From Chapter One
October 29, 1966 Portland, Oregon
"The drizzling rain makes me pause on the porch to button up my coat. Richard, already in his one suit, laughs at my bundling. Since he's finding mirth in almost everything, I suspect it's a form of pre-marriage jitters. My parents are in town for the ceremony, but we’ve declined a ride with them in order to walk to the church.

I have my dress under my arm in a box. My mother bought it one week ago as my twenty-first birthday present. It's a practical, white wool A line. Summer weather better allows for the wearing of ballet slippers and trailing antique lace.

The exterior of the little cabin we are building on the back of our 1940 International truck looms behind us in the driveway. It towers over the cab. Now with the roof shingled, only the interior needs refining. By spring we’ll be ready to start north in it to Alaska, and find our land to homestead.

While avoiding a puddle in a sidewalk depression, I take Richard's arm. The transformed words of a Beatle's song are in continual replay: I'm Laurel in the sky with diamonds, ... I'm the girl with Kaleidoscope eyes ...

Richard turns in the wind to try and light again a fat caterpillar-like joint of marijuana. "Think Laurel, we're on our way to something we will never forget." I'm now laughing as easily as he is. It does seem experiences are usually registered as memorable during or after the event. But tonight we know beforehand.

It's cold on the Hawthorne Bridge. Only Portland's oldest black-girded structure has a design that lets pedestrians cross the Willamette. The reflected city lights vibrate below us in patterns imposed by both wind and river currents. The undulating reflections of silver-white street lights and office neon seem like schools of animated tropical fish. I forget everything, while watching the red and green traffic signals appear and disappear on the water.

As Richard pulls me, I remember that in just two hours my parents are going to watch us exchange our legal vows. I look over at the man I'm about to marry. He has an angular face with prominent cheek bones. The collar of his navy surplus coat is pulled up against the wind. His dark eyes seem to be a sum from mixing his Norwegian ancestors with tribes of Indian blood. I was hitchhiking last June, and that summertime ride has brought me to this day. He’s the only man I've ever met who was willing to stake out free land. Like me, he's excited at the prospect of living with moose in our backyard and scooping salmon out of rivers.

Once through the church doors at 1200 Adler Street, we find we’re alone. Richard locates the light panel and experiments with the buttons until he illuminates the small chapel scheduled for our 8:00 pm ceremony. He wants me to come down the aisle and sit next to him while he plays free-form jazz on the organ. Shaking my head in refusal, I know I can’t. I have to be alone. Part of it is my realization that this pending act of marriage is going to be much more meaningful than I anticipated. It isn't anymore just a dull legal requirement with mandatory participation, but it seems like something bigger.

Going into the woman's bathroom, I shake out my dress and unfold from tissue a blue mosaic brooch. I even have a package of white nylons and pull them up my legs knowing I'll never again wear anything like this. From now on it’s going to be denim or corduroy.

Once dressed, I study my face in the mirror. Carefully, I part my hair down the middle and brush the two long sides until I straighten every tangle. I have no makeup, but I still pinch some color into my cheeks and use a finger to smooth my eyebrows.

I know no friends will be here. Most likely my parents, alone, will be our witnesses. Richard has asked a worker from the ice cream cone factory, where he’s now employed, to act as best man. He asked to be paid with a half a lid of grass.

When the music stops in the midst of a rising chord, I surmise that Pastor Merton has arrived. I come out to find him in an impeccable dark suit that I guess is his uniform for conducting both weddings and funerals.

"Okay, you two." I’m glad the minister is smiling. "You didn't want a rehearsal, and am I right that you are not having any bridal attendants?"

Seeing my head nodding in agreement, he continues to instruct us to walk together down the aisle at the scheduled 8:00.

"No organ accompaniment, either. Is that right?"

Richard and I exchange one of those looks that I think means we are already hearing music.

Pastor Merton leads us into his office to wait, then later I can hear his voice directing my parents into the chapel. Sitting together, we are wordlessly waiting on the minute hand. My feeling is for prayer, but I don’t know how. I wouldn't even mind natives in body paint encircling us with voices that chant about my womb and all the gardens and hunts to come.

"What are you thinking?" I ask Richard. I really want to ask what his meditation has been all evening. But I won’t risk a question that has any chance of yielding a less than rosy answer. It's too close to eight.

"Nothing. Oh, I'm wondering what all the other men that are about to become husbands are thinking. You know, Laurel, we might have a problem in the ceremony because Triple was never able to get those rings finished in time."

Even as he is talking, I can see the bowl of paper clips on Merton's desk. My movement to reach for them communicates my intention to Richard. With dexterity he straightens the wire, then patterns it around our fingers creating the emblems for our pledge. Once the rings are completed, and pocketed, we stand and start our march.

My arm interlocks with Richard's as we walk down the chapel aisle. The room is empty except for my family and one guest. Mr. Horns, my first college art professor, must have driven here from Forest Grove on the strength of my one hand-painted announcement. I stare ahead. A cross above the altar is the solitary decoration. To me, it’s a symbol that our two lives now intersect.

I was always the girl in the process of becoming a woman, and the future will be me as a woman, with a girl lurking within. Tonight, I feel, is the perfect balancing of the two states." Back to Tapestry Main Page