Magical Thinking Can Create a Magical Event

Even though we all moved through time together, toward the summer solstice and all that was planned for that day, it is impossible to tell this story in a linear fashion. It had a beginning and it did come to an end but the parts in between were an unpredictable journey, and the pace was erratic but unceasing. For those who know the masterminds behind the co-loveration festivities, this comes as no surprise. The rest of us just got on board and kept our knees bent as we followed the currents and spun around in the eddies.

I actually don't know the whole story because it was impossible to be in every place but everyone was having a similar experience. We all knew the end goal -- to have an event that would engage everyone, would allow everyone to feel that they had contributed, and that we would end up feeling like we had been present at a gathering that could be described as a wedding. We were making memories together for days and days.

Stephen and Julia, individually and also together, had a lot of ideas about what might be worth building or creating or doing.  In the end, Stephen said they managed to accomplish about 10% of what he was imagining.

They chose the longest day of the year for spiritual reasons and practical ones too. There was a lot to fit in. And the days leading up to the solstice were also long days, which helped to make things possible. In addition, all the resources of the farm were much more available on the weekdays than they would have been on a weekend day. I admit, I encouraged them to choose that day. It was inconvenient for people with regular jobs but it was good for the rest of us.

They invited friends from around the world to join them for a few weeks of co-loveration and preparation.  This meant that there was a group of millenials living and working and eating and talking and singing together for many days.  Things naturally got untidy, systems were created to make the camp function smoothly. There were leaders who made charts and organized the meals and activities. People slept in the rustic spaces that were available.  There was lots of cooking and cleaning. They had anticipated many of the issues and had assembled an outdoor kitchen. It rained more than normal so there was a lot more puddle and waterfall excitement than they were expecting.

And every day there was work to be done on the various projects.  There was the dome that would be built out of long pieces of bamboo. The dome was ambitious in every way -- it needed to encircle the 200 people attending the ceremony. It needed to be erected and stay up. It needed to create a sense of sacred space.  Stephen's two uncles (one Newcomb, one Snyder) with engineering skills spent long hours making the joints that would hold together all the poles that had unique diameters. They brought materials with them from Denver. Stephen's best friend from college spent hours with the groom, cutting and measuring the bamboo (that was growing along the Middleton border of the Vienna stand parking lot, planted in 2000). There were late nights as they assembled the dome in the clearing, and one night there was a mutiny after midnight when people just needed to go to bed.

The dance floor needed to be designed and built.  Stephen's father and his side of the family spent a long weekend creating a dance floor that will be used again and again, and stored in a neat stack in the meantime.

The wedding clothes for the bride and groom were designed and sewn by his talented aunt who worked through the night on her creations.  Because designs are fluid and the couple had lots of opinions, in the end, the groom's pants were never finished and he wore a sarong on his bottom half. But the bride's outfit was beautiful and complete. She looked like a stunning version of something from Aladdin. So did he.

The headdresses were designed and constructed by our neighbors who grow flowers. The crowns were wild and so lyrical, with purple grasses and spent sunflower heads and flowers and grapevines.

Because they have so many friends with so many talents, the possibilities were well beyond most people's imaginations.  Two friends came down from New England to teach about and perform the task of killing four lambs (who were raised by a friend of ours), in a respectful and calm and not scary way.  They led a workshop on tanning the hides and butchering the lambs. 

Another friend left his farm to come and roast those lambs, building a structure for the fire and watching over the cooking for a long, hot day. He also cooked a few vegetarian dishes on the side.

Stephen's mother took responsibility for assembling all the normal infrastructure that is needed at a wedding:  chairs, tables, dishes, tent, pitchers, linens, the works. She and her husband also cooked the rehearsal dinner meal which was supposed to be for 70 guests but ended up feeding 100.

Our household took the task of making all the dishes that would complement the roasted lamb at the wedding dinner -- Julia asked for Middle Eastern salads and got some recipes from a hip young chef they have befriended.  I organized a vegetable chopping party in the Common House and we diced and sliced pounds and pounds of beets and kohlrabi and cucumbers and cantaloupe.. Jon made hundreds of pieces of falafel.  Even he was impressed at how unstressful it was to cook for 200 people when you have a chopping party with 10 happy people.

Alissa baked pies and cakes for the dinners and lunches, using fruit from our freezers and blueberries from the bushes.

The wedding cake was made with organic whole wheat flour grown by Heinz and it was baked by one of Julia's talented friends. Five tiers, frosting was almost purple, they did the traditional last-minute construction in the cooler and carried the 60 pound cake to the table before it melted.

Jim's family had the job of setting up all the tables and making everything look nice under the tent.  We hired six cheerful and hard-working PVF employees to keep the dishes moving -- there were lots of dishes to wash late into the night, two nights in a row.

One of Julia's friends took the job of sound man incredibly seriously and researched and purchased all the sound equipment, installed it and managed it. The next day, in the pouring rain, he was out in his full rain suit rolling up all the wires and repacking everything into boxes while everyone else was having brunch.

Miraculously, when it was time to have the rehearsal dinner, everyone was ready. We actually had a rehearsal so that the participants would know where to stand and what to expect. The rehearsal was conducted by another one of Julia's incredibly talented friends -- she knew how to manage everyone with grace and a big voice.  It rained hard just as we were assembling under the huge tent, so we had to pause to see whether the lightning was going to move on past.

The best part of the dinner, other than just being together, was the "offerings" after the meal. Some people had been asked to prepare a song or a speech.  One of Julia's dear friends from forever had written a song about learning that Julia had met her soulmate, and how she learned about Stephen through Julia's stories, It was a song that we could all listen to again and again if we ever get the chance. So sweet and so well told.  The chorus was, "he braided my hair...he took a bunch from here, a bunch from there, and another bunch from over there." It is impossible to describe how our hearts melted.

I didn't attend all the festivities on the solstice but they had a dawn service at 5:45, a special meal, yoga, activities that would add to the decorations of the ceremony space, a big lunch in two locations. Everything went beautifully.

While they were doing that, our family was finishing up putting the dinner together. I drove into DC to pick up the fancy hummus and tahini and sauces from the basement production area that the hip chef uses. Jon and Becca made dressings and put the salads together. Alissa made pies in sheet pans.  Becca came with me to the restaurant to buy the Persian rice -- even that was an adventure -- and together we decided that we needed to buy 50% more than we had originally ordered. It is so hard to tell how much food you really need, and we all have a fear of running out.

At 4:48, about 12 minutes before people were supposed to assemble and sit quietly, Benjamin and his crew were still putting the finishing touches on the pulley system in the dome. At that same moment, Charles and I were taking the top off the septic tank to figure out why the toilet in the barn was clogged.  There were two bakers huddled in the cooler working on frosting the cake.

But at 5:30 we were all in our seats, dressed in clean clothes, listening to the three musicians who were making quiet music with a saw, some spinning hoses and I don't know what else.  There were benches for everyone (constructed out of materials on the farm), there were fanciful bird sculptures hanging overhead, and a complicated array of bamboo rings and bouquets dangled from fishing line stretched above. We were mesmerized.

In the end, the ceremony was not nearly as wild and impenetrable as we had been allowed to imagine. There were songs and poems. I had been invited to make a case for marriage to start off the proceedings, and I had found time to write it out at dawn that day, and so I made the case. Even though it was never discussed, I did say a Shechechyanu at the end of my remarks. It seemed entirely appropriate, especially as we seemed to be cherry picking from any number of traditions.

Julia and Stephen spoke about why they had decided to marry each other and about their fears that they would lose that feeling of surprise and unfamiliarity.  They greeted each other's families with long and loving messages.  They gave each other bamboo rings to link together and hang from the structure and eventually there was a completely magical moment when the 200 rings with little flower bouquets were lowered at once and we each took a ring and linked it to another, demonstrating our connection and our commitment to that grand connection.

The meal was fabulous. The lamb was incredible. The salads were colorful and unusual and delicious. There was twice as much food as we needed, even though once again there were about 40 more people than expected. Some of us sat on picnic blankets and visited while we ate. One guest said she felt so relaxed, not having place cards and needing to make conversation with people she didn't know.  But everyone knew someone, it was a huge reunion of families and farm workers and lifelong friends, with lots and lots of toddlers and babies being handed around.

As it got dark and the fireflies exploded in the fields surrounding us, the Denver uncles introduced one more event -- lighting candles and heating up small biodegradable hot air balloons (about the size of a trash bag), and sending them aloft. It was one more unexpected moment of magic, watching 120 glowing lanterns carrying wishes float into the sky.

More speeches, cake, There was dancing into the night. 

And the next day it rained from the beginning to the end of the day.  Somehow, the weather gods knew that it would be best to take a break from raining for just one day, the longest day of the year.

Before It All Comes Together

While I am not at all responsible for the big picture of this ambitious and ever-evolving wedding (which they have dubbed a co-loveration because that is how they think), it does of course have an impact on the To Do list that continues to grow.

A week from tomorrow, on the summer solstice, there will be a grand celebration.  Our beloved Stephen is marrying his soulmate Julia.  They are quite a pair.  Each one needs the other to tone down their creative impulses, but that doesn't really work. 

I am taking this moment to record what I understand about what is happening right now, and in the near future. 

Guests have been arriving for about a week, from around the world.  The wedding couple has been organizing sleeping spaces and planning a week of activities so that everyone may participate in the unfolding series of events. There are plans, but the plans can change in a flash.

Last week we all thought there would be a tent in the big field space outside Julia and Stephen's house.  This tent would house the wedding dinner and the dancing and a long night of celebrating. But as she walked around the farm, looking at the various spaces in the dusk, she found that she wanted a different venue for the evening party.  So now we are back to the area where other celebrations have happened -- most recently last July when Stephen's brother Jesse married Shalini there. It is a good spot. A lovely spot. We save this spot for just this type of a special occasion.  It is next to the blueberries, tucked into the middle of the farm, far from all the busy-ness. And very close to the clearing where the ceremony will happen.

No one knows yet what the ceremony will be.  But we know it will be long and full of unexpected moments.  Up until a few weeks ago, the two of them had not really decided that they would be legally married when the day was over.  That seemed like a detail that could be dealt with later. But we convinced them that to assemble 175 of their dearest people and then get married later at a courthouse would be such a let-down for those who had come to join them in co-loveration.

Tomorrow I will go to the Fairfax County Courthouse and do the paperwork to be legally allowed to sign the documents that will make their marriage official. I am not performing the ceremony but I am going to make it real. That was my bargaining chip -- I will do the legwork if you just go get your marriage license.  All right then.

At 1:00 tomorrow afternoon Stephen has a date with his dear friend Cory. They are meeting to cut bamboo, 32 long pieces (I think) of bamboo so they can construct the dodecahedron, or whatever it will be.  So much of this has been years and years in the making. We planted that bamboo in 2000 and this is what it is for.

My sister Anna and her husband have been acquiring the furniture and furnishings for at least a month.  Tables and dishes and chairs and silverware and buckets and linens and pots and pans and traffic cones and signage and on and on.  At the end of this event, the married people will own a lot of dishes and chairs, as part of their future together, creating gatherings which will allow for transformation in the attendees, slowly but surely. It is all very vague, but it will really happen. It is already happening.

There are parts of this grand project that I have not even imagined. It will be so interesting to be a guest.

But first we have to make the food.  Other people are doing a lot of cooking -- including Casey who will watch over the lambs roasting all day on Thursday.  Jon will be the head chef for the wedding dinner. I am assembling ingredients and helpers.  Our usual roles.  It will be a tense few days around here, starting on Monday all the way to the end of Thursday. Alissa is coming on Monday and will start baking non-stop -- she is in charge of all the desserts that are not the wedding cake. Rebecca can't get here until the end of Wednesday and Benjamin arrives in the middle of Thursday.

In the meantime, there are these farms that have to keep working.  That will be fascinating, to see how we co-loverate in the Green Barn, washing vegetables as fast as we can so we can get out of the way of the wedding guests who need a quick shower on Thursday afternoon.  I will say more about that later, after it really comes true. Maybe we will make Wednesday be our big picking day next week, just to give ourselves a little room to maneuver.

I just canceled a conference call that was scheduled for next Wednesday evening. My priorities are finally coming into focus. Even if I am the chair of the committee, I would never be able to pay attention. What was I even thinking?

But, at this moment, all is quiet where I am. Jon is away with the girls, there is no one here but me. I need to absorb every magical moment of this calm (I am especially aware of this, as five energetic house guests just left yesterday). 

And now you are all prepared for the report that will undoubtedly appear when there is a story to tell.

Discovering a New Super Power

Ice cubes make Jon happy.  If he doesn't have ice, he thinks about not having ice, and wishing he had ice.

Our first refrigerator in this house made ice, and that was a great thing. Ice all the time, in the freezer.  But a few years ago Jon had the chance to scavenge a bigger, fancier fridge from a house that was about to be torn down. This fancy one seemed to be just like the one Auntie Annette has -- with a freezer on one side. And an ice maker with a dispenser on the outside of the door. A dream come true.

Jon decided this abandoned refrigerator was just what we wanted, so he enlisted our nephew to help him wrestle this huge appliance into our kitchen.  It was filthy so he spent a few hours washing it out, spreading all the drawers and shelves around the kitchen, which suddenly seemed much smaller. 

There was some worry, when he plugged it in after doing all that cleaning, that the motor wouldn't come on. But it did, to his relief.  Then there was the problem of fitting the wider, taller refrigerator into the space that was filled by a smaller, perfectly functional one.  He put the old fridge out on the porch and spent the next week or so disassembling the countertop, shaving the edge off the cabinet, finding just the quarter inch he needed to wedge this behemoth of a stainless steel appliance into the designated spot.

To his extreme dismay, he discovered that the ice maker did not work.  He began his search on the internet for answers, and then parts.  If I remember right, some of the parts that arrived were not exactly right.  After some more problem-solving, he got the ice maker to work.  Hallelujah. 

But then, not very long after that, it stopped working. And there was no clear reason for it to quit.  Jon was mystified. He started to buy bags of ice to pour into the bin so he could still get ice out of the fancy dispenser on the front. That was okay but not a dream come true.  Sometimes he could hear the ice maker grinding and grumbling away, trying to make ice, but failing. He finally turned it off. It was too sad.

Then a few days ago, he says he heard the machine saying that it wanted to work again. So he turned it back on. Nothing happened and he forgot about it.  That evening he was on the phone talking to Rebecca and suddenly he heard a miraculous sound: ice cubes dropping into the plastic bucket inside the freezer. It is entirely mysterious but the ice machine came back to life.  He has ice, all the time.

There is no point to this story.  Jon loves ice and the free refrigerator finally relented and began production for the man who believed it could work.  My question is: how did he know it was saying that it wanted to start making ice again? Most of us believe that Jon can fix anything but now he has taken it to a whole new level. Now he speaks refrigerator.

He does have excellent back-up when it comes to equipment and vehicle repairs, and we pay for that but he never asks for help when it comes to indoor challenges. He is not speedy, as his list is long, but eventually he worries a problem into submission and figures it out.  After all these years, it is hard for me to imagine a different way to get things fixed. It's not perfect but it is undoubtedly the most cost effective method -- for Jon, a core principle when problem solving is frugality.  So this new skill of listening to the secret language of the Kitchen Aid, this is like a super power.

Stay tuned for more exciting episodes. This is at least as interesting as Good Night Moon -- I am trying to imagine how it could become a children's book. Don't stay tuned for that.