Earlier this week I was informed by a young woman I’ve come to know and like over the last few years that she had just gotten married this past weekend. It came as a pleasant surprise to me. I hadn’t even known she was engaged. She hadn’t mentioned her impending nuptials to me in the weeks and months leading up to her big event, hadn’t displayed a gaudy engagement ring on her ring finger (or even any ring really, gaudy or not) and never mentioned that she had a fiancé.
I immediately congratulated her, of course. I’m a big fan of marriage, having been down the altar three times myself. I think I mentioned I was surprised or hadn’t known she was getting married (or something along those lines) but that I was very happy for her. She replied that she been keeping her engagement quiet, that she and her new spouse had just come back from Connecticut where the ceremony had been performed. Since we don’t live all that close to Connecticut I said something about that being a long trip to make. Knowing she had family in town, I asked why’d she gone so far away?
That was when she did a very brave thing. She told me she’d had to go to Connecticut because the love of her life, the person she married, was another woman.
(cont.)
First let me back up a little. Carlie (not her real name) and I are friends because she works at one of those well known establishments which specifically cater to coffee addicts like myself. She works at the one I go to nearly every day to get my “caffeine fix.” Like all good elite, effete liberals I like my lattes, especially if they have lots of caramel in them. Our relationship developed because I’m a customer and Carlie is one of the many good folks who serve me these sugary, milky concoctions laced with espresso shots I’ve come to rely upon to jump start my morning or afternoon. In other words, I’m one of those sometimes annoying and sometimes charming (or so I tell myself) people referred to in the beverage service industry as a “regular.”
As someone managing a chronic illness which forced me into an early retirement over ten years ago, I don’t get out much, to put it mildly. I live at home and the person I see and interact with the most is my teenage daughter, a beautiful, intelligent and wonderful young woman to be sure (As her father you can trust me on that) but still a teenager, nonetheless. Because my wife suffers from cognitive deficits and an anxiety disorder (an aftereffect of her chemotherapy) my opportunities for adult conversation are at a minimum these days.
My trip to our local coffee bar is often the big social event of my day. In short, I’m one of those old farts (2 years into my AARP eligibility) who will chat up perfect strangers at times simply because I don’t have a job anymore where I fulfill my need for social interaction by haranguing fellow co-workers. Luckily, the baristas (yes, I do love using foreign words that make me appear to be a snob) who make my Caramel Macchiato have done a bang up job at meeting my need to talk about myself. They greet me by name when I walk into their establishment, laugh at my jokes (even the bad ones), ask me about my day and even listen to my answers (or give a great impression of doing so).
In turn many of them tell me things about their own lives. Their kids if they have them, the courses they’re taking at college, car troubles, the weather, etc. All the mundane topics which constitute the art of “small talk.” Sure, the conversation doesn’t last all that long, and yes, I know it’s their job to provide a friendly atmosphere so I keep coming in to buy the high priced drinks that I don’t really need. I know that repeat customers like me are a direct result of their efforts to establish a certain atmosphere, that feeling of community, of a place where “everybody knows your name,” that most local service businesses work to achieve, but since I’ve been sharing bits and pieces of my life with them over the years, and learning about each of them, I flatter myself that it’s not just that. We may not be each others closest friends but we are more than just mere acquaintances. Certainly that’s the case with Carlie and I.
Ever since I first met her, Carlie struck me as a generous, engaging, attractive person. A small woman with short hair that gives her a pixie-ish quality, she appears much younger than her true age. Like me, until my hair turned gray, she has one of those faces that makes bartenders ask to see your license many years after you pass the legal drinking age of 21. And unlike me, she has a naturally gregarious personality. Always talking, always in motion, always with a smile on her face which can’t help but elicit a smile back even on one of my worst days. One of those people that brighten up and fill a room when they enter it without even seeming to make a conscious effort to do so. I hope she will excuse me for this, but if I had only one word to describe her that word would be adorable.
Despite my need for social interaction, I’m not a natural talker. I have to force myself to make conversation. With Carlie it never feels forced. She has that sincerity and warmth about her that makes you feel you’re an old friend even if you just met. Sometimes its easy to distrust people who are so “bubbly.” We all know of individuals who put on a good act of appearing generous and empathic, only later to discover it was all just a facade. But Carlie is the real deal. What you see is who she truly is. A good soul. No, make that a great soul.
Like all of us, her life hasn’t always been an easy one. She has a degree she can’t use because she can’t find a job in her field. She was even forced to move back home to live with her parents for a while, a difficult thing for anyone, much less someone who just turned 30. She had friends and family with their own life problems which she worried about and tried to help them with. One day she hopes to work with individuals suffering from chemical and alcohol dependency, but for now, she stands behind an espresso machine, steams milk, pours shots and is happy she has a job with health benefits.
Let me put it this way. Carlie is one of us. No different. The same dreams and aspirations, the same struggles with seeking independence and establishing an identity, the same desire to make a life for herself filled with meaning and love that we all share. She’s unique, but she also utterly, completely normal. Except in one thing. One tiny thing which certain people use to deny her her dignity and her humanity. One small thing which makes her cautious about who she trusts. One thing that forced her to wait to marry the person she loved until a few states finally accepted that this one thing should not stand in the way of granting her the same right I had to marry the woman I loved. One thing that too many people still believe entitles them to demean and demonize her, to treat her as less than a full citizen of this country, as less than human.
I was very honored that Carlie felt she could trust me and share her greatest happiness with me. I only wish I could have attended her wedding. When I asked about it, she told me it had been a small ceremony, just a few friends and family. She said both her and her wife’s mothers had attended. No mention was made about her father and I didn’t ask. I hope it was just an oversight, but who can know? Sometimes even those we love find little things about us make a big difference in how they view us, views of who we are that can be very wounding. And even though I consider her a friend, that wasn’t a question I wanted to ask.
She did show me a picture of her beloved and her, standing side by side in a woodland setting. A taller woman, but also with a lovely smile. The two of them looked very happy together. I told her that and she smiled her usual big grin. And I smiled mine.
Lately there has been a lot of noise being made by a certain beauty pageant contestant from California, Carrie Prejean, a self proclaimed Christian who openly opposes marriage for everyone, and has filmed an ad for an organization which is campaigning against extending the right to marry to every couple. On the outside many might consider her a very attractive person, a great beauty. But to me she can’t hold a candle to Carlie. Its a cliche to say that true beauty is more than skin deep, but sometimes cliches reveal essential truths. Carlie is a beautiful person. Carrie Prejean can’t see that for some reason.
Carrie Prejean’s ugly, hateful prejudice, and the ugly, hateful bigotry of millions like her have damaged my friend’s life. That hate has made Carlie cautious about who she trusts with information regarding the most important aspect of her life: who she loves. Most people never have to think about announcing to the world that they are in love or that they are going to marry the person they love. I never had to worry that people might hate me because of who I chose to marry. And Carlie and the woman she loves shouldn’t have to either. But they do, of course. They would be foolish not to in our society. Not with people like Carrie Prejean and the “good people” of the National Organization for Marriage out there who want to shove and her wife and all the other people with that one tiny difference back into the closet of fear and loathing, denying to them the respect and equality which we all deserve.
Well, I wasn’t able to attend Carlie’s wedding, but there was one thing I could do for her. So the next day I called to see if she was working, and then I drove myself to her workplace, not to buy a coffee drink from her, but to give her what all newlyweds deserve: a wedding present from a friend. And I got a present back. My first hug from Carlie. Trust me, I got the better end of the deal.
