A Canyon Wedding
December, 1993
My mother wrote to me that our planned wedding date of December 30th was a highly inconsiderate choice. Also, she thought it unwise for me to marry anyone I hadn’t known for four seasons. They would compromise, she wrote, and attend our wedding if we could wait until after Easter.
We’d asked our friend Thomas to marry us, not because he was a legal minister, but because he had an Irish-priestly sort of air about him, and he was our most trusted friend at that time.
We had some friends that had come from quite a distance to be with us, and a few from close by, too, but altogether it was only about a dozen people. No family members. Of course, it wasn’t the easiest time of year for people to be traveling, and, at that time, we didn’t have any guest cabins built. Everyone that was planning to visit with us for a night or more would be either staying at a B&B in town, or bedding down either in one of the tipis, or in the schoolbus that was annexed to the kitchen.
I had to admit I was relieved. Imagining my parents, and anyone from my immediate family attending a wedding that they were liable to think was a huge mistake on my part felt like a bad idea.
I wracked my brain to think of any friends from my past that would actually feel a hundred percent in celebration of my new way of life. I came up with one dear friend who’d been a roommate in college. Laura would think the canyon was amazing, I told Gunther. I imagined that both she and her sweet long-haired husband Will would see the beauty and magic of my off-grid life way more easily than most of my other old friends.
I’d sent out hand drawn invitations to probably twenty people, and it made me feel especially sad that I didn’t even send one to my own sister. I believed that if my mother was against the wedding, that no one else would dare to come, or send any blessings on our union.
That Christmas, however, my mother’s little sister, my beloved Aunt Barbie, sent me a Christmas card that had a bookmark inside it about the importance of following one’s heart, which I took as a secret sign of her blessings on our union. And after Christmas, my mother’s good friend Sarah sent us a letter of congratulations, and asked me to let her know something I would like as a wedding present. I sent her a newspaper clipping of a little heart shaped rag rug, and she wrote back, “I want to send you something more significant.” She sent us a down comforter.
My mother, who excels at perfect gifts and cards, chose not to send a card. Instead, she sent a letter, telling me that she would be thinking of me on my wedding day.
When Gunther and I arrived halfway to the base of the cliffs, where the ceremony was to take place, dressed in our finest clothes and handmade moccasins, Thomas and the guests were there waiting, with a surprise for us. Thomas had brought our guests to this spot ahead of us a few hours before. They’d created a giant spiral of stones, pine cones, and juniper twigs with a heart inside it, and a message of love and goodwill in the sand for us beside the spiral, with our names, entirely written with small, bluish river stones. It said:
Gunther and Loba: Forever Home, Forever Wild.
I couldn’t imagine a better gift! I’d already been feeling so much overwhelming joy, during our walk to the spot where we met everyone. At this point, I began bubbling over, and soon I was to become a complete mess.
Was it ok to cry this much at my own wedding? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Gunther squeezed my hand and didn’t seem too concerned.
A folk singer friend sang a song that he’d written the night after a sweat lodge in the canyon, that somehow managed to convey the ancient, humbling power of the particular bend in the river where we stood. To me, it was the best kind of love song, as I considered Gunther to be the physical embodiment of the power of the canyon. With every tear that fell from my eyes, I surrendered more and more to the feeling of destiny in the love that I had for him, and for this land.
When we got to the base of the cliffs, the sun peeked through a sky full of clouds for the first time that day. We formed a circle beneath a giant cottonwood tree and everyone sat on blankets and pillows they’d hauled down earlier. Gunther and I sat in the center of the circle and read a story that we’d written together. In it, I imagined myself as an old woman, still brushing and braiding his hair at the beginning and the end of each day. His part told of climbing a mountain with the question of whether or not he could dare to believe in lasting love again.
Each of our wedding guests had a chance to say something before Thomas asked us some questions and we exchanged vows, pledging our devotion to each other and to the canyon, “forever and ever and ever.”
After the vows, our friends walked back up the river, and Gunther and I shed our clothes to climb up the cliffs, as was our custom. The clouds had completely vanished, so we weren’t that chilly, but we did bring a large blanket. When we got up to the Cave of the Red Wolf Mother he wrapped us both inside the blanket, gathered me in his arms and I luxuriated in the warmth of his skin. As we gazed in silence together, sitting under the rock outcropping next to the cave, I imagined us in thirty, or forty years. He would be seventy, or eighty. I would be fifty four, or sixty four. How hard would it be for him to climb? Would he even still be alive? What would the years bring us? I could only imagine that whatever happened, we would grow closer and closer together, our roots intertwining more and more over the years, like a pair of wedded juniper trees that I often stopped to marvel at on the way up our Mountain Trail.
These two ancient junipers grew just a few feet apart, and their limbs reached out towards one another. The bark on both trees had fallen off most of the way around their trunks, except where they faced each other. It was as if their mirrored, centuries-long dance still kept the sap flowing, just in that one section of their bodies, where they could still respond to the presence of their “dancing partner.”
I wanted my love to keep him alive long enough to love me at least until my hair had turned white. Could I help him survive long enough to grasp my hand, after Time had bent my fingers, and taken the resonance of my youthful voice? Maybe not, but he would still be with me, because I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I would remain in the canyon, no matter what.
Descending the cliffs, I realized that up in the cave, I had absorbed a bit of his story into my being. The old man, who climbed the mountain with a question. Although for me, it was not a matter or whether or not I could believe in love. It was only about how long I would be blessed enough to touch it, in human form. In his form.
But I knew, as we walked back up the river together, that as long as I stayed in the canyon, I would never walk alone, under the canyon sky. The sweet contentment that filled me on our return walk was so different than what I felt when we stood with the stones and the song and my tears, but it was every bit as potent with meaning, for me. We held the silence we’d shared in the cave, all the way back to the cabin. We stopped every so often to watch the gathering clouds, and kiss, and smile at each other.
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We were feeling hungry. I hadn’t even planned what to feed the dozen or so people who showed up. I must have brought up the subject to Gunther, and he insisted that I let the people who were coming do the cooking, and not to worry my head about it. He trusted that at least one capable cook would show up, and that plenty of food would show up, also without knowing exactly who this person would be, or what they would bring. And so it was. Our friend Dana’s right hand woman at the time, Amy, was from the Appalachian mountains and knew her way around a wilderness kitchen. Thomas had brought a twenty pound bag of potatoes, a sack of blue cornmeal, two pounds of butter, and some freshly ground whole wheat flour.
By the time we returned, the sky was fully cloudy. Gunther lit candles, and we held court with just one or two friends at a time up in the little loft in our cabin. Gunther and I sat next to the window, still dressed in our wedding attire, on the little loveseat he’d built into the wall on the end of the loft that faced the cliffs.
Our friends took turns coming up to sit on pillows next to the twelve foot long altar to share stories and laughs, and bring us gifts. Our artist/ drummer friend, Joe, who owned land upriver form us, and also had a place in Santa Fe, had brought us a huge candleholder that he’d welded himself.
It was challenging for me to let go of the job of tending to people. Gunther told me to just relax, everything was fine, but it was hard for me to stay put. I told him I was going over to the kitchen, just to make sure everything was going ok with the food.
The kitchen and dining room were in a separate dwelling, that was just out the door and at the end of a short little path festooned with Tibetan bells, wind chimes, and exceptional stones. Gunther had built an arbor with grape vines he’d trained to climb above our heads. He’d given me strict instructions that every time I passed a certain set of chimes, I was to ring them to let him know, as he was busy working on his various projects, that I was feeling loved.
It was quite the shock to walk into a kitchen full of tantalizing smells. The women were crowded in the tiny space, bustling about happily, as if they had all been cooking together for years. I think I expected them to be having a good bit of trouble finding what they needed, and figuring out a menu, as there really wasn’t much at all in the pantry to go with the potatoes Thomas had brought. They were at once excited and admonishing when I appeared in the doorway. “You’re not supposed to have to come in here and do anything today!” Amy scolded, laughing. But as long as you’re here, would you like to taste the peanut sauce I just made?”
“Mm, peanut sauce! But… with potatoes? How are you going to cook them?”
“Fried, I’m thinking,” said Amy.
I’d never thought of using peanut sauce with fried potatoes!
I was the tiniest bit skeptical, but Amy had that special kind of kitchen confidence that inspires trust.
I mentioned that the groom was hoping to get some coffee, and Grace perked up. “I’ll make Gunther’s coffee” she offered. I grinned inwardly. Grace really wasn’t the kind of person one would imagine making coffee for a man, and especially not for Gunther. I reminded myself that they had once “been a thing” — and marveled that she’d probably made his coffee many, many times.
I told her that I looked forward to having some sips of it myself. “It’s your wedding day, silly! Do you think I’m not going to make you your own coffee?” she said, laughing.
“Ok, now, off with you, don’t worry, we have everything under control,” said Laura, as she shooed me out the door. She’d flown in all the way from Louisiana. Her two year old daughter was a little overly excited about our kitty, and poor Fur Puddles looked up at me as if weary of her attentions. I scooped her up and was out on the trail before Annie May had a chance to register the loss of her furry new toy.
Soon, Grace knocked on the cabin door and came up to the loft with two quart Mason jars, both of them two thirds full of the most delicious coffee I’d ever had in my life. Grace had flavored mine with cardamom and put so much heavy cream in it, and had made it even stronger than Gunther usually did. And it was more than it being perfect coffee. It was just so incredible to be waited on like that in my own home. Sitting there by candlelight beaming from a candle holder that had been made in celebration of our love, I held the moment tightly, as if storing it in my memory against future hardship.
Amy’s delicious fried potatoes were meltingly soft and crispy all at once. Maybe even better were the absolutely perfect whole wheat biscuits she’d made to go with them, which she served to us smothered with butter and the best buckwheat honey I’d ever tasted, that she’d brought to us from her own hives. There was also a lovely salad of watercress that Grace had foraged from the riverbank, with her signature tahini dressing. It felt dreamy to stay seated up in the loft with Gunther and wait there like a queen as all these things magically appeared, plated beautifully with tiny sprigs of nettle from the plants that survived all winter long at the base of the cliffs. Gunther complained about the peanut sauce on his potatoes and looked at me in disbelief that I could have allowed this to happen. Grace whisked away his plate without a word, and brought one without the sauce or salad on it, with, instead, a few over easy eggs and pieces of bacon she’d made just for him, and a wry grin just for me.
At dusk, everyone went down to the river with guitars, flutes, and drums. I began making moves towards joining them and noticed that Gunther seemed happy to stay put.
“Don’t you want to join the celebration, love? “ I asked him. “It’s going to be a long time, probably, until we get to see most of these friends of yours, again.”
“No, I don’t. I’ve already spent most of the day with them. My closest friends know that I don’t love drum circles. I can barely stand to listen to that off-beat drumming from up here! Thank God for Joe, or I’d be going absolutely insane right now. You go down there if you want to sing and dance. But I’m ready to just be with you, and only you. Ready when you are, ” he said with a wink.
I didn’t really feel like going down there without him, but I was sad to miss being a part of all the laughter I could hear on the wind, and the dancing and the singing. I felt both glad and annoyed at myself that I couldn’t tell how off-beat some of the drummers were. I wondered how long it might be until there was another fire at the river, and such a degree of merriment, and if Gunther would ever really feel like being a part of it. I imagined that I wasn’t missing it, really, because now, more than ever, I had become part of the canyon.
It was such a strange feeling, to be married. I liked it, I was sure. But something did feel different in me.
After going back and forth for a while as to whether or not I wanted to join the party, I went down to the river without him and ate a bowl of soup that Grace had prepared over the fire. Sitting on a blanket on the ground, enjoying the warmth of the flames that had cooked my meal, I was sure it was the most delicious soup I’d ever tasted, and also sure that Gunther would not have been able to swallow a single bite. There was hardly a single ingredient in it he liked. It had a kind of delicious, textured kelp I’d never eaten before, all sorts of perfectly blended spices, shiitake mushrooms, miso, and tomatoes.
I tried to dance with the few people that were still dancing by the time I was finished eating, but it seemed that the singing was over, and that the drumming had already reached its peak of excitement. Folks were doing the standing-there-swaying-and-talking sort of dance that I’ve never been very fond of. So I just went and greeted people and shared my amazement about the soup. Soon, it felt natural but also sad to slip away and climb up the road in the dark by myself, wishing I hadn’t missed the singing, but grateful for the promise of a warm cabin and my new husband’s arms.
The next day, Laura and I went for a walk, just the two of us. She asked me some questions about Gunther, and it was clear that she was worried that I’d rushed into this marriage too hastily. I was annoyed. The one friend I’d been so sure wouldn’t be skeptical of our union. Why couldn’t she just be happy for me?
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After all our guests had left a few days later, I reveled in the feeling of us being married and finally alone again. But, same as my wedding night, there was some sadness tangled into my joy. How many others at the wedding had just as many doubts about our allegiance lasting as Laura? I wondered.
True love will always survive, and there will always be doubters, I assured myself. And could there be any love more true, more destined to thrive, than the one we shared?
