At the Reception

After the wedding, the reception. It features an Irish band, all friends of the couple, including some groomsmen. Irish bouzouki, uileann pipes, fiddle, tin whistle, guitar. They set up in a little courtyard outside the reception room. I listen for a while, then wander back inside. My radiant daughter and her husband (her husband!) are greeting the guests at each table.

The reception is at a posh banquet center north of Cincinnati. There are maybe half a dozen other wedding receptions going on at the same time in other rooms. The walls are thick and each area is far enough from the others to keep the sound from leaking through.

But you have to walk past the others to reach the restrooms. As I walk down the hallway, I have glimpses of other receptions, other lives: a darkened room with people dancing to "Rock Me like a Hurricane"; another with some kind of activity that looks like the Chicken Dance; another with some kind of ethnic music (Hispanic?) ...

After I visit the facilities, I step outside. The rain has held off all day and now it doesn't look like it will arrive before the weekend is over. Good. I take a breath of fresh air and think about the ceremony. It went off without a hitch, and I smile as I think about the two of them looking each other right in the eye and making promises as big as mountains.

I step back inside the banquet center. From now on, everything will be different. There is a tray of pink carnations in the hall, waiting for yet another reception. I steal one to give to my wife, and walk back past the other lives to the Irish music.