Jacquelyn Mitchard - The Breakdown Lane

EXCESS BAGGAGE

by J. A. Gillis

The Sheboygan News-Clarion

Dear J.,

Im getting married next summer, to a man of another nationality. Both families are very happy, but there is a problem. His many female relativesaunts, grandmothers, and sistersmust sit in the front row, as is their right. As descendants of the Masai in Africa, they are very tall. My family is Japanese-American. We are smallin number and in size. My father is only five feet four, my sisters less than five feet. The wedding will take place in a hotel ballroom with chairs set up in rows. We did not want to have a brides side and a grooms side, because we want this to be a true blending of families. However, I know that the women in my fiancs family are going to wear large, decorative hats (I dont mean ceremonial headdresses, as these are African AMERICANS of many generations, but what my fianc refers to as church-lady hats, which are the size of our wedding cake). This will make them even taller, and so no one except my mother and father will be able to see me during the ceremony. I dont want to suggest that they move to the back of the bus for my family. So how can we avoid slighting anyone on our special day? Given the disparity of heights, the wedding dance will also be very awkward.

Nervous in Knudson

Dear Nervous,

This is a matter of some sensitivity, since tensions on a wedding day can leave a bitter taste that can linger for years. But nerves? Youve already probably got the once-in-a-lifetime jitters every bride endures. Dont add this small opportunity for creativity to your checklist of stress. With the same joy of life youve already demonstrated by your beautifully bold choice to mingle cultures, craft a circle of joy. Ask the staff at the hotel to place the wedding chairs in a wide circle with the first row reserved for the principal members of both families and the rest of the chairs in staggered rows behind, so that each person, regardless of heights, will enjoy a wonderful view. Guests will be escorted through a small opening, the same place your groom will enter with his parents, a few moments before you enter with yours. Make the altar or other ceremonial platform in the center a round, alsoperhaps exchanging your vows facing in one direction, conducting the ceremonies of rings or candles facing the other, with the transitions gracefully made to instrumental music or song. As for the dance! No one feels awkward at such a happy affair! Think of all the aunts and grandmas youve seen dancing the polka in groups of five!

J.

Lets begin at the end of the beginning. The first moment of the second act of our lives.

It was ballet class. It was the second class of the week, made up of dance combinations and mat Pilates. Steady on the studio floor, I was ready to begin my final stretches. I remember that, a wonderful feeling. I was spent, but pleasurably, my hips not so much aching as aware theyd been asked for something strenuous. This class, and my weight training were the times during my week I felt freed from strain, just shy of pure.

I extended my right leg along the floor in its customary turnoutposturally correct, erect on my sitz bones, a little bit smug, but trying not to glance around me to observe that other women, even younger women, noticed the way my flexibility still came easilyand leaned forward for the hamstring stretch.

What I saw when I looked down horrified me so much that my mind scrabbled away from me, across the birchy floor.

What was it?

Numb shard of bone? Foot clawed birdlike, in spasm?

Worse. It wasnothing.

Nothing was different than what Id seen when I sat down five seconds earlier. It was only my leg, my ordinary leg in the unsoiled glove of my unitard (the silver one my youngest daughter used to call my mermaid clothes) still bent in a forty-five-degree angle at the knee, my pointed toe nestled against my thigh.

Doesnt sound like much, does it?

You have a right to expect more of terrors. Sharp, single shriek on a silent street. Pea-sized lump your finger grazes as you soap your breast. Tang of smoke in the still air, footsteps rhythm matching your own, in the dusk of an empty parking lot. A shadow that jumps against a wall in a room in which you know you are alone.

But think! A thing so huge it will dismember your world can be invisible. It can be a germ. A scent. It can be an absence.

You see, I had felt my leg open smoothly, like a knife with a well-balanced mechanism. But it had not.

A cascade of thoughts, like the fountain from a childs sparkler, showered over me: the phantom limb phenomenon, the precursor to a stroke, a paralysis caused by some virus. My first instinct was to scream. Instead, like any sane person, I tried again.