lifestyle musings of a literary clown (7)

The only emotional gay at the wedding. 

Or

Shifting energies and the three moments that moved me to tears during one six-hour event. 

Moment 1: Self-reflection in the back of a van. 

“Okay so to turn it on, you take this screwdriver and jam it in that slot, and then you just twist it around till you hear the engine start.” Said one of my oldest friends, Tara, as we sat, parked in the middle of a side street in D.C. Tara was giving me a crash course in how to drive her 15 seat passenger van, Billie. Billie had recently been stolen and used as a getaway vehicle for a slew of ATM robberies. Like many of us after this strange year, Billie was a little worse for the wear. All things considered, she was still a solid road warrior, and Tara was letting me borrow her for the day to drive to the Chesapeake Bay, some 45 miles away, and attend the first wedding I had been to since I secretly married two of my best friends last summer. 

“Okay. Got it.” I said. Wondering if I had in any way ‘got it’. 

“I’m sure you’re going to have a great time at this wedding, plus, with the tinted windows, you can change into your suit in the back when you get there.” She said with a smile before leaping out on 18th street. “Have fun. And don’t crash. She’s a big girl.”

I was headed to the wedding of one of my best friends and roommates from boarding school. Half our life ago, we would fall asleep in our bunk beds talking about everything from which girl in school we wanted to marry (it took me a while to admit I was gay) to who our favorite X-man was. (Obviously, it’s a tie between Magneto and Mystique.) Being able to attend his wedding felt like a full-circle moment, from pubescent dreams to actualization. All week I had been giddy with anticipation about attending as it was also my first event outside of my immediate pod in over a year.

So when I arrived at the venue, I shoved the screwdriver into the steering column till the engine died, climbed into the back, and fought my way into my suit. I checked myself out in the rearview mirror, finished adjusting my tie, and promptly burst into tears. I just wasn’t ready to go to a party. The reality of 6 hours of socializing with total strangers knocked the wind out of my sail. What was I going to talk about with a room full of strangers, that manic episode last month where I made 12 paintings in three hours?

So I sat for ten minutes in Billie the van, feeling sorry for myself. Slowly this wave of instability began to ebb. I looked around this van, which frankly has been through harder things than myself this year. Hadn’t Billie gotten me safely to the Chesapeake Bay without even having a set of keys? Yes, and she never even complained about it. Like Billie, we’re all emerging from this pandemic time with fresh wounds. Perhaps some social exposure therapy would help me. I felt my energy shift, ‘It’s okay to be ragged these days,’ I told myself as I put the screwdriver in my breast pocket, opened the door, and walked toward the reception, letting my tears dry in my mask. 

Moment 2: Love will make you weep. 

I’ve never met the bride, but I can tell you this, she’s got a great relationship with her parents. Now I admit I’m a sentimental man; I cry during emotional commercials and Oscar acceptance speeches, but I started weeping deep, ugly tears when I saw how widely her father was smiling as the bride began walking down the aisle. I’ve missed being a part of these moments and celebrations of life. Time has felt so strange and disconnected to me lately, like I’m adrift in the seasons, unsure if a day, a week, or a month has gone by. Spending so much time alone and without significant social events and holidays to demark the passage of time, I find it challenging and almost impossible to understand in any meaningful way how long this year of isolation has been. 

Yet, in watching her father smile, I realized my perspective has been all wrong. I’ve been focused on what I’ve been missing out on, not what I have been experiencing. Thinking of the moments I’ve missed, not the memories I’ve made. Sure, this year has been a strange one, but it’s been filled with beautiful and intimate celebrations. I need to channel her dad’s energy. Beam my love of life to those around me so intensely that even strangers are reduced to tears. That’s how we come out of this time more robust, in being open and loving, not hiding in the back of 15 seater passenger vans. 

Moment 3: Dance till your body moves you. 

I’ve not danced to a live band since the fall. But as soon as the wedding band started in with a solid cover of ‘Uptown Funk,’ I found myself pulled out towards that dance floor. Being that I was driving Billie home in less than two hours, I was stone-cold sober. At first, I felt awkward, surrounded by a sea of dancing drunks. I quickly realized it has nothing to do with sobriety levels and everything to do with how comfortable I felt in my body. At the start of the pandemic, I had pontificated loudly about how dancing is engraved into our bodies’ cells, saying that a season off from movement would hardly matter. Standing on that dance floor, I realize just how wrong I was. I found myself unsure how to move, let loose and give myself over to the energy or live dancing. 

At first, my movements were stilted. I tried a few spins and had trouble landing gracefully. How had I done this for so many years without thinking, letting dancing be an extension of my emotional body? 

Three songs in, I was just as awkward. My awkward flamingo-like dancing continued for some thirty minutes until the band came on the mic with an announcement. 

“For this next song, we’re going slow with an old favorite, ‘Stand By Me’.” everyone cooed and awed, but being that I came to the wedding alone, I suddenly found myself standing in a room of couples, the only gay at the wedding. ‘Whatever Shelton’ I told myself. ‘Embrace your inner clown.’ So I took off my tie and held it in my hand. As the sax kicked in, I started spinning it around, a sad excuse for a ribbon dancing moment. It didn’t take my body long to remember I love dancing with a prop. My tie was my lover, my friend, my happiness. Freed from thinking about my own body for the first time on that dance floor, I found my way back to dancing as a form of play. I twirled around faster and faster, a sea of yellow and blue frothing within and around me.

By the time the song ended, I had found myself truly winded. But better than that, I felt relaxed. I had remembered that dancing’s nothing more than playing with movement. As soon as I realized it, my body knew it as truth, and for the third time that day, I cried, not tears of fear or longing but those of remembrance, of coming home to myself.

An hour later, in a deluge of rain, I took the screwdriver from my pocket and pried my way back into Billie the van. However, after opening the door, I just stood there, letting the rain mix with my sweat as it washed me clean. It has been an emotional day, and I felt that the earth was echoing my experience, gifting me this final reminder that tears, like the rain, nourish the body and are needed to grow.