My son and (now) daughter-in-law got married recently, in the beautiful Bitterroot Valley of Montana. Martin and Bess’s celebration was lovely and joyous, but during the weekend—their weekend—I could never quite shake the terrible knowledge of what had happened one week earlier, when the horrific events in Israel and Gaza began to unfold. A mélange of photographs and videos from this latest Middle Eastern tragedy played like an infinite loop in my brain—so much blood and suffering, another example of seemingly intractable hatred and rage writ large across the face of the world. Although the two events differed tremendously in scale, emotion, and geography, their temporal proximity meant that for a while they were inextricably linked in my mind and heart. I still am haunted by this aching juxtaposition: on one hand a small celebration of love, on the other a huge conflagration of death and despair. Autumnal weather in Montana can be unpredictable and sometimes harsh—snow and freezing rain are not out of the question—but the wedding weekend was perfect, as was the venue, which included a renovated barn and large ranch house with the most spectacular screened-in porch I’ve ever seen. During the wedding ceremony the guests looked west, toward a hayfield graced by Sandhill Cranes earlier in the day. Beyond the fields: a line of cottonwoods tracking the river and then the eastern scarp of the Bitterroot Mountains rising five thousand feet above the valley, with a dusting of fresh snow on the highest peaks, broad swatches of alpine larch burning to gold, and a parallel series of great gray canyons slicing the range, falling into the lush bottomlands. Martin and Bess and the celebrant (Bess’s brother Sam, freshly ordained by the Universal Life Church) stood before us, and the afternoon’s glory: mountain and valley, sunlight and shadow, everything laved by a gentle southerly breeze. Sam read a long, touching, and very funny poem that he’d written about Martin and Bess’s “story.” His delivery was perfect and he had everyone laughing. As he read his poem, the guests passed a small bowl holding the wedding rings from person to person. After Sam finished with his poem Martin and Bess read the vows they’d written for one another, exchanged rings, and kissed. And so, their marriage was blessed—by the ceremony, by the guests, and by the beautiful day. I’ll admit to a few tears of joy. And then the party: tasty hors d'oeuvres, a “beer canoe” and open margarita bar, plus an hour of square dancing with music by the Wood Hogs. Dinner (a delicious taco bar) followed in the large barn, and then dessert and more dancing, this time in the former hayloft of the barn, with music by DJ Chris (Definitely not my gig.) The party lasted until 1:00, although I flamed out at 10:00, done in by a chronic lack of sleep, the pre-wedding setup, a morning run, and one too many trips to the margarita bar. A dangerous business, that. The wedding guests were a mix of family and friends: a few geezers like me, Martin’s mom, and Bess’s parents, plus a smattering of middle-aged folks. Some young children added their entropic energy to the mix, but the crowd was weighted toward folks in their twenties and thirties, mostly Martin’s wildland fire fighting buddies and Bess’s friends from the Missoula area, where she’d grown up. Folks came from as far away as Kenya, Flagstaff, New York, Massachusetts, and Mississippi. It was an eclectic but happy gathering, energized by the music, the beautiful setting, and of course the wedding’s romantic spirit. So much raucous, happy noise. So many shining faces. And yet, beyond Martin and Bess's wedding, the specter of humanity’s grief as it played out in Israel and Gaza. . . But in partial reaction to that tragedy, I'll cling to an idea - a faith - that my friend Ralph Black recently mentioned: that somehow, in some infinitesimally small yet vital way, events like Martin and Bess’s wedding stand as an antidote to the hatred and violence that plague our world. In such celebrations we rise above the worst aspects of our humanness—or rather we express what’s best in our species. I’d like to believe that for one afternoon and evening in the Bitterroot Valley a collection of people—about one hundred and twenty-five of us—put aside our individual failures and frailties, our petty resentments and worries, our collective tendencies toward tribalism and fear. I’d like to believe that for at least for a few short hours everyone at the wedding, whether eating in the barn, dancing in the hayloft, or standing around the fire pit, beneath a huge and glittering night sky, was deeply happy. I’d like to think that for a time we all were infused with optimism and hope (which are not the same thing)—for Martin and Bess, for our poor and not-so-poor selves, for the sum of our precarious futures. I don’t want to attach undue significance (beyond the strictly personal) to one small celebration in the Bitterroot Valley, which felt so far removed from the strife of the world—even if it really wasn’t. Neither do I want to imply that there was some Newtonian-like psychic mechanism at work, a direct, cause-and-effect impact on the world, like a delusion born out of a “Give Peace a Chance” maudlin sentimentality. But this is what I thought at the time, and still do: that in our celebration, we (collectively and individually) embraced the hope inherent in Martin and Bess’s marriage ceremony—their commitment to one another, wherever it might take them. And I imagined that, concurrently with Martin and Bess’s wedding, similar events were occurring all over the world, among all the endless conflicting countries, religions, tribes, political factions—among all those “others,” be they Serbians and Bosnians, Muslims and Hindus, Ukrainians and Russians, Tutsis and Hutus, Israelis and Palestinians, MAGA-types and progressives, on and on and fucking on. In practical terms, perhaps my belief—my hope—may be worth next to nothing. But this is what I imagined on that evening, as people laughed and danced and ate and hugged one another and perhaps drank a bit too much: that the goodness inherent in Martin and Bess’s wedding, its expression of love, radiated out from the Bitterroot Valley like circles on still water, rippling south over Lost Trail Pass and into Idaho, west over the ragged crest of the Bitterroot Mountains, east over the Sapphire Mountains, and north past Missoula, carrying their message of hope into the beautiful and bloody and aching world.
3 Comments
Maggie McQuaid
11/6/2023 12:48:00 pm
Life goes on, Chris. We can't change anything, really, in the macrosphere. All we can do is be aware of what's happening right here around us, celebrate joy when we get the chance, and try to do some good to somebody else every day. That's what I learned in the Peace Corps 47 years ago, and it still works for me. Congratulations to you and your family for this wonderous event, and keep your eyes open for a chance to pay the wonder forward. Lots of love.
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Chris Norment
11/7/2023 08:39:03 am
Wise words, Maggie. Hope you are settling in, way down in Tucson.
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AuthorI am a professor emeritus of Environmental Science and Ecology at SUNY Brockport. What began in 2017 as a sabbatical blog continues in a haphazard way, as the spirt moves me and time allows. The focus, though, remains the same - the natural world, in all of its complexity and beauty, and our relation to it. Archives
November 2023
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