wedding road trip

Knowing Me, Knowing U

Most of the people we’ve visited on this trip have been married, with a few dating situations and the occasional divorce, but no one else has been in that odd limbo known as “being engaged.” It’s a fun time, but dominated by people asking about your wedding (when is it? why is it there? why are you going on a wedding road trip?). So when we met up with my friend Ulla and her fiance Keith in Cambridge, we could bond over our mutual status.

For the record, Ulla and Keith are not doing your run of the mill wedding – they have a five-city, three country extravaganza planned. Admittedly, they are from Germany (her), Canada (him) and live in the US, so a single location would have been tough… unless they got married in O’Hare Airport. Hmm…

Keith shared with us a cautionary tale of a past engagement of his that went awry. The story was one of those crazy “I can’t believe that actually happened to you” situations that left Keith burned for several years. But nothing like the magic (and sanity) of Ulla to bring him back to the place where love (and marriage) are possible.

Ulla imparted one key price of perspective – the Buddhist idea of accepting yourself. As I can best recollect, the concept is that before you can truly give yourself to someone else, and accept them, is that you need to accept yourself for who you are. I’ve got to admit I might not be there yet, since there are many things I’d like to improve about myself, but there’s something powerful about the idea.

Day 29: And Now… a Word from My Sponsor

When we were in Boston, I fulfilled a promise made long ago. No, we didn’t break down and elope. And no, I didn’t move to Canada, as threatened after the 2004 election (I moved to San Francisco instead, which is really another country anyway). Rather, we stopped by the HQ for my employer, Sasaki Associates, in Watertown, Massachusetts. This is the company that kindly allowed me to take a six week sabbatical for our Wedding Road Trip.

The company is located in a Millard Fillmore-era mill on the Charles River, a site so historic that the paper bag was apparently invented there. If only something really useful, like the dirigible, had been created at the site. Sasaki has converted the mill into a LEED-certified office building populated with architects, city planners, and the like.

It was nice to see the people that I work with over email and phone from SF. We didn’t solicit wedding advice from my colleagues. The visit was purely social, with little discussion about clients, the economy, or why my timesheets are late again.