Friday, August 31, 2012

How Do We Find the Right One?


How Do We Find the Right One?

In their aubergine gowns the bridesmaids wafted down the aisle one by one, like individual blooms released from a bouquet of violets.  I watched them pass by with a serene smile on my face. They were followed by a tow-headed flower girl who couldn’t stop grinning as she scattered white rose petals along in her wake.  She made me giggle. Then the tiny ring bearer, so solemn and serious as he bore his two golden treasures upon a silk pillow, clearly giving his assignment the grave attention he felt it deserved.  I watched him slowing march past with completely dry eyes.  But then, despite biting my tongue and digging my newly manicured nails into the palms of my hands, when the doors at the back of the church flew open and the beautiful bride stepped out on the arm of her father, I cried.  I couldn’t help myself.  I am such a sucker for weddings.

American society seems increasingly disdainful of ceremony.   From music to attire, the modern Sunday morning church service more closely resembles a pep rally than the worshipful ritual of days gone by.  Even current ecclesiastical architecture seems to regard the holy spires of old as too parochial for modern life, choosing instead to be indistinguishable from the gymnasium, arena or concert hall.   It is rare that we dress to  reflect the holy joy of an occasion and join together to witness a sacrament as old as time but I am grateful a wedding still commands that respect.   We stand as one to honour the bride as she enters the church.  We silently watch the exchange of the rings.  We hear the age old vows newly spoken once again.  We see the first official kiss.  Is there a sweeter symbol of love in a cynical world?  I think society longs for this ceremony in ways that go far beyond curious fascination.  One need only look to the royal wedding of last year to see that this cherished ceremony is one that radiates joyful hope to a great many more that the ones sitting in the chosen church.
After the wedding, I stood outside the congregation of friends and watched as the newly married couple greeted their guests and posed for photographs.  Their happiness filled the air like a fragrance.  Not for the first time, it occurred to me that true love is such a miracle.  In the sea of souls on this over crowded planet, two people managed to find each other and be blessed with the sort of love that longs for forever, that begs to be sealed with an unending circle of gold?  Well, no word but “miracle” could possibly fit.  There are those who claim there is an infinite number of potential soul mates out there for each one of us, but the romantic in me chafes at that notion.  I cannot even imagine a life with someone other than The Songwriter.  But even given the possibility of multiple happy choices, how do we go about finding them?  I realize this is a question with a multitude of answers, any perusal of any bookshop will tell me that.  And though I have now been happily married for too long to allow me to convincingly lie about my age, I have no advice to give.  I certainly followed no plan.  I fell in love.  I got married.  And it worked out, beautifully.  Why?  I have no idea.  There’s that word, miracle, once again.
I thought about all this all the way home, remembering recent conversations with some of my single friends, often hilarious tales of first dates and last dates, tales that made me realize how dreadfully out of touch I am with the fundamentals of the courting process today.  We seem to have traveled so far from the day when the rules were as simple as “never call a boy, wait for him to call you”.  As an unabashed lover of weddings and happily ever after, I wonder... how did my readers meet their true loves?  Did you find your soul mate the first time out?  Or did you perhaps have more than one?  Did you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you found your prince, or princess?
 I love love stories.  
Tell me yours.
And while you’re thinking about it, take a look at how it used to be. 
Courtesy of my childhood idol, Hayley Mills.

Update:  All your stories are wonderful!
Keep them coming!

76 comments:

  1. I went to see a college friend living with a group of guys, and out walks this long-haired guy with a armload of kittens. The very next week, I hitchhiked back to be with him and we've been together for forty years since then. PS - don't tell my kids this story.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Pamela:
    Old fashioned elegance, how we yearn for it too. As you say, the world seems to be for ever casual and special occasions which demand an effort to be made seem to be becoming as unusual as a sighting of the Dodo.

    It is, we agree, something of a miracle that a true soul mate can be found in the madding crowd of humanity. And, how we must cherish that love if we are fortunate to find it.

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  3. My dh and I met long ago on and have been married many happy years. After graduate school I flew across country to start a job search and met him right away, while we were sitting on the grassy campus lawn.

    ReplyDelete
  4. About a year after moving to England, I joined a running club. I could keep going for an hour or more, but not very fast. Bill, having done two very hard races on consecutive weekends, decided to take the 'baby group'. I was the only member most weeks - and he ran with me for the next.two. years. It's a good way to get to know someone, I can tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My marriage grew out of a sculpture class assignment~~I needed a model for a clay armature portrait. I decided to find a subject in my next class. I went to Statistics and came up with a strong-featured, well-shaped, good-looking head/face that would be a pleasure from which to work. As I shaped the clay beneath my hands, I fell in love with the man who so sweetly obliged. I got an A on the portrait and a wonderful lifetime with my subject.

    ReplyDelete
  6. It's wonderful to hear of another happy marriage that has lasted the years. I told the story of how I met my British husband here: http://blog.sarahlaurence.com/2012/04/statistical-probability-of-love-at.html
    I'm glad that film clip is of life in the distant past!

    ReplyDelete
  7. The year was 1968. My best friend and I arranged for her boyfriend to bring his older brother to our church one Sunday as he was home from college for the summer. We were still in high school. I was in the choir which was in the front of the sanctuary and they sat right up front. I kept smiling at him and he was totally clueless what was going on. We officially met after that church service and have been together ever since, though my father tried to put a stop to it saying he was too old for me. It didn't do any good. We married in 1975. My friend and her boyfriend (my brother-in-law)? They didn't stay together through high school.

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  8. P.S. I remember that Hayley Mills' song. LOL However, I never believed in using feminine wiles or being anything but myself to attract a man. First, I'm too honest and don't like manipulation. Second, I wouldn't want him to find out later I'm not really like that! However, I still won't leave the house without makeup. Does that count for femininity? And using a set-up to meet my future husband - I don't consider that manipulation ;-)

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  9. Hello Pamela

    I loved reading your story of your miraculous meeting with the Songwriter.Continued blessings.
    I met my husband through friends and we have been married a long time.
    I have always loved fashion and enjoy dressing up.

    Helenxx

    ReplyDelete
  10. http://thistlecovefarm.blogspot.com/2012/06/you-are-never-too-old-to-set-another.html is where I tell our story. Until Dave died, last November, I never knew other people didn't have the kind of marriage we had. My heart breaks for them.
    Dave always told me, "It's my job to protect you and provide for you." I'd reply, "And it's my job to take care of you."
    Now I'm rather lost.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The wedding ceremony is alive and well in the deep south. I have helped with four of them this year. They are such a joyful occasion. It is with great pleasure that I watch these children spread their wings and learn to fly. I wish each of them a long and prosperous life.
    Karen

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow,Very nice post.Thanks for sharing the blog.Keep on update the blog.

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  13. I met my husband on a short trip to Canada. We spent five days together...talking. We discussed our values, and our hopes. After five days, as I boarded a plane back to England, he handed me a book of poems he had written and told me we were getting married; that he would come to England to get me. And he did. I emigrated in 1973, we married in 1974. It's still the best decision I ever made.

    As for ritual...I think we live in a confused age. In the misguided belief that pomp and circumstance is somehow distancing, we've adapted instead of re-thinking, and the result is a watered down, hollow version of the original that just doesn't work.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I met my true love in a disco, dancing around my handbag, as was the fashion in the seventies. My sons met their partners via the internet. We have one beautiful grandchild courtesy of Facebook!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I am beginning to think that all good things are somehow linked to Jane and Lance Hattat and your beautiful, heart-felt writing is certainly proof of that, my goodness. Of course, I have "seen you around" (isn't that just the most tacky way to say that?) but why it took so long for me to get here is beyond me. I just felt the same in finally signing up for Suze's blog--what took me so long? I will look forward to reading you. My your Edward is handsome. My Ben is a looker too--don't they bring us oodles of joy?
    With all of my Best from Provence,
    Heather

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  16. Sounds like a lovely wedding you attended, Pamela.
    I have had two very happy marriages. The first one, we met when we both worked for the same firm. We had so many interests in common.
    The second one, after my first husband died, was with the farmer, who farmed literally just over the wall from my cottage and who was a bachelor just waiting for the right woman to come along. Married bliss a second time - how lucky is that.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I had just arrived in NYC and met my husband about a week after arriving. He was introduced by a friend, the next day he called and asked me to Tea. Yes, we went to Serendipity and had tea and I feel totally completely in love with him.
    I was 20. I am much older than that now :)
    He is the Only One for me ~

    ReplyDelete
  18. I was 18 and he was 15. We met at a summer dance in between our two homes. He asked me to dance. 46 years ago. :<)

    ReplyDelete
  19. I was 19, fresh from England, and had been working in Washington,D.C. for about six months. I was in the stairwell of my office building, buying a candy bar (I was thinner then and could indulge my sweet tooth!) from a machine, when Bob came in the back door and asked the way to my boss's office. I took him back with me, and had agreed to a date on Sat. night by the time he left after his meeting........and here it is almost 50 years later! We still feel the same despite the ups and downs life throws at you..........and now and then we SHARE a candy bar!!!

    Lovely post - I always cry at weddings.
    Hugs - Mary

    ReplyDelete
  20. gorgeous post and writing. how many frogs did i have to kiss? im from the 70s - i dont about numbers hehe~~ too many!!!!!!

    it was fate we met though. we are such soul mates we call each other cell mates. amazing. glued to the hips - both married for the first time at 33 though. and my numbers far outweighed his!!!

    hayley. my love! the parent trap. i wanted to BE her!

    ReplyDelete
  21. i wore a grey blazer, wool bermuda shorts and red knee socks!
    i was 18. i was "reading" the wall street jounal, looking for the cartoon page. very intellectual.
    he walked in wearing a camel blazer and a turtleneck sweater. his smile lit up the room. i fell instantly in love. and it would have lasted til now had he not died of cancer at the age of 43. but we had 15 wonderful years together. he was 10 years older than i and i thought he hung the moon. he's somewhere out there now... waiting for me in another dimension... a soul mate for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Lovely post, Pamela. As always your words enchant me. I, too, love weddings and celebrations and traditions.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Pamela,
    What a fun post. I love the sweet formality of a wedding. There is something so promising when you see the bride and groom kiss for the first time.
    My hubby and I met while working at Disneyland, a blind date. He in his Pirates of the Caribbean costume and I in my Main Street Victorian long skirt and blouse. I swore I didn't believe in blind dates but there was something about this offer that intrigued me. We will celebrate 40 years this coming February...so lucky to have met.
    I'm enjoying your readers stories. What about you and the song writer, how did you meet?
    Karen

    ReplyDelete
  24. I found my frog when I was four years old..he was five..I didn't like him at first...a frog with glasses..who didn't like the cookies my mother baked..Hahaaa..

    Couldn't live whithout him now...fifty years later..:)

    ReplyDelete
  25. Excellent post.I want to thank you for this informative read, I really appreciate sharing this great post. Keep up your work.

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  26. Sounds like a beautiful wedding..
    My granddaughter was named Hayley after Ms. Mills..I wanted to be her, too!
    As far as a soul mate....I thought he was the one, but I was wrong..or the timing is all wrong and it will happen in another lifetime..







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I love to read your comments! Each and every one! Though I'm always reading your comments, I may not respond in the comment section. If you want to write me directly, you may do so at pamela@pamelaterry.net. Thank you for reading!