Hard Work, Old Memories, and Sweet Friends

Y'all, I have struggled with these wedding posts, more with each one. Here's the thing. There was SO much to do, all built around this looming deadline of The Wedding. Much of it was, at least in my mind, necessary. House renovation. Brushpile burn. Garden enclosure razed and rebuilt. Rotten deck beautifully replaced. That had to happen. But some of it, I know, is totally peripheral. Was anyone going to go poking in my cluttered basement on July 26? No. Nobody was going to go down there. But it mattered to me that all these nagging things be DONE and laid to rest before the big event. In the Thompson family, this displacement behavior was called "ironing the curtains." Whenever they went on a family vacation, Elsa would pack the kids and all their stuff, and then, before everyone got in the car, she'd iron the curtains. She couldn't be stopped. Had to do it. No judgement from here. 

Late June and July were the months when we buckled down and finished things. Phoebe and Óscar's wedding was to take place on the 26th, and that was a real cattle prod for me. I always figured I’d get around to re-purging the basement in the winter of 2024, but it didn’t happen. It was a thorn in my side, knowing that it needed to be cleared and straightened yet again—2021 was a long time ago! Finally, in the third week of June, I headed down there and gave it the week or so it needed to be tidy and navigable again. 

With each basement purge I am forced to face my obsession with cardboard, and boxes. Oh, and jars. 

Anything that could be useful gets saved, to excess. Hangover from my old freelance days when I was forever sending original watercolors through the mail. Sturdy cardboard--I still save it as if I were still doing that, instead of sending electrons through the ether.

Phoebe helped, clearing out our music room in the basement. Here is where she and Liam had deposited things nobody needs any more, like extra-long twin bedding sets from their dorm rooms. Hello, Goodwill! She went through her dad’s recording stuff and tidied it as much as she could, consolidating cords and equipment. We laughed at our shared memories of when Bill would be recording podcasts, and we were under strict instructions not to walk, move, talk, run water, flush, or, let's face it, breathe in the house, lest we make a wayward sound and evoke a furious pounding on the wall or, worse, a heavy stomp up the stairs. This could go on for quite some time...

For these and other memories, and a heavy dose of superstition, neither of us can bear to tear down his podcast recording place. His laptop sits in place, full of inestimable stuff, waiting for what? We don’t know, but it’s somehow sacred. What do you do with your husband's now-ancient laptop? Or, for that matter, with your own? It’s stunning how all that stuff that was so important just fades into irrelevancy when you have to leave the earthly realm. It was his stuff, and now it's no one's. I like to think that, by raising, feeding, caring for and finally fledging the kids and helping carry BWD Magazine into the future, I've checked the biggest boxes on his list. 

And here's the other hard thing about writing about this. There is so much to attend to, just to pull off the various events. I honestly think Phoebs and I are still tired from it all. And writing about it is throwing a lasso around that herd of THINGS that must be done. And it makes me tired just writing about it. I don't even know if it's good reading. I just have to record it all, to honor the effort that went into it.

All summer long, Phoebe worked to string together the cadre of vendors who would help us pull off this looming event. No, these events. Some vendors were elusive; some were responsive. Each was a fresh challenge to engage and work with. She logged hours on her laptop, researching and emailing, crossing T's and dotting i's. 

Particularly sharp readers will note there is a bird on the kitchen chair. His name is Chak and he is a northern mockingbird we raised, this fine and abundant and exhausting summer, from a cat-punctured pissed off ball of feathers to a beautiful free spirit who ruled the yard. I will tell his story elsewhere, but for now, just know that Chakky-boy got us through the summer. Heavy lifting for a mockingbird, but he was fully up to the job. Long live our sweet baby Chak, wherever he's flown off to!  Love you forever.

We knew the reception needed to be under a roof. We didn’t fancy trying to feed 140 people in a tent in our yard without electricity right by. We figured that, for the ceremony, all we needed was an hour without rain. But for a reception, we really, really needed to get everyone into a building where we could sit them down at proper tables to dine in comfort. So we engaged a nearby venue for the reception. That was a good move. It was air-conditioned, and had bathrooms, and July was proving to be hot as Hades. For two, it was a very cool place, and close by! More on that choice later.

 Doing this neatly solved the problem of where to put the many dozens of cars that 140 people would use to get here. Bill and I had been married in his family's church in Marietta, and we hosted the reception for 163 at our house, on September 11, 1993. And I remember there being a bunch of tables and folding chairs in the yard, a couple porta-potties too, and an absolute stringer of cars all along our (dirt) township road and driveway and piling up in the area around our garden. We also parked a bunch of them at the end of our long meadow. I remember assigning younger friends to give parking directions to everyone, and people having to walk our quarter-mile gravel driveway in dress shoes. The younger crowd came walking up the long meadow from the small parking area at the end, and that was a beautiful sight. Bill always said his favorite moment was seeing our friends walking up that meadow to the house. But that kind of walking is a lot to ask of older folks. 

I also have a vivid memory of our caterer running clean out of food before Bill and I got to the line. (You couldn't set aside a couple plates?) I remember stomping inside the house to fix peanut butter toast for us both, for our own wedding feast. Here, honey, have some fuel for the biggest day of your life. Best I can come up with under the circumstances.

 I did not want a repeat of ANY of that, nor did I want my carefully curated yard to become a parking lot for this event. On a preliminary visit to the reception site, Shila had an inspiration. We’d park all the cars at the reception site and shuttle them over here for the ceremony.  Then, when the ceremony was done, we’d shuttle them back, they’d enjoy the reception and dinner, and then be able to walk right out to their cars and head to their lodgings. Brilliant. Shila's like that.

All of this, of course, was easier said than done. Although the venue had a people mover bus, in the end, we had to hire another driver and van to get everyone back and forth in a timely fashion. But our yard was car-free for the wedding, and we got the people from A to B, and it was all pretty smooth, because we'd really thought it out.  

 Phoebe had known enough to hire a wedding planner for this event, and I’m really glad she did. Syrie Roman helped keep us on track and attending to the million details as needed. She made us a timeline and told us what to do, and when. It was a lot. There was so much pre-arranging to be done! Syrie was always cheery, always decisive, and she made recommendations, then gently let us figure out what might be the right thing to do. She also told us when something was way out of line. Never having done this, we had only a hazy idea what was a reasonable charge and what wasn’t. Or who was supposed to supply what, and how much that should cost. It all seemed outrageous to us. 

                  Syrie and Phoebe walk through the ceremony on the Wedding Grounds, July 15. Chak flew out to oversee the proceedings.

 Here's another thing. It wasn’t just the wedding. We pulled off four events in four days. 

First was a birthday dinner for me, for 12, on my new deck, on July 24.

Second, on July 25, was a party for 40 long-lost and long-traveling friends, coming from places as far away as California, North Dakota, Madrid, and the Canary Islands. 

At first we thought we’d do that party here at the house, and we went as far as talking to a caterer and building a menu, but as the pressure built, we realized that doing it here would have been pure madness, with the ceremony also happening here the next afternoon. No, no, no! 

I had attended a lovely catered party at the Barker House in Devola (a suburb of Marietta) earlier in the year, and as I cased the place, I knew it would be the perfect venue for around 40 come-from-away friends. So right then and there I talked to the owner and engaged the venue for our pre-wedding party.

It worked out incredibly well. In fact, that evening is one of my favorite memories from that time.

Oscar and his lovely mama, Vicky, on her first trip to the U.S.

Óscar and his old friend Féderico from Argentina.

We told you they were faraway friends!

Seeing Phoebe reconnect with her dear college classmates was such a joy. Her sweet face was just split in a grin all evening long.

Aaron, Óscar, Phoebe, Nate and Sam

Carinna and Phoebe with Carinna's soon to be husband Carlos. Two Americanas who met their mates while on Fulbright fellowships to Spain! Naturally, they have a very special, sweet bond.

In August, Phoebe and Óscar would travel to Barcelona to attend Carinna and Carlos' wedding!

Quite the jet-set! 

One of my favorite moments at our Faraway Friends party was when Phoebe and Óscar's dear friends Fran and Aaron came rolling up with their baby boy, Santiago, whom Phoebe and Óscar had yet to meet!!

And then came Paul and Ingrid, too!! These were all mythical figures for me. I'd heard so much about them, but hadn't gotten a chance yet to met them! They more than lived up to their advance billing.

Santi was SO sweet, and a huge hit! You can see Phoebe is dying to get her hands on him.

Our dear, dear friend Yo, who we hadn't seen in way too many years.

He called me a couple of days before the wedding, asking if he could wear shorts to it. 
I told him NO.

It was such fun to see Yo meeting Ayla, and seeing Liam all grown up!

A blurry sweet shot of Phoebe and Tim!!

John, Kris, Lisa, me, Yo, and Ann! What a combo!!

It was such a beautiful rainy evening, and the place was just perfect for our get-together. 

Phoebe and Zach, such a dear friend from Bowdoin days. Oh, these photos do my heart good! The joy! the joy!!

 We knew we’d regret not having time to really talk to and connect with these folks, so having a catered party for them in town the night before was a master stroke, and, as tired and stressed as we were by then, we had an absolute blast there. (With apologies to dear friends who were there but somehow didn't make it to my camera roll. I tried, but it was pretty hectic!) 

 All the hugs and laughter with our friends that  evening just melted the stress away. It came roaring back, of course, but Friday July 25 was a charmed evening. We would use that abundant love to get us through the next couple of days. 

Behind the Vows

I'm still swooning in the sultry heat and the soft hazy last of June light of my niece Claire's wedding to Cam.

 

Vows.  

 

Perfection. 

I'm just going to lift this from Farm Forward, so you can ponder what's packed into this angelic creature. Brains and ethics and a keen sense of what's sustainable, sensible and kind.

With a background in food systems, public health, and environmental ethics, Claire directs Farm Forward’s outreach to institutions, food retailers, and food service companies to improve the welfare of farmed animals by aligning institutional food policies with consumers’ values. Prior to joining Farm Forward she managed the Food Systems Policy program at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and was a U.S. Borlaug Fellow in Global Food Security. Claire has written extensively on issues related to animal agriculture, institutional food procurement, and labor in the food system. She earned her MSPH in Human Nutrition from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2014.

 

Sealing it with a kiss, or three.

 

Together, Cam and Claire are going places, on land or sea. Cam not only knows everything about sailing; he and Claire know about brewing too. Look for Forward, their artisan brewpub, coming in Eastport, MD; follow them on Instagram @forwardeastport 

I'm so proud of my niece, of my sister and brother-in-law for raising three amazing women, and I'm thrilled to have been there with Phoebe and Liam to witness this wedding.

After the ceremony, I was delighted to turn my lens on my grand-nieces and nephews. Kids love a wedding, especially one with plenty of room and soft grass to run around on. Here are BigBasket Flower Girl Cait, raven-haired Clara and her sister Maddy.

 

Oh look! My kids, with Max, Maddy and Clara! Later in the evening, when it was too dark to take pictures, Max tore up the dance floor with his Michael Jackson moves.

Needless to say, watching Liam and Phoebe interact with their cousins is always a delight.

 

Charlie tackles sweet Will, who fielded the roughhousing with good humor.

 

The kids helped fold up all the chairs, and Will and Charlie led the charge.

Sometimes it's bewildering to be so much smaller than everyone else.

 

Especially when your mom keeps slipping away from you! Ben, Cait's little brother, holds back a wail as he searches the scene for Christy, who's occupied with bridesmaidy duties. I'd like to raise a salute to Will and Tyler, for their long, good service as dads, doing their level best to keep young mothers Christy and Courtney free to enjoy their sister's wedding.

 

 I fell deeply into watching and photographing the kids. Kids, after all, are most of the reason for the binding legal agreement that underlies all the flowers and vows. They are why we promise to have and to hold, from this day forward, with all that "til death do us part" stuff that I find creepy, which Cam and Claire jettisoned altogether. Hear hear! It's hard enough to stand before 200 witnesses and promise the rest of your life to another person without bringing The Grim Reaper shuffling into the gathering.

Kids are worth all the plans and the machinations to keep two human beings together, for as long as it takes to launch them.

 Charlie may turn out to be the naturalist of the bunch. He's intensely interested in birds, herps, insects, fish...and his great aunt Jules is standing by to help.

A leg lifting contest.

Maddy, running. What's better than Maddy, running?

Answer: Clara, Cait and Maddy, running.

And cartwheels, with Cait in awe, and Amy studying a flower.

 

 As night fell, the girls got their dresses good and dirty making sand castles on the bank of the Severn River.

And as the sun set over lavender water, the two wedding photographers took Cam and Claire out to the end of a dock. The osprey nesting just off the dock was none too pleased, and she circled, complaining bitterly, as memories were made. 

 

I love this meta-shot of the process! Such a private, intimate moment...a ticked-off osprey flapping, creaking and chirping just overhead...hold that pose! So romantic. Such is one's wedding day--a mix of the sacred and mundane that still takes your breath clean away, and leaves you wondering what hit you.

I poached the poses at a great distance and a much less interesting angle with my 300 mm. telephoto. Here's what they were getting (again lifted from Instagram, with thanks to Jenn Manor Photography.

Photo by Jenn Manor Photography.

I would imagine that professional wedding photographers have a name for people like me, who imagine themselves photographers, but often wind up blocking your carefully set-up shots. I'd love to know that name. Tools? Goobers? Anyone?

I had a ton of fun being That Annoying Photographer, and I spent most of the next day selecting, cropping and editing the best photos for a decidedly nonprofessional wedding album for the newlyweds and my family.  I decided to share the love with you, too.

I hope you'll join me in wishing Cam and Claire best of luck in all their endeavors on land and sea.

 Crape myrtle snowfall. No rice was thrown at this wedding! Rice is food, and Zicks don't throw food.

Scenes from a Wedding

I had the privilege of attending my niece Claire's wedding to her love Cam last weekend. Took my kids and drove all day, over the mountains and down down down to almost sea level, on the coastal plain of Maryland, to the beautiful home of Cam's parents, the perfect setting along the Severn River.

Rehearsal dinner Friday night featured three crates of enormous blue crabs, freshly steamed. I learned from Cam's lovely stepmother how to pick a crab. My brother wasn't so keen on separating all that crustacean anatomy, so I kept filling a little bowl of melted butter with lumps of crabmeat, and Bob obligingly devoured it with his blue fork. To my left, my four-year-old grand-niece Amy was begging like a baby bird for crab, so I was poking sweet crabmeat in her mouth, too. Anyone who knows me knows I love to feed critters and people, so these were commensal relationships. I probably picked 15 crabs. Tore my fingers and thumbs up something awful. Crab claws and shells are sharp, and Old Bay stings. But I didn't mind. Didn't get a single speck on my new shirt, perhaps the biggest feat of all.

Bob was to sing a song and accompany my nephew Evan on guitar. He had to keep his strength up.

The music was delightful, wafting on a summer breeze.

 

 

 I love my family. I felt lucky just to be there, to see them all. They are all such good people. Solid, kind, self-effacing, mutually supportive, and good. I don't get to see them nearly enough. Weddings are a great blessing, bringing us all together.

And weddings are interesting, beautiful, and in many ways strange to me. They're a mix of ancient ritual and new preferences. Many of us feel the need to break out of the iron box of tradition and change it up, so we don't feel we're doing what everyone before us has done. That's what I find interesting: what parts of the ritual we choose to keep, and what we leave behind. It all matters a lot to those of us who are planning the ceremony. In the end, though, the ceremony is simply how we enter that binding legal agreement, one that's the same for everyone, and one I've been thinking about a lot.

It's nice when the weather cooperates, and the sheets of rain, thunder and lightning that haunt our dreams for months beforehand fail to show up. This one in Arnold, Maryland, had some pretty intense heat, but there was a breeze and all would be well. It was a fine hot summer day, and there were around 200 people gathered to witness. I liked watching people arriving, making their way down the sloping green to the shady spot where the ceremony would take place.

When I go to family weddings, I like to take my big lens and make myself useful shooting photos. Maybe I can capture some moments that the professional photographers didn't snag. I try, anyway. I need to occupy myself, like a border collie finding a job that feels meaningful. It's a pure pleasure when the setting, the light, and the people all conspire in beauty.

My sister Nancy and brother-in-law Larry both walked Claire down the green. I loved that. There was no "giving Claire away." Just welcoming Cam in.

 

Cam waits while his folks make their way down.

 

Our gracious and generous hosts, Tommy and Renee.

Ringbearers,  Charlie and Ben. They executed their job perfectly, Charlie gently leading his cousin Ben.

 

It got interesting with the flower girls. Just before they were to come down the aisle, we heard a loud wail. Then beheld this spectacle:

 

 It had to do with one basket being bigger than the other. Cait, on the left, noted that Amy had the bigger flower basket, and no explanation that Amy was older so would get the bigger basket was going to placate her. Nancy didn't want to reward Cait's howl with the bigger basket, but it quickly became clear that nothing good was going to happen, at least not in the next hour or so, unless Cait got her way. 

Toddlers are finely tuned to look for and root out inequity wherever it occurs. They watch each other and the adults around them like young raptors, making sure that everyone gets the same treatment. Any whiff of favoritism, somebody getting one more noodle or a bigger scoop of ice cream than you got, and there's a loud wail queued up and instantly deployed. Equity, and its relentless pursuit, is one of the most important concepts in a small child's world. And if you think about this in a sociobiological way, it makes perfect sense. If your parents are hunting and gathering, and food supply is intermittent and iffy, and you sense that you're getting the short end of the stick, you might not make it to the next encampment. They might be phasing you out as one more than they can realistically feed. So you put up a howl. You make your need impossible to ignore.

 At the last minute, Nancy apologetically explained things to Amy, and asked Amy to give up her big basket so Cait would walk down the green at all. You can see it in Amy's stoic mien. Great. I get the small basket just so she won't wail! And Cait's all, I got the big basket, so I'm not gonna cry any more, but I still feel bruised. And where's my mom when I need her? Wearing a pink dress and several hundred yards away, that's where she is.

 

  Pretty soon Amy-with-the-small-basket outpaced Cait, and she tromped determinedly straight to the altar, head down, not strewing any flowers from her basket.  Just getting the job done. I'm taking this puny basket of flowers down front. 

 

 

Furious was never more adorable. 

When her dad gently suggested Cait distribute some flowers on her way down, there was resistance. All in all, the mini-drama was tough for the girls and their folks, but awfully fun to watch, knowing how small girls think about such things, and why. Had they tiptoed down strewing hydrangea flowers and smiling, it would have been sweet, but not nearly as memorable. This mini-drama was food for thought.

 

I thought about the ospreys in their nest just off the dock; the way young ospreys peck, sometimes viciously, at each other, trying to command the food supply. Very young humans are not so different. They are much closer to our origins, the predictable behavior some might label "spoiled" clearly linked to the fight to survive at all costs. Their mission is to get the full parental attention they crave, and they are very, very good at it. As Nancy said later, "Who ever thought that having two different sized baskets was going to work?" Snort!

 

Flower girls' passage completed, we got to watch Nan and Larry's beautiful daughters make their way to the shady spot by the river, to wait for their sister Claire.

Amy's mom has got it goin' on!

 

And so does Cait's! Sometimes we Zick sisters sit around and try to figure out how we managed to make kids who look like movie stars. Alchemy, we conclude. 

Here comes the groom!

 

Cam is a professional sailor. Winning races or getting sailboats where they need to go--he's the guy who can do it. I cannot even imagine what this man knows about the sea and wind and how to handle boats.

 

I was so busy shooting handsome Cam watching his bride come down the aisle that I almost missed the moment that Claire swept down the hill, flanked by her parents.  They were upon me before I knew it, and I had to quickly switch to my iPhone to capture this shot.   

As the wedding photography pro's shot it. I couldn't resist showing you this one because everyone looks so fabulous!

photo by Jenn Manor Photo, lifted off Instagram.

 

 A spontaneous hug from Nancy just before the service. 

 Claire and Cam's adorable, sweet, smart, cool dog Sirius was part of the ceremony, too. I imagine his last name is Black. He is the blackest, slickest, sweetest gemmun! Many were smitten, including me! He wandered about off-lead most of the day, meeting and greeting, like a good dog will. Channeling someone we remember with fondness, and doing it beautifully.

Since this is a massive post that has taken days to edit, write and put together, I'm going to split it into two parts. Spoiler alert: In the next post, Claire and Cam say I Do, and little girls run around.  :)