Today’s accompanying tune: “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty
We packed the car under an orange sky, the glow so otherworldly yet painfully of this world, the one we’ve created. Ash drifted down from the sky, floating so delicately before landing on the hood of the car, the parking lot, our heads. If it wasn’t so devastating, it might have been beautiful.
We dutifully collected all of the things we deemed important for the weekend, one we had first dreamed of and then, slowly, had come to resemble the sole life raft among the turbulent waters of the year. The singular non-calamitous event of the year. The only thing we allowed ourselves to look forward to. Our wedding.
We left the Bay Area and its hazy skies on a Thursday in September, heading for what we hoped were blue skies near Lake Tahoe. A handful of friends were meeting us there, enough to provide witness, sign the marriage certificate we had acquired over Zoom, keep up the appearances of the happy occasion. Enough to make us forget that we hadn’t seen many people since March. Enough to make use of a handful of the hundreds of tote bags we had purchased for our original celebration, the one with nearly 150 people in a lodge that would soon succumb to fire itself. Enough to mask the pain, the agony, the rage of the year, even if only for a few days.
We’d been planning our wedding since early 2019, hoping the extra long engagement would keep the stress at bay. By the time we reached the lockdowns of March 2020, we’d sent save the dates, picked out the menu, ordered my dress and his suit. We’d picked music and hired a photographer and struggled through the logistics of an ice cream-only dessert menu for 150 people. By June, it was clear that version of our wedding would not be possible, couldn’t be possible. So we moved on to Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, and, eventually, Plan E. We salvaged what we could — to this day I am still swimming in tote bags — and started over with the rest, determined to keep moving. If I stopped moving, stopped planning, stopped and processed all that was happening, all that was continuing to happen, I would surely have drowned.
As we climbed through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, I got an alert on my phone — for the first time in history, the state of California was closing all public lands due to extreme fire risk. National forests across the state barred entry from those looking for a reprieve with an army of orange cones and stern looking law enforcement officials. My heart sank — we had scoped out a hike a few months earlier where we wanted to say our vows, among the towering granite walls and sturdy pines with the impossibly blue lake far, far below. Now, that too was cancelled. We’d need to figure out Plan F.
Our friends arrived and we tried to laugh it off, yet another hurdle in the now comical series of unfortunate events even Mr. Snicket would scoff at for being a bit too over the top. We unloaded the car, paying special attention to our rings, our second set, after the first had been stolen out of our building’s mail room back in July. Now was not the time to blow it. After everyone settled in, we set out to find an alternative location, something simple and open. We scoured each vista, every beach, turned away at each chance by law enforcement or those damned orange cones. We rounded the bend, climbed the road that hugs the southwestern side of the lake, trying not to think of what would happen if we couldn’t find anything, trying not to think about the versions of ourselves living out the several iterations of this day we had planned. One parking lot was open, no cones or uniforms in sight. The ranger confirmed that, yes, it would still be open tomorrow. By then, the smallest grace, a miracle.
I crept out onto the deck the next morning, eager to greet the sun with the same ferocity and determination that had gotten us there. I sat among the birds, their songs wafting over the smokey meadow, greeting the day like any other. The stillness, the peace, the gentle ins and outs, a balm. I had stopped moving forward only for a second, but I wasn’t drowning. No, I was very much alive, against all odds. We were here, our friends were here, we were going to make it. Things might be, dare I say, okay?
We piled into the car, hair done, suits donned, dresses packed. The anxiety of whether we’d be stopped, asked to provide the requisite permits we very much did not have, filled the space, drifting around us and mingling with the ash that had adhered to the hood of the car. I refused to entertain the idea of getting turned away, of the scramble that would ensue, the inevitable breakdown I’d been holding in since June. It was too much, too painful, to consider. Our friend in the backseat joked that I should simply burst into tears if anyone questioned us, surely they’d take pity on us and let us through if only they knew. Thankfully, though, it never came to that, my worst fears allowed to live on another day securely firmly in the labyrinth of my mind.
We scrambled down the granite boulders surrounding the parking lot, hoping for a slice of privacy that was not to be had. My friends huddled around me while I shimmied into my dress and out of my hiking clothes, my boots the only proof of how, exactly, we had gotten here. We stood there, hand in hand, in our favorite place, with our favorite people. We told each other how much we loved each other, what we were looking forward to, how surely we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We placed the rings on each others’ fingers, we let the tears flow easily. We waved to friends and family watching via Zoom. We, finally, exhaled. We did it. We danced and ate great food and drank a bit too much and fell asleep so contented, so full of love for each other and this place and these people. It was everything, and more.
It was then that we decided to move, as we packed the car for another trip whose destination was unknown. We vowed to drive, to see where we ended up. To watch, with equal parts awe and horror, as the skies went from dingy to glowing orange to clear. We wound through the mountains on a road we had always hoped to travel together. We watched as the wooded mountains gave way to austere granite peaks framed by wide open valleys that gave way to the rounded, jumbled peaks of the Mojave desert, Joshua trees dotting the landscape. We exhaled our worries, the anxiety, the fear into the wide expanse of the desert, so willing was it to take those off our hands, off our minds, out of our hearts. As I breathed in the creosote, the yucca, the juniper, I calmed. I was still again, the birds letting me know that there is a beauty in stillness, a resilience in pause. Here was not the solution to the problems of the world, but here was where I could weather them, grow with them, become the person who now looks back on that weekend with so much grace for that scared version of herself, the one who wanted so desperately to be happy even as she was mired in anxiety and grief.
Here was where we could stay still, and keep going.
- Megan
🤍🤍🤍