A Second-Chance Wedding

“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” Albert Camus

The day after Thanksgiving, Hubs and I awoke at four to catch an early morning flight. Our destination: A small city in Virginia's wine country. Our purpose: To attend a friend's wedding. 

I travelled light, luggage-wise, but that's not to say I didn't tote baggage. The ceremony in Virginia would mark our friend's second marriage, and, much as I admired his willingness to risk his heart again, I worried.

He and his new wife would have six children between them. The kids were adults, true, but do kids stop requiring time and attention when they hit twenty-one? To further complicate matters, the happy couple had recently bought a house and were juggling wedding planning with box unpacking. At work, he'd opted for a slower track after many hard-charging years, but his new wife couldn't cut back her hours. How would their work schedules mesh?

Did I tell you I like our friend's first wife? True, she'd initiated their divorce and had moved on without a backward look, but I'm the queen of looking back, retroactively applying relationship bandages, and asking, "What if?" Small wonder the airline didn't flag my baggage for exceeding weight limits.

First-time brides and grooms are filled with such optimism, it verges on hubris. Guests admire the bride and groom's fearless willingness to merge their dreams, futures, and fortunes. We hope they'll weather the storms to come and emerge stronger for them, but if asked for advice, we're likely to demur because who can tell anything to wide-eyed young people who are certain theirs is the great love of the century? If pressed, we might say something innocuous like, "Never go to bed angry," or "Laugh at yourself."

Guests at second marriages tend to be older and, thanks to lessons at the School of Hard Knocks, wiser. We arrive with optimism that's been dented but hasn't been stripped away.  (If it had been, we'd have RSVP'd with regrets.) We've gone to bed angry once, twice, or ten times because only a saint could avoid it, and we've learned to laugh at ourselves because if we didn't, we'd have spent days curled into balls, our fingers in our ears, singing "La, la, la, I can't hear you."

We've also learned that long, happy marriages are blessed by luck. "Hard work" and "putting each other first" ratchet up the odds of success, sure, but luck's a biggie, and it skips over some marriages.

I traveled to Virginia weighed down with memories of our friend's first wife and worries for him and his new love. However, as he spoke the vows he'd written, my fears melted away.

The marriage of two people who've survived painful uncouplings is sweeter for its poignancy. It's humbling to bear witness to a bride and groom who have the courage to make promises although they'd learned the hard way that vows can be broken. They've weathered storms but haven't shut off their emotions or sequestered themselves in emotional storm shelters. They know it takes two to make a marriage work or fail and have ditched their "injured party" labels to accept that they could have done things differently the first-time around. They know they'll have to pay closer attention and adjust their behavior on the second go.

This wedding was marked by gratitude, not hubris. The bride and groom were gladgladglad to have found each other and grateful for the friends and family who supported them. The happy couple laughed a lot. 

Will luck bless this new marriage? I don't know for sure, but it's clear the bride and groom are prepared to make their own. 

On the trip home, my luggage felt weightless. I'd swapped my worries for joy, and it turns out optimism is the lightest element of all.

DEYROLLE 2012

Director Wes Anderson at Deyrolle before the fire

On a cold and rainy January day seven years ago, my husband and I were wandering around Paris when a curious little garden shop caught our attention. Inside we found an assortment of tools, books and clothes but nothing remarkable enough to carry home to Texas.

As we were about to leave, the clerk told us there was a premier étage and pointed to a stairway at the back of the shop. Not wanting to be rude, we climbed the steps expecting more of the same and were stunned by what we found—a grand suite of rooms full of hundreds of stuffed animals posed as though they had frozen in mid-action when our feet hit the top stair. Like many before us, we had discovered Deyrolle, the cabinet de curiosités.

Under normal circumstances, I might have found all the taxidermy somewhat appalling, but there was something so charming and playful about the way the animals were arranged, I fell in love with the place and every creature in the extraordinary menagerie. I couldn’t help thinking, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if whoever owns this place could bring these animals to life when no one was around?”

That man became Adrien Durand, the hero of the paranormal romance novel my agent has out on submission. Since then I’ve returned to Deyrolle many times, and have taken friends and family to visit my favorite place in Paris. Sadly about three years ago a fire destroyed most of the second story and with it hundreds of animals lovingly collected over more than a century.

The fictional place I call La Maison d’Ermonie has taken on a life of its own in my imagination—a fantastical world that is more real to me than the place that inspired it. I shouldn’t have been surprised this week when the somewhat reconstructed Deyrolle no longer held the enchantment of the original, but I was. Surprised and disappointed. The animals were no longer posed playfully and the whimsy has been lost. Change is inevitable but I still mourn the loss of a grand dining room set for dinner with a guest list of zebras, a donkey, a lion, a water buffalo and a goat presided over be a magnificent stuffed horse I named Maurice.

Have you ever revisited an old haunt or a literary shrine only to find time had stolen its magic? 

Giving Thanks

Lemons from my tree!

This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for many people, places, and things. Family's my precious-s-s, and it's a given I appreciate each and every member. With one important exception, though, I'm not writing about family today.

I've cobbled together a list of ten people, places, or things I want to acknowledge. Sure, I've mentioned some of them before, but, hey, gratitude doesn't bubble up only once a year.

1. My cochlear implants. My hearing loss started sneakily and progressed slowly, but I hit profound deafness two years ago, and my coping skills gave out. I received my first implant on July of 2011 and the second in May of this year. Not only did I get hearing back, my confidence returned.

2. The backyard lemon tree. What a kick I'm getting out of this year's unexpected bounty! Today, in celebration of the harvest, I'll serve lemon mojitos.

3. This blog. Lark might be getting tired of me saying how glad I am she invited me to join her here, but I won't stop. You see, I'm a social media dud. I squeak by on Twitter, fail at Facebook, and can't remember my Goodreads ID. Yet I like blogging and reading blogs. 

4. Lucky the Cat. Lucky's the neighborhood stray we took in after he was mauled by another animal. Initially, my plan was to drive the cat to the vet, get him patched up, and release him to his wandering ways. After watching a wounded cat heal, how could I send him back outside? He's a Rosen now, and I'm the lucky one.

Lucky, resting up for his first Thanksgiving

5. The Women's Fiction chapter of Romance Writers of America. This online chapter has given me support, encouragement, and two new critique partners. 

6. The West Houston chapter of RWA.  This is the home of my in-person writer friends. I'm grateful for all of them but have to send an extra thankful shout-out to Lark, Pat Kay, Janice Martin, Jink Willis, Jerre Ferns, Sarah Andre, Kay Hudson, Jo Anne Banker, and Julie Pitzel. 

7. Luanne. I'm a parent, wife, sister, and friend, but the "tribe" I identify with most is the writer clan. That said, I recently met with a woman considering cochlear implants. We talked for hours, and it was energizing to be understood by someone else who's grappled with deafness. Writers get the angst of the blank page, but when the hearing impaired ask someone to repeat himself, we know the response might be a blank stare.

8. France. Oui, I'm grateful for a whole country. My trip to Paris and Uzes last April let me glimpse (and hear) the high school French teacher I was before my hearing went AWOL. My old love affair with France, the French, and the language recommenced, made poignant by the time we'd spent apart.

A street in Uzes. It's lovely, non?

9. Melanie, my sister-in-law. Four days after Hurricane Sandy struck, my parents took refuge at my brother's house. There, they had heat and light but worried they wouldn't be able to cast their November 6 votes at their designated polling place, an hour distant. My parents are Democrats. Melanie, my sister-in-law, is a Republican. Nevertheless, she's the one who promised she'd get them to the polling place. If we honor one another's views at the family level, surely we can accept and accommodate differences of opinion and work together in Congress. 

10. WANA. The acronym stands for We Are Not Alone, a book-turned-movement that focuses on blogging, social media and networking for authors. WANA is the brainchild of Kristen Lamb, and, while I've learned a lot from the book and the course, it's my fellow WANAs who have taught me the most. 

Happy Thanksgiving. I'm grateful to you for reading this post.