the last wedding i’d been to, before this weekend, was my freshman year in high school (and before that when i was 11), and i didn’t even know the people getting married. so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when i almost cried 5 or 6 times during the ceremony. my beautiful aunt, young and radiant, was a living symbol of how christ sees the church: pure, dressed in white, and simply lovely. in that way the wedding was a deeply spiritual encouragement to me.
my family stayed with our friends, the morrises. we’ve known the morrises since when i was in elementary school in texas. we used to get together on friday nights and watch movies together, and go out to tia’s / benavides / rosa’s after church on sundays. they have two girls, emily and ellen. emily is my age/grade, and ellen is rachel’s.
i lived in texas for 10 years. i didn’t realize it so much when i lived there, but 10 years is a long time. i’ve never lived anywhere even a quarter as long. so as the two families were sitting around on saturday night, enjoying each other’s company and talking far into the night, it hit me what a truly marvelous thing it is to have friends that know you, that you grew up with, and that remain friends irregardless of how often you talk and how often you see them.
the short of it is, it felt like i never left. and it was a beautiful time. emily’s getting married in a month, and ellen is now off to college, but with all the millions of destructive changes that could have occurred, they, and my siblings and i, came away feeling as if our friendship had grown, not faded. i believe this is indicative of a very special bond, hard to come by in these days of isolation, which i have somehow been given in so many friendships. i can only praise god for it.
i visited a few of my favorite places, like cd warehouse, where i bought new albums by stairwell, radiohead, the gloria record, and damien jurado. we also drove by the high school and our old houses. i withdrew into myself and dwelled for a while on the sweet times the lord blessed me with in texas. but while i felt that sharp stab of nostalgia, i wasn’t sad–i wouldn’t trade anything for the way things have worked out, with orlando and stanford.
i flew back on sunday, tired from not having slept all weekend, and from doing hours of put-off homework on the plane. yesterday i skipped class for the first time and went to fry’s and bought a computer. i need a new computer at least every two years, and it’s been approaching that time, so i thought i’d better get it. for those of you who care, it’s a sony vaio 1.6ghz 512mb 80gb 64geforce4. a sweet machine on all accounts. the downside is that it takes a while for stanford to set up my internet to work on the new computer, so i haven’t been able to send or receive e-mail [easily] since i went to texas, or get on IM (i know, it’s weird not to be on IM 24-7).
i also did something very bad–i bought myself a new computer game to play on my new computer: jedi knight ii. not only is it the coolest game i have ever played in my life, i’m sure it’s the best game of all time. i won’t waste time explaining why–let’s just say that if you’ve ever dreamed about being luke skywalker or the young obi-wan kenobi, replete with force powers and flips and aerial lightsaber attacks and any other sweet move in existence, this is the game for you.
in other news i’m still awaiting word on the job i applied for at academic computing.
and….i think that’s about it. i’m thinking of flying back to texas in early june for emily’s wedding, since my brother will be in town and maybe my parents, and i was reminded this weekend that she’s a really good friend, maybe the most like a sister of any of my friends.
[come soon], sweet summer. [come soon], sweet slumber.
disc on spin: i break chairs | damien jurado
