wedding | The Casual Blog

December 18, 2021

Big family news, and helping animals

Our son Gabe got married last week to his sweetheart, and now Clark is our own dear daughter-in-law. The wedding took place at Atlantic Beach, NC, capping a big week of celebrations. It was great to see the happy couple plight their troth, but also to get to know Clark’s family and their friends.

We stayed near the beach, and I had a chance to get out near sunrise to see what was happening there. I enjoyed watching the shorebirds, and taking some pictures. In the early light, with the sea running in and out, and the little birds doing the same, it was challenging to get a good image.

One little peep was unusually friendly, or at least curious, and trotted right up and circled around me, too close to shoot with my long lens. Back home, I found there were quite a few bad shots, but also a few that showed things I didn’t already know of the world of these small hearty creatures.

Another little high point of the week: playing with our granddaughter Augusta. At 10 weeks, she was still a wee thing, but with big curious eyes. She seemed to like looking at patterns in fabric and being covered for an instant with her bib. She had a fabulous smile!

A few weeks earlier, we’d finally faced the fact that we just didn’t like the yellow paint we’d got for the living room last year, and got organized to change it. The next morning, painter George C. and his assistant showed up with paint, brushes and drop clothes, and put in a color called revere pewter. It was such a relief! They made the room a lot calmer and more welcoming. I checked the edges and corners, and they did a good job.

As usual at this time of year, I’ve got to think about Christmas presents for people who really don’t need anything of a material sort. Diane, my mother-in-law, who died this year, decided a few years back that her gift to us would be a contribution to the charity of our choice. We liked the idea, and tried to implement it in our family, though with only limited success.

Margaret Renkl had a good column last week encouraging contributions to regional charities that work for environmental causes. I wasn’t familiar with all of her groups, but they sounded worthwhile.

My charitable contributions especially involve animals – reducing animal cruelty and protecting endangered species and ecosystems. In case you’re interested in those problems, I’ll mention some organizations I’m supporting: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Greenpeace, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, World Wildlife Fund, Audubon Society, Ocean Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Jane Goodall Institute.

In memory of Diane, I’d also like to flag one other charity: Compassion and Choices. Its focus is patient rights and individual choice at the end of life, including access to medical aid in dying. There’s a good documentary called When My Time Comes, available to stream from PBS, showing the issues that this group is helping on.

September 28, 2019

Jocelyn got married to Kyle! With some street photography

The Vessel at Hudson Yards.

Our daughter Jocelyn got married in New York City last weekend. I have a new son-in-law! That’s Kyle DePew, and he’s a good one! It was a truly happy day, including a superfun party, though also a little drama.

Even for former New Yorkers like us, NYC is a tough town — hard to take in and hard to get around. It’s really big and loud, and it can make you feel small. Some of it seems expressly designed to intimidate, like the new Hudson Yards high rise area on the West Side (pictured above), which I visited for the first time, and felt like the merest ant. There are always unexpected flashes of beauty in the city, but even the intimate views tend to have some grit on them.

Flower stand

On Friday morning I went to the Whitney Biennial, and took in some very new art. Almost by definition, bold new art is hard to like, and there was a lot of work there that was not cheery. There were several artists working on themes relating to racism and discrimination, and also some work relating to climate change — themes that regular readers know to be of interest to The Casual Blog.

At the Whitney, Joe Minter’s sculpture involving racism and southern yard art

In the afternoon I walked down to Battery Park for the NYC edition of the worldwide student strike for climate action, with tens of thousands of students and others. I normally find large noisy crowds unsettling, but I was glad this one was large and noisy, and hoped it would be unsettling to the politicians that are still failing to mobilize to address our crisis. The signs and chants expressed a lot of anger about the mess adults had made of the environment, but there was also hope for change.

Student protest at Battery Park

That evening, Kyle’s mom, Debbie, hosted the wedding rehearsal dinner at San Marino Ristorante, a lovely Italian restaurant in the West Village. The food was really good, and we enjoyed talking to some old friends, and meeting family and friends of the happy couple.

A sunny day for the protesters

The wedding was at sunset on Saturday at Sunset Terrace, at the end of Pier 61 on the Hudson. A string quartet was playing as the 130 or so guests got seated. The groomsmen and I wore black tuxedos, and the bridesmaids had champagne colored long dresses. Jocelyn was radiant in white! She gave Sally and I just one warning before we walked her to the front of the room for the ceremony: be sure not to step on the trailing veil, which was attached to her hair. We walked slowly up the aisle with no accidents.

Then, as Jocelyn turned to Kyle and we turned to find a seat, a shoe went the wrong way, and out came the veil. In a fraction of a second, I wondered: can we get it back on, and if not, is Jocelyn going to freak out? It took only another couple of seconds for all this to be clarified: she smiled and said, forget about it, just keep going. I rolled up the veil and put it under my seat. I watched carefully for any signs of bridal distress, but there were none. She seemed completely happy. I was so proud of her!

A fruit stand

The officiant was Dylan Goldberg, a good friend of the couple’s. His remarks were a sweet and highly personal appreciation of Jocelyn and Kyle and their love. As he noted, the ceremony was an important symbol of the partnership they had built and the promises of their complete commitment. It was really touching; I got pretty misty. They had a really good kiss at the end.

Then we had drinks, dinner, and an epic dance party! Jocelyn and I managed our solo dance (to Stevie Wonder’s You Are the Sunshine of My Life) with more grace than expected, and I got some laughs in my toast to the couple. As I meant to say (though I’m not sure I quite got out), I was grateful to our guests for serving as witnesses and helping to consecrate the new marriage. I thought about talking a bit about Martin Hagglund’s theory that love is precious not because it is eternal and unchanging, but rather because it is grounded in time, finite and fragile, and its existence depends on continuing devoted care. But it didn’t quite fit with the vibe, so I figured we could talk about it another time.

Flowers and ice

But I must say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much radiating love! It seemed to be coming not just from Jocelyn and Kyle, but from everyone! I hadn’t danced to pop music since ancient times, and had almost forgotten how much fun it can be. It was a blast. DJ Blak did a terrific job with the music, which was curated by Kyle, and managed to get just about everyone moving. A lot of the guests boogied right up until the last song at midnight.

While I wasn’t really surprised at how excited and happy Jocelyn and Kyle were, I was surprised at the intensity of my own happiness. Our little girl! With Kyle now part of our family! Lives full of promise! And on the horizon — grand babies!

Crossing against the light

April 29, 2018

A wedding, glass, and unknown history

Paul after the wedding on the American Rover out of Norfolk

We went to Virginia Beach last weekend to celebrate my brother’s wedding and catch up with the Tiller clan. The wedding was outside in a yard beside the intercoastal waterway, and it was a bit on the chilly side, but sunny. My brother Paul played his banjo as his bride arrived, and the couple seemed very happy. Afterwards we moved inside for lunch, and caught up on family news.

We Tillers have been fortunate in many ways, not least in that we still love each other, despite our differences in politics and religion. As my sister Jane observed, people these days are very polarized, and it’s gotten hard to communicate across tribal lines. But we still had plenty of common ground, and had some invigorating discussions.

Sally and Jane at the Chrysler Museum

The next day we visited the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, and spent a couple of hours looking at their impressive glass collection, which we missed when we previously visited. Much of the enjoyment for me was about history and craftsmanship, rather than individual artistic vision. But there were some pieces that were definitely art, and were moving. It made me look at our household glass differently, and consider it as part of a long tradition of craft and experimentation.

In iris at Raulston Arboretum

Speaking of art and history, this past week there was a significant opening: the new lynching memorial and museum in Montgomery, Alabama. Way too few Americans know much about the terrorism against black Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. Thousands of black people were publicly tortured and killed, some in front of crowds of white people who viewed the violence as entertainment.

The new memorial to the victims of this horrendous violence sounds powerful in just the way the D.C. Vietnam memorial is powerful: making the suffering concrete and undeniable in a beautiful and dignified way. There was a fine description of it in the Washington Post, including good photographs. I’ve added it to my list of places to visit.

Just one more thing about our racism, and then I’ll stop. This week the New Yorker has a fine and unsettling piece by Alex Ross called the Hitler Vortex. I’d recently read most of the new biography of Hitler by Volker Ullrich, which was quite good, but Ross provided new perspectives on the conflicting schools of Hitler scholarship, and the social forces that brought Germany to acknowledge its enormous crime against the Jews.

As Ross notes, Hitler greatly admired America’s genocide of native Americans and its elaborate system for repression of African Americans. This should give us pause. Unlike the Germans, who have acknowledged and worked to atone for the crimes of the third reich, we Americans for the most part maintain our ignorance and innocence as to these enormous racial crimes. Perhaps one day we’ll teach our school children what really happened, how it was horribly wrong, and how we need to be continually vigilant to prevent such evil from ever recurring.

In the meantime, we need to do what we can, and stay sane. For a dose of beauty and clarity, I recommend a walk at Raulston Arboretum, where the irises and early roses are blooming. I took these flower pictures this weekend.