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05/10/2003 Entry: ""Breath of River""

This is the day that I came here for... a day reserved exclusively for the joining of my great freinds Nate and Amber in a Holy Hitchin' ceremony. I'm feeling very ready to do this service; I've done many weddings before but this one is special, not only because it's for such swell buds as they, but it is my first wedding in Delaware, a homecoming for sacramental purposes. While there have been minor kerfuffles between parties, I'm sure that when the wedding gong rings, they will lay down their hooey in honor of a beautiful day.

I am still sweaty from my morning run. I'm drinking coffee from a mug commemorating the coronation of King Edward the Eighth. Do Kings really matter anymore? For two miles I slid by the banks of a grand river concealed entirely in fog. Past the mudflats and grasses, you cannot tell where the river begins and ends. It may as well arc over me in a tremendous suspended wave, I wouldn't know the difference. Purple marlins and swifts wove the air in a thousand gordian knots all around me. They are so fast and fleet in their flight they could have flown right through me, and again, I wouldn't have noticed. Mockingbirds laid out jazz from atop flowering trees, fuzzed by the mist. Redwing blackbirds stood atop the reeds in the marshes, overseeing the comings and goings of the tinyest of importances. With a splash a few yards away a blue heron emerged from the brackish water like a god returning from a long slumber, fish in it's beak. The river's breath blew a scent into my senses that may well have been the first scent; primordial, primal, mud and trace salt and wavelets teeming with single celled life, mud born from the dissolution of plants, fish, and mystery. Essential. The river slipped past as boats hung suspended in a silver cloud, and gulls toyed with the bounds of worlds.

It's time to focus on the scant hours remaining to prepare for a brief ritual designed to entrust hearts to one another, and to commit a community to support. My father's scepticism does not phase me, nor does the ceramic stare of the late King Edward VIII. All days are special, yet for two this will mark the beginning of a new way to relate. My father's bitterness may come from the fact that on May 10, 1985, he and Anne were married into a rocky, messy decade and a half of love and discontent. Eighteen years ago today I was in a tux and festooned as a young Best Man. Today, Anne is a box of ashes atop my father's refrigerator, but her love and humor are ever present in memory. Today, I help two commited people seal vows before their families. This is precious and poignant. Each day is a possibility, each possiblity is infinite. Good luck and Godspeed, lovers, and flow on, great river.

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