There are few things better than witnessing a couple's love publicly declared to friends and family. Even more so when it helps you learn something you can apply forever.
I was fortunate enough to go to a wedding over the last week out at Ardmore's Belsaas Estate. The bride, Frances, is someone I consider a friend first and a (now former!) colleague second. I didn't meet Ben before the wedding but having chatted with him during the reception, his affection was clear and that was special to witness.
The wedding was beautiful and, at times, lucky. Rain was scheduled to pour through the region on the Saturday afternoon - hardly ideal for the estate's outdoor setting. But the ceremony, led by Anna Cross, went off without a hitch and not a drop of rain fell during the wedding.
A lot of people like these occasions for different reasons. The couple's love is palpable as the bride walks down the aisle, as the groom's smile breaks through the appearance of being cool, calm and collected. As romance fills the air.
For most, this is the highlight of the weddings. Usually I'd agree, but this wedding was different. For me, the most beautiful moment didn't come from either Frances or Ben, but from the groom's mother.
She was given the task of doing a reading to start the ceremony. It touched me from the moment she started talking:
“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then
subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have
to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is
inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
"Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the
promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to
mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night
imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body.
"No, don't
blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love",
which any fool can do.
"Love itself is what is left over when being in
love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident" - Captain Corelli's Mandolin
My mind was blown. There it was. A version of love that I hadn't ever investigated before. A new day had dawned internally and I was so entranced I couldn't tell you what happened after it. I presume they eventually said yes to each other.
My intrinsic idea of love was nothing like what Ben's mother was talking about. I had no idea that there were differences between being in love, and loving someone. My idea of 'love' stems purely from pop culture, where we're saturated with high hopes, fantasies and dreams of princesses, knights on steeds and promises of eternal affection.
The reading's interpretations of volcanoes and a temporary madness were what I thought were the foundations. I was wrong.
It sounds almost crazy, especially for a 26-year-old Maori fulla. But that's what had become natural and the standard train of thought inside my head. Until the wedding.
I couldn't help but think of the last bit for a lengthy amount of time afterwards. "...this is both an art and a fortunate accident". Had there ever been a more succinct and more beautiful way to illustrate what love was, I thought.
--
It forced a change in me that I see as part of my maturation. This new thought is another step away from the naive, from the wishful and emotion-based perceptions of the world around me.
The beauty of it is you can take it a step further. Why not just limit this to love when it comes to other people. Why don't we learn to love ourselves by these very guidelines?
I've always viewed the world as three quarters full while hiding issues of my own. I guess most people do that. They're things I haven't really actively tried to shed, but things I know need addressing so as not to cultivate a fabricated volcano.
It's hard to believe but these thoughts all flowed through my mind throughout the 45 seconds or so of the reading. The mental enlightenment from those words was overwhelming but exciting, a beautiful bouquet stumbled upon along my boulevard of self-discovery.
--
Frances and Ben's wedding was beautiful for so many reasons. Not only did the wedding go off without a hitch, but the rain didn't arrive until everybody had begun enjoying themselves in the venue ahead of the reception. After dinner the dance moves were flowing, songs were belted out, photobooth shots were taken and the happiness was so tangible it was hard not to leave with a smile.
It's easy and cheesy to get poetic, to say that love can keep the elements of life away. Maybe it's more about not using love to fight off these so-called 'elements of life', but instead using it to confront, tackle and overcome them instead. Who knows.
All I know is I'll never see love and being in love the same ever again, and for me that was the greatest gift from Saturday.
Congratulations Frances and Ben.
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