Of Weddings and Weather and Virginia

It’s been a busy few days for America. Friday morning the president won the Nobel for helping people work toward peace, conservatives went crazy again, and we bombed the moon. Twice. But perhaps the most important event was Saturday, between the Charlottesville airport and the always resplendent EconoLodge, when I noticed a giant red “C” adorned vaguely like a chicken. My heart thrilled and my stomach flipped and, for the first time since June, I enjoyed the culinary sensation that is Chick-fil-A.

But first we need to go back a few states. There was snow in Minneapolis. From the sky I thought it was frost, but then I stepped over a pile that had blown into the breezeway. My layover was fairly long, so I left the airport and walked around for a bit. I’m not a huge fan of Minneapolis, but it was cold and I think snow is lovely, even when it’s patchy, so I was happy.

I was in the process of flying to Virginia for my cousin Peter’s wedding. I had left LA around midnight, accompanied by perfect weather and a slanted half moon, and I was in Minnesota until sunrise. Speaking of which, if you’re ever flying at sunrise, try to get a window seat. Watching new colors chase the night as the sun works its way toward the clouds will change your life from 30,000 feet.

There were lots of clouds on that stretch. At first they were separate, each unique, but eventually they grew into a single, dimpled mass that was constantly moving and reinventing itself. It was beautiful.

A few people have mentioned lately that I am easily excited. Maybe not excited in the way you might think, because I don’t jump around and apparently I don’t smile very often, but excited in the sense that I overuse words like awesome and beautiful and favorite, and my Top Five list for any category is likely to include at least thirty items. They say this, “easily excited,” like it’s an insult, like my taste is not discerning enough for them, and the implication is that the list of things that amuse and amaze me will be much shorter as I grow older. But I’ve decided that I see it as a compliment. I like being consistently awed, and I like seeing beauty and wonder all over the place, and I think it’s okay that there aren’t very many movies or books I absolutely dislike. If growing up means becoming more cynical and pointing out faults in everything, then maybe I’ll just be immature.

Sorry. I wrote all that after calling the clouds beautiful and feeling defensive about overusing that word. Back to Minnesota.

Actually, to Detroit. That’s where I flew from Minneapolis. Have you been to the Detroit airport? I decided to take the walkway instead of the shuttle. The moving sidewalk contraption thing went through this incredibly long tunnel, in which the ceiling and walls lit up in different shapes and colors that were constantly moving and changing, and terrific music was playing really loudly. My thanks to Detroit, for wanting to give its passersby a little aesthetic pleasure on our way to the plane. It was beautiful. There, I said it again.

And then to Charleston, Virginia. When we came out of the clouds we were right at the mountains outside of Charleston, which were smoky and blue ridgey and absolutely stunning. The trees bore the tint of autumn’s beginning, and some had already sprung into full-on color. I will say it again, with all of the meaning I can muster: it was beautiful. One of the things I love about traveling is sharing little moments with strangers, and this was one of them. You could hear people all over the plane pointing out the mountains and the leaves, and everyone was smiling at each other and happy to be there.

Charleston is brilliant. The trees, the mountains, the architecture, the weather…but all of that took second place to time with family. It was so good for me to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We shared meals together, did some sightseeing, and caught up on each other’s lives. And because everyone was so generous, I never once pulled out my wallet until on my way back to California. That’s always a good thing.

We toured Monticello, which is fascinating in its history, and the University of Virginia, which is stunning in its architecture. The trivia nerd inside me loved every minute.

The highlight, of course, was the wedding. I had never met Stephanie before, but she and Peter seem a lovely match, and I enjoyed meeting her family and seeing again some friends of my own family. The ceremony was gorgeous, and the words from the rabbi were moving. We were a few hills over from Monticello, at James Monroe’s old home. The land was absolutely stunning, with the wedding and reception scattered throughout the property. You should have seen those hills at dusk, and a little bit later the stars, which I have missed so dearly in LA. And it was cold.

Oh. And as if the full meal and locally brewed beer at the reception was not brilliant enough, there was a man selling fresh, hot, made-from-scratch organic donuts. Who does that?

So my congratulations and best wishes to Peter and Stephanie, and my thanks to the families who treated us with such generosity. And to my family, it was so good for me to see you all there. I am very, very grateful for you.

Then yesterday, after seeing the university and lunching with my uncle Dan, I caught a quick flight to DC. It was an express flight, one of those where the flight attendant’s safety spiel is more lengthy than the airtime. After a couple hours at Dulles I boarded a plane back to LA, which was marked by two things of significance: the gorgeous girl in the window seat across the aisle, and the four hour conversation with the guy beside me, who was on his way home for his dad’s funeral. Both made me grateful to be a human, grateful for the spectrum of emotions and experiences, even the ugly ones, that pass through us.

It’s good to be in LA again. I think I needed a couple days away from this frustrating job search, and it was so refreshing to be around family, but I am happy to be back.

Wherever you are reading this, I hope you find some refreshment as well. I hope you find strangers to share something with, whether it’s mutual awe at mountains and trees, or a painful conversation about fathers and death and God, or simply repeated glances and smiles across an aisle resulting in nothing more than silent flirting.

And remember love.