True Tales

The guests begin to arrive at 12:30 at the Unitarian Church wearing heavy coats and shaking snow from their boots. Looking for familiar faces they walk stiffly about then take a seat on gray folding chairs facing the diminutive stage where three sheepskins are framed by a pair of tall candles and two clear glass vases of long stemmed yellow roses. My family, Mom, Dad, all four sisters and brother Denny are there. Aunt Dodie and Anna, cousins Zip, Pat, Vince and Susie come from Portland. Hans’ family is there; parents Jackie and Al, sisters Cosima, Monica and Teresa.

My mother has sewn my wedding dress - floor length white satin with a traditional lace veil that cascades down my back. We argue about my hair. I want it up. She, down. I give in.  I carry a small bouquet of yellow roses in my hands. Hans wears a rented white dress jacket, white pants and full white turban with a green under-turban that swathes across his forehead. My face is red and hot and my pupils feel like they are at the extremes of my eye sockets. Hans keeps his cool, like he does with almost everything, his “I can handle this” nature definitely present today.

Trisha and Helen, my two best friends from junior and senior high chat with my parents and giggle nervously. Dan Ellingson and Scott Harbison, Hans’ high-school drinking pals arrive. They mix with our long-haired, hippie friends Forest, the wild red-head, Doug Peabody, the music manic and Kathy Lewis, recently a born-again Christian.

Our yogi/Sikh family stands out in the browns and denim blues in their white cottons and mostly turbaned heads. Hari Bachan Singh, our ashram leader moves smoothly among a mix of family and friends, old and new; Suraj Kaur and her husband Santokh Singh, from Portland, sit in the front row. He plays his guitar and sings Long Time Sunshine. A couple of carloads of Ji’s have driven from Eugene to attend the wedding on Saturday then do a kundalini yoga intensive at the Skyliner Lodge on Sunday.

Hans and I sit side by side on the stage facing Sat Kirpal Singh, our minister, our backs to the congregation. The room is quiet as Sat Kirpal Singh reads the four marriage rounds from the Peace Lagoon. We have no Guru to go around so we bow where we sit at the end of each round. We are pronounced husband and wife, share a bite of fruit and turn to face our friends and family.

Greg Fulton takes the wedding photos, most of them candid, two or three with the family or just the two of us. He is not a professional but a friend who has a camera – that qualifies him for the job. We do have a cake. It is baked by Nirbhao Singh and the crew in Eugene at the Golden Temple Bakery-a carob cake, tiered and thickly slathered with cream cheese and honey frosting. Yellow roses make it beautiful to look at, but the weight of it in the stomach becomes legendary in the years to come.

Following the ceremony we load the gifts into our Rambler station wagon and head for the ashram on Ogden Street. We stash them in our soon-to-be shared bedroom, gladly removed our stiff white clothes, careful to put them in plastic bags, mine to be returned to my mom’s house and Hans’ to the rental place on Bond Street downtown. We put on our jeans, sweaters, boots and load our backpacks and sleeping bags into the car and head for the lodge. On Monday we leave for our honeymoon in Florence (Florence, Oregon that is). Tonight we will snuggle up close in our sleeping bags on a wooden floor, space heaters blasting, with twenty other Ji’s laughing, snoring and drifting off to sleep with a mug of yogi tea in our bellies and smiles on our faces. We are young. We are in love. We are beginning.

 I always remember how the three sectors of our lives merged at our wedding: our families, hippie friends and Sikh community.

The setting was simple: the local Unitarian Church, folding chairs, and all-weather carpet. It was the Ritz to us.

I remember being so flushed, the energy in the room was so positive and I was so happy!

Nirbhao Singh (Cam) putting the final touches on the "infamous" carob wedding cake.

His folks, Al & Jackie, Hari Bhajan Singh, Me and my folks, Gemma & Clyde.