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Lucky you! You have your passport ready, tickets in hand. I’ll share more about my birthday later in the month and this summer of love. When all was said and done, we drove around the neighborhood making old-fashioned, joyous noise with string and tomato sauce cans dragging behind us. Our family friend Coline Creuzot serenaded us and friends brought over flowers and left them on our porch. Saro was watching over us as Robert made vows to Zoela.

Standing in our backyard under a fig tree and making vows to each other was the most perfect wedding for us and for this moment. To my surprise, the scaled down simplicity of it was stunning. But I also hated the idea of a commitment to love being in limbo and 2020 passing without marking momentous life milestones. So trust me, I was a reluctant convert to the idea of a Zoom wedding. It’s no secret that I love people, food, and gathering. I could not let it pass without standing acknowledging the beauty that sits right beside the collective pain. I wanted full living, even in quarantine. I wanted to reach up into the vast sky and openness as much as I wanted to reach deep into the earth and ground myself. And yet, there was a small voice inside me urging me to do the very thing that might lift my heart and push against heaviness and isolation. So the idea of celebrating anything was a real reach for me. We are suffering our own private pains as the losses, public and private, keep rolling in.

I will be the first to admit, I have had dark, hard days this summer.

Whether it is the love experienced with a new partner the joy of a child maturing before your eyes a friend who sends you spices in the mail or merely the deepening understanding that your life is precious and a gift, we have much for which we can be grateful. Amid a global pandemic and civil unrest, beautiful milestones can still be honored.

No doubt about it, I feel so immensely grateful for both of these blessings. This summer two wonderful things have transpired in my life: I got married and I celebrated entering my 5th decade of big-hearted living.

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