In Between Days
Just got word that an acquaintance, who recently returned to her parents home in India, will be getting married in July.
I am very happy for her for sure!
Yet it's a strange feeling....I've had many friends from India over the years (a consequence of life in central New Jersey) and their lives are so very much more Traditional than American lives. Shortly, her time as a career girl in the U.S. will be a wonderful and fun memory as she settles into the responsibilities of being a wife and mother in that culture.
It is so very different over there than it is over here.
Her marriage is another signal that things are changing around me...that, and another friend moving away.
There's a part of me that truly hates change. I like when things are stable. Right now, there is a sense of all, including me, is in flux.
I've been looking hard at what I want out of life--a lot harder than I had in the even the recent past. I can see Where I Want to be sitting on the horizon, like the Emerald City--but I can't figure out how to get there any more than the Tin Man, Lion, Scarecrow and Dorothy could figure out.
So close, yet so far.
Like India.
I'd love to go to my friend's wedding--to be part of the big, lavish festival that are many Hindu weddings. I'd love to be part of something so grand and traditional--that I've seen in pictures of my other wonderful friends. Hindu weddings are full of pagentry and people--so many to be responsible to and answer to. Marriage over there is serious stuff, and involves everyone. A lot more serious than I think we sometimes see it over here--where divorce, if you don't have shared property, is a pretty easy thing. And where relationships, in general, are spoken about more in the vernacular of individual choice and pursuit of happiness than in hardnosed and biting terms like Duty and Responsibility.
I am sitting in that field of poppies. I'm without companions, and still trying to cross over. Dorothy alone. Trying to figure out how to get over the hill.
I am in between life destinations.
And my friend in India is planning her wedding--coming up so fast on July 12. She is in her own field of poppies...half a world away...in between life destinations too.
I am very happy for her for sure!
Yet it's a strange feeling....I've had many friends from India over the years (a consequence of life in central New Jersey) and their lives are so very much more Traditional than American lives. Shortly, her time as a career girl in the U.S. will be a wonderful and fun memory as she settles into the responsibilities of being a wife and mother in that culture.
It is so very different over there than it is over here.
Her marriage is another signal that things are changing around me...that, and another friend moving away.
There's a part of me that truly hates change. I like when things are stable. Right now, there is a sense of all, including me, is in flux.
I've been looking hard at what I want out of life--a lot harder than I had in the even the recent past. I can see Where I Want to be sitting on the horizon, like the Emerald City--but I can't figure out how to get there any more than the Tin Man, Lion, Scarecrow and Dorothy could figure out.
So close, yet so far.
Like India.
I'd love to go to my friend's wedding--to be part of the big, lavish festival that are many Hindu weddings. I'd love to be part of something so grand and traditional--that I've seen in pictures of my other wonderful friends. Hindu weddings are full of pagentry and people--so many to be responsible to and answer to. Marriage over there is serious stuff, and involves everyone. A lot more serious than I think we sometimes see it over here--where divorce, if you don't have shared property, is a pretty easy thing. And where relationships, in general, are spoken about more in the vernacular of individual choice and pursuit of happiness than in hardnosed and biting terms like Duty and Responsibility.
I am sitting in that field of poppies. I'm without companions, and still trying to cross over. Dorothy alone. Trying to figure out how to get over the hill.
I am in between life destinations.
And my friend in India is planning her wedding--coming up so fast on July 12. She is in her own field of poppies...half a world away...in between life destinations too.
posted by Tish Grier at 4:21 PM
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