A Spectacle of Good Intention
Less of a poem today….let’s call it a conversation. I’ll have mine with sparkling wine with my shoes off under the table.
Louise Gluck, Nobel prize winning poet, once said after attending a wedding that she had a great time because she “loved spectacles of good intention.”
Having presided over countless weddings, I thought it was a sublimely perfect description. We are a hopeful species really. I always chuckled a little at the ones who started the pre-wedding conversation with “this is for life. we don’t believe in divorce.” I never once had a couple say, “We are going to give it our best for maybe 15 years, walk away and call it good.” The weddings, no matter how large or small, are spectacles. The vows are always good intentions.
Not all good intentions are spectacles
Not all spectacles are good intentions.
We do enjoy the hope of the moment. We lean back in rented folding chairs under a chandelier or a canopy of stars and suspend cynicism because the hope is just so alive, sweet and we rarely ever put champagne on the weekly grocery list.
On the eve of the 2020 Election, we raise our glasses to toast a spectacle of good intention. One person, one vote. Majority rules. The people choose. And then comes the aftermath of the bitterness and gloating. The winning losing nature of it all. There is time enough for morning hangover, the broken shoulder strap, the lost cumberbund. Right now, there is a spectacle of good intention. It is filled with buffet lines of people who believe in this crazy, messy, ever-changing American household. We are a spectacle of good intentions. We hope we will see more. Let’s lift a glass to us.
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