She leaned over whispered “I bet you think every wedding you go to is amazing.”

I looked back over my shoulder at Courtney and Jamie, their faces just mere inches apart, her hair curled between his fingers. Laughter was in the air and the wine seemed to flow from an endless reserve. There we were, deep in the heart of wine country, Sonoma, CA and as the cool wind blew in through the open french doors people exchanged stories and memories and seemed to hold each other closer than usual.

A younger gentleman clanked the edge of his wine glass with a fork signifying it was time for a speech. Someone yelled out “Oh, this should be good!”

The man raised his glass and the crowd leaned in with anticipation. “Don’t worry, this will be quick.” he said. “I’ve known Jamie for a long time. I knew him before he met Courtney. And I know him now. And trust me when I say he is so much fu**ing better now!”

The room erupted in applause and laughter and everyone raised their glasses in agreement.

Funny how love has a way of doing that to us. Make us better that is. When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth and when it falls from their lips you have no choice to but run towards the sound. This was a second marriage for them both but deep down I could feel that they really got it right this time. After all, love is like a Rubix Cube. There are countless numbers of wrong twists and turns, but when you get it right, it looks perfect no matter what way you look at it.

Courtney’s brother said it best earlier in the evening when he quoted a line from Margery Williams’ classic children’s story, “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

“It doesn’t happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“I said, I bet you think every wedding is amazing don’t you?” the woman slurred again, this time tapping me on the shoulder.

I smiled. “Honestly…no. Not every wedding is amazing. But this one, now this one is simply…”

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. 

Today I am so proud to unveil my new line of couture inspired wedding albums simply named “Intimacy”.  The Intimacy line was inspired by the great Jane Austin who once said “For a relationship to flourish, there must be intimacy. It takes an enormous amount of courage to say to your spouse, “This is me. I’m not proud of it — in fact, I’m a little embarrassed by it — but this is who I am.”  How true that often we avoid intimacy in our relationships for fear of ridicule or rejection. To be honest, truly honest with your partner takes humility at the deepest levels. This is the ultimate sacrifice. That one would stand naked and say “This is who I am..the good and the bad. The proud and the insecure. I am embarrassed of these things but I reveal them to you because I love you and I put my faith in your ability to love me despite these things.”

What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with our lovers. In other words, intimacy is sex for the soul. Now I’m not saying these albums are better than sex. But its a close call.

Presenting Intimacy: Couture Albums by Clayton Austin. Love. Stories.
 

Tahni shrugged her shoulders “I don’t know, we just love breakfast.”

Joseph agreed. “Its just a time for us to be together. Know what I mean?”

I smiled inside. Yes, yes I know exactly what you mean. At once I was reminded of a very special quote from Anne Spencer, an American poet during the Harlem Renaissance. She said “A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one’s husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.” So. True. We just don’t slow down enough. These days its all about the “Meal on the go”, a quick peck on the cheek before heading off the rat race called life. But when you have breakfast with someone special, it makes a statement. Its a proclamation that the bills, the conference calls, the dry cleaners, all of that can wait. Because the absolutely most important thing in your life is sitting right across from you breaking a yolk with the corner of a piece of toast.

Sometimes when my life gets really busy and I tend to get all caught up with all that is going on in my little bubble I like to do something kinda silly. I like to make breakfast for dinner. Nothing grand like my grampy’s biscuits and gravy or anything tedious like that. Just something simple. A couple over easy eggs and some REALLY crispy bacon will suffice. And we’ll sit in bed and watch Family Guy together, sharing a glass of freshly squeezed, like it was a Saturday morning and we have nothing better to do than be together. And even though we may not have started the day together we sure as hell are going to finish it. Together.

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

-St. Augustine