Slide

Taj breakfast.  Two hours until the Civic Centre.  Again, no thoughts other than for the day to play itself out.  No looking back, and it feels fuckin’ excellent.

Always the last minute complications and misinterpretations and phone calls, the herding of cats as part of the story.  The inexplicable drycleaning delays and the Inspector-General security uncovering a flaw in Sandy’s timing.  Was just about to add that weather seems to have cooperated, except in checking there’s now a 50% chance of showers at noon?  Mirriam also forgot about the nails, so our Tongan waitress is checking with the ladies.  The purple colour will not suit, but is a memory.

No matter.  It will all work itself out.  All of it.  How?  It’s a mystery.  Imagine this day, pre-pandemic.  Imagine this moment and all that came afterward, pre-Europa.  It is to laugh.  Adorable J, champion of randomness, lover of strange capers, embarking on the (second) greatest undiscovered country escapade, with As You Like It humming in my ears and laughter coursing through every good thing.  Even as you have tried (and often failed) this week to maintain a Zen-like equanimity in face of everything.

That lyric has been running through my head since this scheme was hatched.  The Goo Goo Dolls is appropriate, as is the song title.  Do you wanna get married?  Yes.  Yes I said yes I will Yes.