love. (As my niece said about the youngest of her four small children when he was a few weeks old, "At least he doesn't flinch any more when they give him love.")

Sofie is sure to thrive on all this attention. And as the youngest, no doubt she'll learn to manage her older siblings with indirect strategies rather than confrontation. Her name, after all, means "wisdom."

Conflict in the kitchen. Heated disputes at the gaming tables. Screaming. Sneaking in and out of strange bedrooms in the middle of the night. Shots fired. Blood spilled.

Nope, it wasn't the latest episode of Desperate House Parties. It was just another ordinary Christmas celebration with the extended family.

Honestly, it wasn't really that dramatic. The good-natured conflicts in the kitchen involved too many volunteers to help cook or do dishes. The disputes at the gaming tables were over card games, word games, and puzzles; they were all in fun and only got loud because the competitors were laughing so much.

The occasional screaming had two sources. One was two preschoolers having fun racing toy trucks down a sloping hallway. The other was a one-year-old whose enjoyment of the occasion was hindered by the fact that he had four molars coming in.

The sneaking in and out of bedrooms was completely innocent. It's just a challenge to make a two a.m. trip to the bathroom when you have to crawl out of a creaking wooden bunk bed, creep across a floor that creaks loudly even when you tiptoe, fumble your way down an unfamiliar hallway in the dark, and find your way back without the flashlight you didn't remember to bring. All this, ideally, without waking your roommates. (As my mother says about family get-togethers, "Better bring pajamas, because you don't know who you might be sharing a room with.")

The shots fired? Oh, that was merely half a dozen people trying out one another's rifles and pistols, shooting up a bunch of reloaded ammunition with lethal consequences to a bunch of targets.

The spilled blood, fortunately, wasn't serious—though it probably didn't feel minor to the unfortunate one-year-old, with his mouth already hurting, who fell headfirst off of a chair. This, of course, happened right before everyone was to line up for the family photos. Some ice for his mouth and some cuddling by his mother restored him sufficiently to get his picture taken along with every else. The family computer geek pointed out reassuringly, "Don't worry—I can Photoshop out the fat lip."

He could, of course, but he won't. After all, the fat lip is part of the story of this particular family Christmas. So are the challenging wooden puzzle that nearly everyone worked on; the Scrabble game that ended up with scores of 175, 176, and 177; the target shooting; and the multi-generational card game that went on till after midnight. We won't necessarily remember all those bits of the story in detail, but they're still part of the shared experiences and memories that hold us together as a family.

Shared play, shared work, conversations, competitions, a lot of laughter, a little screaming, and blood only shed once. Yep, it was another successful family party.

Merry Christmas!