photo album-induced nostalgia for a time before i was born

i am sitting in my mother's bed in philadelphia, looking at old photo albums. in a thick dark red burgundy one, not the one labeled "alan and robyn 1983" but another one, I find a charmingly sweet and funny narration of my parents' wedding, scrawled in my mother's handwriting, accompanying the photos.

"people already waiting; robyn hasn't changed yet."
"everyone waits in the hot sun while robyn scribbles down their vows."

two long paragraphs about marriage, aka "a public statement of our commitment to each other" as a way to "better preserve our sense of equality," a "time in our lives where we feel it is appropriate to create a refuge from the turmoil around us...indeed, from this center we will have even more energy to reach out."

a description of chupah as symbolic of community...
AND THEN
their vows.
my mother's starts off with "you give me an image of a world to strive for."
my father's ends with,
"i want to marry you because i believe that together we can raise children who will be better prepared to create peace."

my parents divorced years ago, and i've never had quite such a perspective on their marriage, though i have been musing for awhile now, when i think about their now seemingly unlikely union, on how successfully they imparted my sisters and me with their values.

on another note, in a photo of them in their new house, the busy fruit wallpaper of the living room is interrupted by a mustard-colored poster which reads in block letters, 'ARTISTS CALL AGAINST U.S. INTERVENTION IN CENTRAL AMERICA.'

in light of this poster, the personalities and politics of my parents in their twenties-- newly articulated by my discovery of the narration of their wedding, and a first-hand experience of my own politics, personality, and imaginations of my own love and/or something like marriage, let me say: how some things don't change.