Last weekend Cowboy and I were at my mother’s while I finished teaching a summer acting workshop and he banged together an outdoor pen for my mother’s cats. It was a slog of a weekend, the kind where you’re away somewhere beautiful but don’t actually see each other or your family and find that most communication revolves around the dog and who’s taking him for a walk at which inconvenient time and how much he pooped and whether it was firm or still like yellowy soft-serve Dairy Queen and how many sticks he’s devoured and whether he’s chewed through his sixth leash yet and does he have enough treats to keep him attached to his Kong for at least twenty minutes? Typical parental stuff, I guess, but when suddenly your life seems to revolve around these basic needs and conversations, it feels like your brain was sucked out by the super vacuum cleaner at the car wash.
Like new and jittery parents, we tried to keep our dog somewhat under control as my mother said helpful things like “Oh, you guys! He’s just being a puppy!” “But, Mom, he’s standing on the table!” “You guys need to relax!!”
So, it was with great relief that we gave the dog the largest beef bone we could find, closed him with his bed in the way back of the Subaru, and headed to my father’s for a late summer lobster feast. Later, it may have been the bottles of chilled pinot grigio and the rich food coupled with the parental pleasure of a tired and happy kid in the back seat, but on the way home Cowboy pulled over the car.
It’s been no secret that the field down the road from my mother’s house that borders our very special wild-preserve bay is the place as a girl I’ve always imagined my fantasy wedding. I’ve had it planned for years, and, as the father of one of my friends pointed out, “Just add the guy, any will do.” I think this is what girls do — it’s cultural, I’m sure — but I can say with certainty that although I’ve been planning my wedding since I was 13, it was never something I actually thought I needed, it was more something I wanted to plan and direct in my head, kind of like I’d produce a play.
So, when Cowboy stopped the car next to the field in a herky-jerky veering kind of John Cleese way, I suddenly thought the car was broken or Hopper was peeing in the back seat.
“Open the glove box,” Cowboy’s voice stopped me as I turned to reprimand the dog. I looked at him totally confused. “Open the glove box,” he said again. I did. Inside I found a small little box wrapped in a crinkly piece of paper and inside was a lovely silver and turquoise Navajo ring.
“Oh my God, you’re so stupid,” I exclaimed to which my cousin later said, “Geez, what a lucky guy.” And then he asked me if I’d marry him in that field in one year . . . and I said yes. Unreservedly yes, that I’d be honored.
