It's gonna be so great

"It's gonna be just like my wedding day," someone wise once said, and then went on to describe a car trip filled with cigarettes, truck stops, and singing out the window. This morning as I sit here in the one blessedly tidy space in this hazardously cluttered apartment, all I can think about is packing up the car and heading for the cowboys. Our cooler is clean and waiting, two bags of ice are perched in the freezer and our backpacks hold two sleeping bags, a tent and 12 new peaches from Trader Joe's, where I get a discount now because I have a ring on my finger. And while I can't wait for the miles of driving ahead or the sweaters and loose change, it was all really nothing like my wedding day.

But its so close that if I reached out behind me, I could still swipe it with my outstretched hand, a little soft around the edges now, but bright, full of meaning. So anyway, I wanted to write down a few memories before the now-vivid pictures in my mind thin to fragments and float away into the whirl-wind everyone describes in which they ate nothing and spoke to no one, because at the moment, when I think about that food, I still feel full...

The morning of the wedding day dawned hazy, with an appropriately complicated sunrise, blue swirled with amber, streaked with pink giving us the sense that the weather wanted to be on our side. Erin and I lay in bed, giggling at Mom and Dad who had assumed their normal postures at 5AM: scurrying around the room, calling out lists to one another, thinking out loud through vehicle options. We relived the night before in which we'd each drank several beers in our buddy's hotel room down the hall with as many friends as we could pack in the place, then listened to everyone offer Pat sex advice as the night drew to a close. When we finally gave into the fact that sleep would not come again, we rose, dressed, and went downstairs to eat breakfast, where she filled me in on the details of her week so far: an adventure so epic, so downright surprising it deserves its own blog entry. I ate oatmeal and we watched the buffalo. At 6:35, I grabbed the car keys and walked out into the day.

A friend of mine (whose adventures are also epic) had managed a free ride to Greenville, IL the night before from St. Louis and having come across the Econolodge in her travels, decided to stay a few nights. "Great, now you can run with me!" I told her when she texted me the night before. "Oy," was her response when I told her the time, "See you then." We caught up on the car ride to campus; it could have been any other day, which I loved. She's not from the midwest like I am, so she was thrown by the humidity. "But its morning!" Yeah, here in Seattle, mornings mean sweaters and socks and uncomfortably chilly breezes. In Greenville, the sweater hangs in the air.

We wound our way to the rec center and met my old running pal who was just married about two months ago, though two years my junior. We rolodexed through our running friends, catching each other up on the details. "if it seems like everyone we know is married with babies, its because they are," we explained to the northwesterner among us. Three miles later, we panted around Scott Field like the old days and ran into Christy, ecstatic with the morning. Seeing her walking up the road to Jo's Java like that made me feel like we were still in college. She ran to me, kissed me on the cheek, yelling, "the bride!" and we talked through the day. I checked my watch and we hustled back to the car. I dropped off my pal at the Econolodge and made haste for the barn where my aunt and cousin and mom were already tirelessly setting up the rest of the tables and unpacking the various table clothes.