for richer for poorer

Call me a scrapbooker but I want to post my Maid of Honor speech for my sister. It’s such a wild honor to get to speak at your sister’s wedding. Sort of bizarre, no? Why do we hear from a random person and not the bride? Why do the new in-laws have to hear from a wandering relative when they want to get to know the lady herself?

Well, because I know the lady herself better than she does. And it’s not a funeral is it? I’ll see her again. But really, it’s one of the few chances you get to publicly say how much you love someone. We don’t toast enough these days.

Of course I was all sorts of anxious before this. I love public speaking, not that I do it anymore (miss you, college!). But it’s a boat of a different sort when you’re totally adrift on a sea of confusing emotion–elated for love, sad for the past behind, proud of her, overwhelmed by the power of 100 humans you love being in one room. I was nervous and not eating my food, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for my moment coming just after the second course, crying when it came anyway. I felt the weight of all my siblings when I wrote it. My brothers didn’t get a speech, after all.

anyway, here it is…..
For much of her life Joanie has been an outlier. And I mean that in the flattering, Malcolm Gladwell sense of the word. At the youngest age of anyone in my family, Joanie thanked my mom for her good work and bid adieu to homeschooling. Later, after trying out school for a bit, she realized our putzy Michigan high school wasn’t up to her standards she found a school in the Bahamas instead.  She was the first one in my family to pick California for college and to declare she always wanted to live here. Now that I’ve brought my family our from boston and spent a week here, I think she might be the first one who has truly seen the light.

Although this isn’t an award my family actually gives out, she would win most frequent communicator. Despite the long distance, she is an outlier within my siblings for how often she calls and keeps up with my parents.

She has always been pretanaturally stylish. It feels like for years she and I were picking out clothes alongside each other. Then suddenly she began selecting the things that looked crazy in the store and one week later became elegant and cool. She is fearless in the face of understanding a new trend. In the old saying you are only as strong as your strongest member, for my brothers and I, in our younger years we have only ever been as stylish as Joanie deigned to guide us to be.  And she has always deigned to guide, I’ve never seen her down turn down someone’s request for help and advice with what to wear.

This city of angels is actually a city full of artists. These artist may feel valued, or probably instead often do not feel valued, or not even noticed until they’ve worked for a very long time. Living as they do in this city, I so admire the way Joanie and Cale value each other’s art and the hard work behind the art. I love that Joanie tries to get to a movie at least once a week with Cale and keeps up with his conversation about his passion. I love that Cale admires Joanie’s taste and thoughtful presentation of herself. Although….I think some of that support might have turned to concern when as a kind of modern day hope chest, Cale realized all those clothes are coming to a closet near him.

They can both talk to you at length about their favorite restaurants in the city and why they love them, or the very best pour over coffee, the coziest breakfast, their favorite walks to take together, until you get the feeling that they’d better go ahead and write a Happy Couple’s Guide to Los Angeles. These are good things in life they can share. These things also ebb and flow, as they said in their vows, for richer for poorer.

And that is why it is truly wonderful to notice that the things they value most in each other are kindness and sensitivity of each other’s hearts. They are givers, of actual physical gifts, but also of words and thoughtful observations. As I stand before so many already married people here, I know we can all speak to how incredible valuably these abilities are.

I speak for all of my siblings when I say Joanie, beautiful, talented, gracious Joanie is an incredibly vital part in our family. We take our cues from her in so many ways. We are so excited for Joanie to have find this matching soul, and I am delighted today to cheers this Union. To Joanie and Cale.