I Do
Before Abby and I could get married we had to attend a marriage seminar offered by the Catholic church. I guess you can’t just say you’re Catholic and borrow their stage to say your vows, you must show the Pope and his men you can at least cross yourself. The marriage seminar was an overnight one, and we would spend the night separated in a boys and girls dorm. There were about a hundred other people there. We began the seminar by separating into groups and filling out workbooks. It seemed pretty pointless at first, but then we reached a part where they would send couples off to answer some questionnaires together.
Seemingly basic questions began to then cause all kinds of trouble. I mean, many of us had just assumed we knew this other person and every detail about what married life would be like. But all over the grounds we couples were scattered across; the peaceful prayer garden, the grotto, the picnic benches behind the chapel, we were finding out that we barely knew one another as far as the practical matters of marriage.
We were finding out that we had never actually said to one another whether or not we wanted to have children, and if so, when? Or how many? Contentious questions like, "How much money do you believe is enough to have in your savings account before you have a child? Will you and your spouse have separate or joint checking accounts? Do you believe a woman should work? Once you’re married, is it ever OK to sleep with another woman?"
People were breaking up left and right. Abby and I were under an archway of an outdoor walkway outside the dorm. Like a lot of the couples, Abby being the female was the good student who wanted to work through the questions, where as I wanted to choose "C" for all of them.
"'C' is statistically a good guess," I explained.
"These questions aren't multiple choice," Abby said. "Come on, we have nothing else to do, try to answer."
Like all the other guys, I answered, then followed her around the campus the rest of the afternoon trying to apologize. What kind of stupid seminar was this? I joined a lane of traffic of men trying to take back their answers. There was a pileup of sobbing girls and we had to wait for twenty minutes. I made good use of my time by reworking my workbook as I imagined Mary Magdalene would have. The cry-jam was sorted out, someone came and squeegeed up the tears, and the apologetic flow resumed until dusk.
It was almost dinner time now, and people's fighting rhythms were abating. Maybe the impending darkness, the smells from the cafeteria, or their lust were starting to diminish the importance of joint checking accounts. The couples begin to join back together. I saw less women walking with their shoes in hand crying while a man with an armful of workbooks shuffled embarrassed behind her. The women looked pretty after crying, like after a rain. The men looked humble and reined in, reminded they cared about their girls and would even get down and say so.
After a pleasant dinner in the cafeteria we were off to bed early. We were separated by gender into dorms and each had a roommate. It was like checking into a hotel with two twin beds, then settling in to sleep, and then someone else comes in, says hello, and crawls into their bed and you lay there looking at each other. It was strange to meet someone for the first time this way. My roommate showed up after me. There was no TV in the room, and not a thing to do, so I had picked up a book someone had left in the room. It was called The Bible. Bi-ble. I mouthed the word, sounding it out.
I'd heard of it. But I'd never read it. I hefted the book in my hand, considering its weight. It felt like a serious book, perhaps a drama? I began flipping through. There was one of Shakespeare's plots, oh, and there was another. This book was wonderful, some parts were boring, but overall it was just incredible. Maybe some copyright problems but still just incredible.
While I was sitting up in bed reading some more my roommate came in and introduced himself.
"Have you read this?" I asked, shaking the Bible at him.
He groaned at his luck. He was a young Mexican guy and had recently graduated and become a doctor. As he prepared for bed and I read we began making uneasy conversation. It seemed a good idea to test your roommate/stranger mentally before closing your eyes in a dark room with them.
Everyone was paired off like this. His fiancee was Abby's roommate. I wondered if we might all become friends. My first impression of him was that he was conservative, and the type that might have become a doctor not through any great love of science or medicine, but because his parents had raised him to be a professional.
But I found out this was him only in the early evening. We struck up a conversation that started with the Bible, but then stayed up late talking of less holy things. Like some sort of medical werewolf he gradually turned into an incredible chatterbox, and towards the final end of our conversation talked of nothing but ghosts.
His family was Mexican and he had heard a lot of ghost stories. As everyone knows, he explained, Mexicans have special insights into the supernatural. They were the gifted and talented of the Catholic church, and led the North American league in miracles.
He could seemingly parlay any conversation into the paranormal. He told me of how at the hospital there was rumored to be a ghost that rode one elevator, and that none of the doctors would use it. No wait! He had actually seen it he remembered. He shuddered and pulled his blankets up to his chin.
I looked around the room. I was no longer worried about my roommate but was concerned about the spirits that apparently traveled with him.
"It's all right," I said, although I really wasn't sure it was. "I think we're safe in here. Let's go to bed OK? I don't think they can hurt us because I don't think they can hold solids." I finally fell asleep picturing all these young doctors at the hospital afraid to push elevator buttons and always traveling in groups, haunted by lost patients.
Abby and I passed the class and got our certificate. One week later I was lying in the bathtub with only hours to go before the wedding. For women I think that a wedding day, has actually almost nothing to do with love. It was all about guests and flowers, lists of things to do. It was about putting on a party for people.
For my part though I felt solemn, like I was going to be stuffed into a rocket and shot into outer space. I got out of the tub and slowly got dressed then laid down on the bed and waited with my hands folded like I was dressed to die. An hour before the wedding my best man came and knocked. We went to the church and threw a tennis ball we found in the parking lot back and forth until it was time.
Then, up on the altar, I did my part, which was easy. The groom can practically just be propped up, and probably has been many times, and this is all that is required. It's one of the greatest days of your life, and to show your peers and family that you're an adult joining into a union with another adult, and to also show why you've been chosen by this woman, the only thing you must do is prove you've mastered the English level of a four year old. I do, I would say proudly. I do speak English! The entire event for me was closer to an immigration exam; that I was sober, wouldn't run off, and could follow basic instructions.
Then just when I thought this couldn't be any less of a big deal someone got on the piano and Abby walked in. When she reached me we stood by each other, me as cleaned up as I ever would be, Abby looking to me hot and regal. She didn't look like a queen, she looked like the queen's daughter that made you sweat.
I began to feel the ceremony required some words, something to show how much I loved her, and would stand for all time. Something that would show the world how I felt, and that I would take care of her forever, through thick and thin, rich or poor, sickness and health. The words I came up with though, were the ones I had been scripted to say, but they felt like a genius revelation to me, as if I was the first to wait my turn, and when my turn came, to say simply, I do.
Before Abby and I could get married we had to attend a marriage seminar offered by the Catholic church. I guess you can’t just say you’re Catholic and borrow their stage to say your vows, you must show the Pope and his men you can at least cross yourself. The marriage seminar was an overnight one, and we would spend the night separated in a boys and girls dorm. There were about a hundred other people there. We began the seminar by separating into groups and filling out workbooks. It seemed pretty pointless at first, but then we reached a part where they would send couples off to answer some questionnaires together.
Seemingly basic questions began to then cause all kinds of trouble. I mean, many of us had just assumed we knew this other person and every detail about what married life would be like. But all over the grounds we couples were scattered across; the peaceful prayer garden, the grotto, the picnic benches behind the chapel, we were finding out that we barely knew one another as far as the practical matters of marriage.
We were finding out that we had never actually said to one another whether or not we wanted to have children, and if so, when? Or how many? Contentious questions like, "How much money do you believe is enough to have in your savings account before you have a child? Will you and your spouse have separate or joint checking accounts? Do you believe a woman should work? Once you’re married, is it ever OK to sleep with another woman?"
People were breaking up left and right. Abby and I were under an archway of an outdoor walkway outside the dorm. Like a lot of the couples, Abby being the female was the good student who wanted to work through the questions, where as I wanted to choose "C" for all of them.
"'C' is statistically a good guess," I explained.
"These questions aren't multiple choice," Abby said. "Come on, we have nothing else to do, try to answer."
Like all the other guys, I answered, then followed her around the campus the rest of the afternoon trying to apologize. What kind of stupid seminar was this? I joined a lane of traffic of men trying to take back their answers. There was a pileup of sobbing girls and we had to wait for twenty minutes. I made good use of my time by reworking my workbook as I imagined Mary Magdalene would have. The cry-jam was sorted out, someone came and squeegeed up the tears, and the apologetic flow resumed until dusk.
It was almost dinner time now, and people's fighting rhythms were abating. Maybe the impending darkness, the smells from the cafeteria, or their lust were starting to diminish the importance of joint checking accounts. The couples begin to join back together. I saw less women walking with their shoes in hand crying while a man with an armful of workbooks shuffled embarrassed behind her. The women looked pretty after crying, like after a rain. The men looked humble and reined in, reminded they cared about their girls and would even get down and say so.
After a pleasant dinner in the cafeteria we were off to bed early. We were separated by gender into dorms and each had a roommate. It was like checking into a hotel with two twin beds, then settling in to sleep, and then someone else comes in, says hello, and crawls into their bed and you lay there looking at each other. It was strange to meet someone for the first time this way. My roommate showed up after me. There was no TV in the room, and not a thing to do, so I had picked up a book someone had left in the room. It was called The Bible. Bi-ble. I mouthed the word, sounding it out.
I'd heard of it. But I'd never read it. I hefted the book in my hand, considering its weight. It felt like a serious book, perhaps a drama? I began flipping through. There was one of Shakespeare's plots, oh, and there was another. This book was wonderful, some parts were boring, but overall it was just incredible. Maybe some copyright problems but still just incredible.
While I was sitting up in bed reading some more my roommate came in and introduced himself.
"Have you read this?" I asked, shaking the Bible at him.
He groaned at his luck. He was a young Mexican guy and had recently graduated and become a doctor. As he prepared for bed and I read we began making uneasy conversation. It seemed a good idea to test your roommate/stranger mentally before closing your eyes in a dark room with them.
Everyone was paired off like this. His fiancee was Abby's roommate. I wondered if we might all become friends. My first impression of him was that he was conservative, and the type that might have become a doctor not through any great love of science or medicine, but because his parents had raised him to be a professional.
But I found out this was him only in the early evening. We struck up a conversation that started with the Bible, but then stayed up late talking of less holy things. Like some sort of medical werewolf he gradually turned into an incredible chatterbox, and towards the final end of our conversation talked of nothing but ghosts.
His family was Mexican and he had heard a lot of ghost stories. As everyone knows, he explained, Mexicans have special insights into the supernatural. They were the gifted and talented of the Catholic church, and led the North American league in miracles.
He could seemingly parlay any conversation into the paranormal. He told me of how at the hospital there was rumored to be a ghost that rode one elevator, and that none of the doctors would use it. No wait! He had actually seen it he remembered. He shuddered and pulled his blankets up to his chin.
I looked around the room. I was no longer worried about my roommate but was concerned about the spirits that apparently traveled with him.
"It's all right," I said, although I really wasn't sure it was. "I think we're safe in here. Let's go to bed OK? I don't think they can hurt us because I don't think they can hold solids." I finally fell asleep picturing all these young doctors at the hospital afraid to push elevator buttons and always traveling in groups, haunted by lost patients.
Abby and I passed the class and got our certificate. One week later I was lying in the bathtub with only hours to go before the wedding. For women I think that a wedding day, has actually almost nothing to do with love. It was all about guests and flowers, lists of things to do. It was about putting on a party for people.
For my part though I felt solemn, like I was going to be stuffed into a rocket and shot into outer space. I got out of the tub and slowly got dressed then laid down on the bed and waited with my hands folded like I was dressed to die. An hour before the wedding my best man came and knocked. We went to the church and threw a tennis ball we found in the parking lot back and forth until it was time.
Then, up on the altar, I did my part, which was easy. The groom can practically just be propped up, and probably has been many times, and this is all that is required. It's one of the greatest days of your life, and to show your peers and family that you're an adult joining into a union with another adult, and to also show why you've been chosen by this woman, the only thing you must do is prove you've mastered the English level of a four year old. I do, I would say proudly. I do speak English! The entire event for me was closer to an immigration exam; that I was sober, wouldn't run off, and could follow basic instructions.
Then just when I thought this couldn't be any less of a big deal someone got on the piano and Abby walked in. When she reached me we stood by each other, me as cleaned up as I ever would be, Abby looking to me hot and regal. She didn't look like a queen, she looked like the queen's daughter that made you sweat.
I began to feel the ceremony required some words, something to show how much I loved her, and would stand for all time. Something that would show the world how I felt, and that I would take care of her forever, through thick and thin, rich or poor, sickness and health. The words I came up with though, were the ones I had been scripted to say, but they felt like a genius revelation to me, as if I was the first to wait my turn, and when my turn came, to say simply, I do.
