"I love you where you go"

unfurled hands ready to lose and gain, and a story of a wedding

The Fairy Queen Takes an Airy Drive in a Light Carriage, a Twelve–in–hand, drawn by Thoroughbred Butterflies by Richard Doyle, 1870, Original from The MET Museum, Public Domain

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Dear Friends,

Today I’m overjoyed because today I’ll host a wedding ceremony, una boda, in my backyard for my friend and carpenter from Veracruz, Mexico, J. He said they didn’t need anything special, didn’t want to be any fuss. Just a place to get married, witnesses and a few friends, and could I be the minister and sign the license? Yes! O joy. So he came to help clean up the backyard, brought his trailer and helped me carry all the rain-sodden cardboard boxes, break down the rotten wood of the sagging old friendly green picnic table and cart off my dead piles of branches.

Today the trees will be decorated with papel picado. The new picnic table has a white tablecloth and candles on pillars. Their names are strung across the tree they’ll stand under. We went to the supermarket and ordered a surprise strawberry cake with J + M on it in frosting, and helium balloons that say I Love You. My mom is recovering from a small surgery and fully rallied for this adventure.

Neighbors in my Austin Buy Nothing group rose to the occasion when I posted asking for decor. I drove around and went into the garages of women I’d never met who gave wedding plates and napkins, lent a gold archway, a board with little gold letters to put the names on, gave a robin’s egg blue table to hold flowers, candles, a set of terra cotta cups, paper flowers. Each neighbor flushed with the memory of her own marriage ceremony and happy to share.

My mom bought a small bouquet of yellow roses for the bride to hold. My friend Evy will take pictures with her camera on a tripod. I put two extra leaves in the dining table and screwed together two extra chairs. It will be 104 outside, even under the shade of the oak tree, so we’ll toast with champagne inside, Gracias a la Vida by Mercedes Sosa on the stereo, when they have their rings on.

I called my friend J to let him know the backyard will look like a wedding. The more real and nuptial the wedding looks in their photos, the more weight they might carry with a petition for spouse immigration. He said he’ll get dressed up in his best cowboy hat, his big gold belt buckle and shined boots; M will be in a surprise dress.

When J was building out my kitchen and the rooms my mom lives in now, he and his love slept in a spare bedroom on an air mattress, the house full of tools, the floors covered with brown paper and sawdust. They are always together, when she is not working her 10-hour day as an upholstering seamstress. Rather than drive to their trailer an hour and a half out of town, they slept in my half-made house for two months as he made it whole. They cooked on a barbecue grill and filled the rooms with the radio.

I treasure a friendship that bridges language, culture, upbringing, gender, sexual orientation, class. We can learn from each other with every conversation. He has given me so many gifts, just this month installing a handrail for my Mom to walk safely; putting in grab bars for the tub; unloading her Uhaul with his guys and bringing a six pack of her favorite beer.

I can call on him at any hour and I know he’ll always answer in a welcoming yell of friendship. He can call on me at any hour and anytime he needs something done in English, forms, computer navigation, calling offices, doing his taxes, ordering gifts online, he comes over for a cafecito and we get it done. The mysterious gold of trust is discovered anywhere. It is an honor to shower confetti hearts and wedding rice upon a friend. Today, I am happy. I hope you, too, can feel the nearby joy.

Fuck ICE, love your friends and hold them close. Gracias a la vida…

xo,

Abe