Iowa Caucuseseseseseses

They are over. Now I can drive downtown without fear of running over a politician or a future president or a CNN crew. It was getting pretty ridiculous.

I once rode my bike (age 14) into a neighbor's Cadillac limo- that neighbor was the Secretary of State of Illinois at the time and joked that I would never get a driver's license in the state of Illinois- which I never did (we moved to Iowa). Then he got elected governor of Illinois AND then was convicted of corruption. Hello George Ryan. My bike was totaled and I have a huge scar on my knee. Never mind his car was parked.

Anyway, I developed an irrational fear that I would run over a future president with all of CNN watching. I am glad they are gone, gone, gone. And they were, this morning on the first planes out of here.

Fine, it is very sad but that sums up my feeling this time around. When I studied American political history, recent (as in 1940-present) elections were thoroughly dissected and I lost my faith in the whole caucus/primary 2 party dominated system. Though the results last night were interesting, the news stations declared a winner and the politicians were giving victory speeches before all the precincts had reported.

Edited to add: As an additional observation: more Iowans want Rudy Giuliani (4,059), who came in 6th for the R's, for president over Barack Obama (940) who came in 1st for the D's. Maybe its just that more Republicans caucus?

Edited to add more: I'm an idiot. Apparently D's list delegates and R's actually count votes. Doh.

Nine Years Ago Today

Nine years ago today I married my best friend. Officially, with a minister and a crowd of people and all the trimmings that two twenty-year-old kids could afford. (Surprising most, our wedding cost less than $900, considerably less. Dress, cake, flowers and the like were made and borrowed by and from family. The reception hall was bartered for (would have been $400). I'm not sure where the money was spent exactly. I know we paid for staff to serve the punch and cake and clean up. My bouquet was real. I paid for the children attendant's clothing and my bridesmaid dresses.....ok, you get the idea.) It was a beautiful, stunning, made people cry wedding. In the middle of a blizzard. Most people that could come were those within walking distance of the gallery. Luckily, my out of town relatives were staying near by and the rest of our invite list were neighbors (neighborhood art gallery/theatre was our location). The minister and piano player were both neighbors too.

In retrospect, I think that the reason our wedding ceremony felt so intimate was that these people were not strangers or distant cousins or work acquaintances- they were instead the very people that we lived in community with, who would be supporting us through friendship and as mentors in our first (and many) years of marriage. The minister sensed this and used it in her sermon. (She also wrote it into our vows, and so we promised, never to hang wallpaper together. Never have.)

Marriage is hard work. We've had some good and bad times. This last house restoration tested us in ways that we could not foresee then. What got us through was luck, hard work, and each other. Those people who promised to support us back in 1999, really have- even though we moved from that community in 2000 across town.

I began this post intending to write about us as two teenagers in love, me with purple hair, an English major and Dear Husband, a punk rock skateboarding drummer- but really our marriage is more than an evolution of two people sharing lives. It is a tribute to those who support us as well.

How far we have come, how far we have to go. We are blessed to make the journey in good company. :)

3000?!?!

Wow. 3000 visitors since I started tracking in September. That just amazes me. I have about 30 regular readers for each new post. I'm not sure if that means rss feeds. I was so nervous about blogging and it is just so mind boggling how easily I slipped into this community and felt comfortable.

Here's to 3000! WOW.

Final Release

"Consider the lilies" is the only biblical command I have ever obeyed. --Emily Dickinson

So, through this all I may have sounded like a neurotic mess. Perhaps. My total perspective vortex swirls with my inability to see things in their context, ie. I tend to magnify the little things out of proportion and hang onto them them longer than is good.

So what next?

What comes after release?

Embrace.

Embrace those I love, the life we have chosen, the path we are happily stomping and dancing on.

Take it slow.

Consider the lilies. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin.... (Matthew 28).

That same section of verse also talks about how you cannot serve two masters and love them both. Indeed. Mine are clear. My family and my career. I realize that I've craved an external label to give me self worth: architectural historian, curator, professor.....and somehow forgotten the simple but powerful: mother, wife, sister, friend. A job does not define who I am, I do. Love does.

That's why I love the Harry Potter series so much: love defines the hero, is his super power that defeats all evil. In the end his simple act of fretting over his young child's worries, his fatherhood, demonstrates the subtle and powerful ways love manifests. Some people hated that ending, while I saw it as a shining tribute to the entire series. They don't say what career he ended up in, just that he is father and husband and friend. Those are the roles that matter in the end.

So for me, I need to embrace my life and not cringe away from it, not hold myself to impossible standards, and just like the lilies.....in all weather, dance and play and grow.

Here's to 2008 and all the wonders it holds!