After a longish drought, when I opened today's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, I found not one but two people I know who got married this weekend. On the one hand, it's a positive thing, as it means that there's still hope for me yet. On the other, it's always weird to see people with whom you once were close and now you see them getting married and you didn't even know they were engaged. One woman was someone I went to college with -- didn't know her all that well, but she was friends with several people in my circle. For some reason, I never warmed up to her.
The other person, and the one that shook me up (not in a bad way mind, like it does if the person is an ex), is a fellow singer and person with whom I have travelled around the world. He was in my Eurail train pass group the summer I graduated -- we got abruptly woken up at the Czech border in the middle of the night being asked for our passports in a language we didn't understand. Actually, it's not quite true that we didn't understand -- I heard someone jabbering at me in Russian, because I studied Russian, another woman in our group heard Polish, and we were quite confused and a bit startled, because as far as we knew we weren't anywhere near either country. So we groggily asked him where we were, and he pointed to the Red Star on his uniform cap, after laughing when Susan asked if we were in Poland. I remember thinking that he had to give us something more than that, as it didn't narrow anything down, when he handed me back my passport with "CSSR" stamped in the back, so I knew where we were. We had a great time on that trip, and the now-married person was the picture of infinite patience and kindness as he was able to contain the exhuberence of his then-girlfriend, who was charming, but very, very exitable.
The next time we were on a train together was in 2001, when we again shared a compartment on the very long train journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. I was quite disappointed when he didn't join the choir this year on our Great South American Trek, but if he got married today it might explain where he was.
Good guy, and good luck to them both.
I don't know why I read the Times wedding section -- granted it's better than either my college alumni magazine or the local paper back home to see where people got to and what they're doing. It's more because one day, there's going to be THAT name. You know, the one that will still feel like a kick in the stomach, even though I haven't seen him in a billion years or have any idea where he is or what he's up to. I think everyone has one of those in the closet somewhere. It wasn't meant to be by any stretch of the imagination, but it will still be a black Sunday when the name shows up -- a final severing of childhood/early adulthood in a way.
Dum, dum de dum. Dum dum de dum.....
We know return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
The other person, and the one that shook me up (not in a bad way mind, like it does if the person is an ex), is a fellow singer and person with whom I have travelled around the world. He was in my Eurail train pass group the summer I graduated -- we got abruptly woken up at the Czech border in the middle of the night being asked for our passports in a language we didn't understand. Actually, it's not quite true that we didn't understand -- I heard someone jabbering at me in Russian, because I studied Russian, another woman in our group heard Polish, and we were quite confused and a bit startled, because as far as we knew we weren't anywhere near either country. So we groggily asked him where we were, and he pointed to the Red Star on his uniform cap, after laughing when Susan asked if we were in Poland. I remember thinking that he had to give us something more than that, as it didn't narrow anything down, when he handed me back my passport with "CSSR" stamped in the back, so I knew where we were. We had a great time on that trip, and the now-married person was the picture of infinite patience and kindness as he was able to contain the exhuberence of his then-girlfriend, who was charming, but very, very exitable.
The next time we were on a train together was in 2001, when we again shared a compartment on the very long train journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. I was quite disappointed when he didn't join the choir this year on our Great South American Trek, but if he got married today it might explain where he was.
Good guy, and good luck to them both.
I don't know why I read the Times wedding section -- granted it's better than either my college alumni magazine or the local paper back home to see where people got to and what they're doing. It's more because one day, there's going to be THAT name. You know, the one that will still feel like a kick in the stomach, even though I haven't seen him in a billion years or have any idea where he is or what he's up to. I think everyone has one of those in the closet somewhere. It wasn't meant to be by any stretch of the imagination, but it will still be a black Sunday when the name shows up -- a final severing of childhood/early adulthood in a way.
Dum, dum de dum. Dum dum de dum.....
We know return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
posted by Lily @ Sunday, October 10, 2004
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