I’ve been given the gift of the big picture, and it’s edged in gold, in case you’re interested. The past rolls like a movie through its beautiful frame. The scenes won’t end until I do, I suppose, because this is life, and there’s no stop button until there is.
I haven’t always seen my life play out in front of me—the dull, inconsequential, and useless parts surrendered to the cutting room floor—but I do these days, standing in the middle of my fifties and at a point on my timeline only God knows.
Our girl is getting married, and as I help plan her wedding, the details of my own event flow past my vision. Then come all the years after Husband’s and my nuptials, and they tumble faster and faster into the present, and here we are. Life is a strange movie, going quicker than I thought it would go at the beginning. And I love that I’m no longer the leading lady.
Flicka says little about what she likes or doesn’t like for décor for her upcoming ceremony and reception, but she invites me to her Pinterest wedding board, images shouting to me even in their serenity as they trail down, down, down the page. My mind sifts through options, determining how much we can turn into reality with our finite time, space, and access.
Styles and colors repeat as Flicka pins internet photos onto her page. I see a theme. I also see an important element for her memorable day: THE CHAIRS. She doesn’t want the plastic rental variety; the chairs she desires are wooden, old, and of various styles—a magical and intimate look for the young couple’s backyard wedding.
We can make this happen, I think. I’m a thrifter. But the guest list is large, so I need hundreds of old chairs. And even if we did find that many, where would we store them in the meantime?
My partner in wedding planning—Snipp’s mother and my girl’s future mother-in-law—sends me Facebook Marketplace ads. One says, “CHAIRS! CHAIRS! CHAIRS!” My heart races, and I message the seller to learn she’s offloading two hundred fifty chairs. I wonder why. She once owned a wedding venue, but now it’s over, and she must let them all go, she tells me. I say yes to view them. She says yes back, and Husband and I coordinate a time to drive to Beldenville, Wisconsin, the very next day.
Hours later, however, the CHAIRS! lady messages me. She’s down to one hundred and sixty now. I voice my worries: Will they still be there in twenty-four hours? Again, she says yes.
The next day, a frigid one, Husband and I drive to Trixie and Todd’s place in Beldenville, Wisconsin. Our friends happen to live four miles from the seller. The four of us—me in my big coat and snow pants and the other three in more reasonable winter attire—tromp through one barn and several outbuildings on the seller’s property.
Upstairs in the barn, the ceiling drips with dusty chandeliers, wall sconces still dot the interior, and pristine spots on the walls show me where old mirrors and paintings hung back when the venue was living, moving, celebrating. I hear glasses clink, guests laugh, and warm strains of music, but it’s really only the swish of my snow pants, the clomp of my boots, and our own voices making sounds now. The creaky wood floors lead us to THE CHAIRS, and there they wait in all their perfection: wooden, old, and of various styles.
Trixie sits on the first chair and wriggles on its seat to test its durability. The montage of our twenty-seven-year friendship rolls through the golden frame, and I see her back in the Arizona days, back before babies (except her first one), back to all the footage from then until now that makes a life fuller because she’s in it. My eyes blur, and after so many years, the movie returns me to the barn in Beldenville.
My friend and I spend the better part of an hour sitting in each of the chairs, determining which ones are comfy, splinter-free, and not needing too much repair. We select one hundred and fifty-four that meet our standards, chairs that will witness the leaving and the cleaving—the binding of two hearts into one—and live into the future with us, acting in other scenes too. I tap the pause button to hold the movie for one more moment, one more breath.
But it plays on.
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*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.