2008-01-25 - 1:04 p.m.
So J. is Janet. Although I actually used to call her “J.” most of the time back in the day. I think that’s from where I took the idea of referring to my other exes by the first letter of their name in my top 5 ex-girlfriends project. Her wedding was back on July 30th.. I know I said I would before, but I’m sorry I’m only just now getting around to recounting it now.
Nya and I flew into National Airport (I refuse to call it by the name of the 1980s president it’s recently been redubbed) right in central Washington, DC, and took a cab to our hotel in the Northwest quadrant. The hotel and our room in it was exceptionally cool. Apparently, another perk of being a crip is that if you requested a wheelchair-accessible room and all the regular ones are booked, you get upgraded to a suite!
It was totally deluxe. Big living room (with ultra-modern furniture), big bedroom (king-size beds feel so luxurious, almost decadent), flat-panel TV that could be turned to face either the living room or the bedroom (we decided watching porn would be an excellent use of such high-tech equipment, but alas we never really had the time), and a ginourmous bathroom with all kinds of linen closets and a roll-in shower.
This shower was actually one of the most amazing parts of our stay. The shower area was just a large open area without a tub or anything (there was a separate tub over to one side) and a fixture in the middle of the ceiling that sprayed water down straight. So the idea was you just rolled under the showerhead in your manual wheelchair (which I had for this trip) and took a shower right there without transferring. Pretty cool.
That first night, we ate with Nya’s dad and his wife (who live in the Maryland suburbs). There was a very fancy restaurant right in the hotel and he bought us dinner there. We all overate of course. The food was really that good. I’m afraid it was so long ago that I can’t remember what I ate for the main course. But we ordered apple pie for dessert because we’d heard it was rated “best” by some DC magazine.
Best of all, we were with people we loved. It finally made me understand the point of saying grace before a meal. Saying grace was not a tradition in our family and I never quite got why others let it get in the way of starting dinner. But I realized there’s huge quantities of great food here, there’s people I love and who love me, and best of all there’s Nya. While I’ve never gone hungry, I’ve had my down times (I was homeless and worse). This was such a beautiful contrast to be thankful for.
The next evening we had the rehearsal dinner for the wedding. It was at Clyde’s, a restaurant apparently located in DC’s Chinatown, but not actually a Chinese restaurant. Janet’s parents were there of course and it’s funny that, while I remember being quite scared of them as a kid, they were really nice to me now. I could speculate that it’s because age mellows people (both them and me) or that it’s hard to be mean to someone in a wheelchair, but I don’t really know.
All the tables had signs naming them after various federal government buildings. Nya and I were assigned to “National Archives”. At first I thought this meant we were like vintage and preserved, but then we realized that everyone seated there was an old friend of Janet’s (most of them were from college or law school though, so I think I might have had the furthest-back history with her).
Janet’s father made an amusing toast in which he said that he didn’t understand what Josh (Janet’s husband the next day) actually did professionally. Come to think of it, I don’t really understand this either. I know he was an archaeology major in college and that he’s still interested in ancient art (that’s why we’re getting the couple a museum membership as a present – although we haven’t bought it yet; sorry). But I also have the vague notion that Josh works for the government and I don’t understand how archaeology can tie into this…
The next morning we had breakfast at that same restaurant in the hotel with my friend Jonathan and his wife Laura, who also live in DC. I believe we all had the grits and remarked on how good they were. It’s always awesome to spend time with Jonathan, one of my oldest friends. He talked about some deals his law firm sent him to Russia to work on. I’m glad he gets to use his Russian language skills for work.
Then we went to the actual wedding ceremony itself, midday in that very hotel. Janet is a pretty observant Jew (actually, I think she was my only serous girlfriend who was Jewish) and once considered becoming a rabbi. The wedding service was very moving and seemed significant to the couple as individuals. This was actually somewhat surprising to me, perhaps because I have immature lingering memories of Jewish ceremonies from my youth as not really meaningful at all.
While I truly think Judaism can be a very moving religion and often draw a lot of significance from it myself, sometimes practitioners sap all the beauty out of it. “Observance” simply becomes a matter of following ritual unconsidered or parroting Hebrew words in a prayer without even knowing what they mean. Then you can pat yourself on the back because you did it “right”. I don’t understand how anyone raised with this empty religious background can be expected to embrace Judaism as an adult.
But their service was very cool. And no, we didn’t play any dopey Bar Mitzvah games at the reception that followed (as my dim fears of “formalized” Jewish ceremony half-feared we would). I asked Janet what museum membership she’d like as a wedding present (I like giving people museum memberships and got Jonathan and Laura one to DC’s Spy Museum). Janet said they actually go up to New York to visit the Met, so I’m getting them a membership there. Sorry it’s been so long coming…
© 2008 Geoff Gladstone
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