Last weekend I attended my niece Izzy and her husband Ollie’s wedding, at a ranch deep in Wyoming’s Gros Ventre Wilderness. I brought my good camera, knowing it would be worth it. When I got home — exhausted, still reeling a bit from the altitude — I started going through the pictures and videos, putting together an album for the family.
There were many images I loved, but one in particular caught me, and it wasn’t the one I’d have expected — not the majestic vistas, the ceremony on a cliffside promontory, the dramatic sunset, or the newlyweds’ horseback departure. No, the image that stuck was of them crowdsurfing, side by side, well into the reception. Smiles as big as the western sky, eyes lit like stars. It was actually a video, but I only caught two seconds. Watching it now, over and over, I’m glad it’s that short, because everything is contained in that brevity. Their faces — how could they possibly be more joyful? The bistro lights. The tree line behind them, the mountains catching the last of the light. The noise, the beautiful noise of laughter and music. And the hands — the hands of those who love them and have supported them, literally and figuratively, since they came into this world.
I keep coming back to one word: energy. The energy of love. How powerful it is. How mystical. Two people meet, and something inexplicable happens. Chemistry, magnetism, whatever name you want to give it. I’ve experienced it myself. You just watch and hear about how two people go from strangers to a whole life together. Proof that, as Springsteen said: “Two Hearts are Better then One.” I think it’s also proof that deep down, we’re better when we don’t go it alone. Life is, after all, a team sport.
By firsthand accounts, they were inseparable within days of meeting. Three years later, on that same ground, they promised each other forever.
The energy they created — and these are two very high-energy people to begin with — didn’t stay contained. It infused the guests, the band, probably the animals, even the mountains around us. You could hear it: the sound reverberating through the wilderness. Somehow, it always will. It changed us all a little.
Love. Two people. But so many more, too.
I keep watching the video. The Dangling Chains out of Jackson playing the soundtrack. Izzy’s boots kicked up, hands, fingers, faces, and sky; pure delight.
Two seconds. An eternity, in love.
— Pete
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