Home for a Wedding: Sunday musings…5/18/2025
1. Limerick. Last Monday was National Limerick Day. Really. We have a national day of recognition for limericks.
Can’t make this stuff up.
2. Recondite. Definition: little known; abstruse. Came up in a limerick “written” by ChatGPT prompted by my friend Monie who’d informed me of our special day of recognition.
3. Abstruse. Definition: little known; wait for it…recondite.
I just love that.
4. Mate. My daughter and SIL live adjacent to a little pond and nature preserve, each teaming with, you know, nature. This being the Low Country of the South Carolina coast this little kingdom is ruled by a rather large alligator the kids have named ‘Seabiscuit”. This queen is a rather prolific generator of next gen gators, each spring welcoming a new suitor of suitable size with no discernible fidelity to any particular partner. Sharing space in the pond are several pairs of Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, each of which is mated for life. They are as darling together as Seabiscuit is deadly alone.
We were brought to Bluffton for a wedding. Our nephew and his fiancé were married on the grounds of his parents’ new home, a place that he and his siblings seem to have quite quickly adopted as the family home (more in a moment). It was a lovely ceremony, officiated by the bride’s grandfather and witnessed by 150 or so family members and friends. “You are my person” was a very moving moment as they said their vows. Weddings can be pretty stressful events, and like most this one was not without its share of tensions and drama. But thankfully, like most weddings, the event seems to have gone off without a hitch.
And like those Whistling Ducks in our kids’ pond we wish for them a lifetime as mates.
5. Home. As I mentioned above my sister Tracey and her husband Steve moved their home from New Hampshire to South Carolina a couple of years ago. Steve’s career took them from MA to NH to Buffalo and back to NH. Their kids were home for both NH v1.0 and Buffalo, and judging by the number of friends they made and kept from their years in both I think the Godin family would consider that they had been “home” in both New London and Buffalo.
Home, of course, is more than just where you happen to live.
There’s no question that Tracey and Steve have found a real home in Bluffton. Like Whistling Ducks to water, they both seem truly happy. At home in all respects. It’s harder to know how it will feel for my nephews and niece; all three are in the very early phases of their careers on the small scale and their adult lives on the grander. Will they look at their parents’ home as just the place where their parents live, or will it feel more like the singular family home? It’s a fine point, perhaps even a bit of gilding the lily, and one that is likely a much bigger deal to those in my generation, if in fact anyone other than me even thinks about such things.
When Beth and I moved on from the house where our kids grew up, traveling the longest 7 miles I’ve ever traveled, everyone was so young that our little cottage seemed to naturally take on the mantel of the family home. Not just the house where Mom and Dad live. There were enough years before they married and moved to their own homes that Casa Blanco was still home. In our favor was the fact that those 7 miles didn’t seem nearly as long to the kids as they did to us, and we didn’t make a NH to SC magnitude move. Our “ancestral” homes feel more like “where we grew up” than “home” now that they are no longer home to ancestors.
Home is really about who lives there.
So it is that Beth and I find ourselves thinking about what home is going to look like as we embark on our third act. This week in Bluffton was about more than just a wedding for us as we prepare to build a wing on the southern side of our home. 10,000 steps through 1.3 million square feet of furniture showrooms (not a typo), walking through the electric plans and strolling “inside” the staked out lot made the winter wing of Casa Blanco start to feel very real, indeed. Real, but not yet a home. At least a full-time home, that is.
You see, I’ve actually been home all week. I am home right now, hurtling north at 80 MPH on I-77. Home is about who lives there, right? My person, Beth, is sitting right next to me. I am as “home” here as I am anywhere in the world. As home as I will be no matter where Casa Blanco may be at any moment because, like Tim and Kate, and so many other Whistling Ducks this weekend, I am with my person, and that means I am already home.
I’ll see you next week…
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