In sickness and in health

The healing power of weddings and writing through illness

Photo by Zoriana Stakhniv via Unsplash

I am writing this week firmly in a place of sickness, so this came out in one go. Last weekend we traveled to Chicago for a lovely wedding and returned with hearts aflutter and a slow growing respiratory infection. But antibiotics have cooled my brain off enough to allow a couple of words to slip out, so for that I am grateful. I would also be grateful if you subscribe for free below.

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I remember when I was in my early twenties and an older co-worker enthusiastically extolled his love of weddings to me. He cited them as not just as a fun item to fill his diminishing social calendar, but as an event that was nothing but good vibes. He smiled and put a heavy hand on my shoulder and told me one day I would understand. I was young and had a social calendar full of (mostly) good vibes, so the observation stuck in an oblique way.

After all, weddings can be an obligation. They can be expensive. They can require logistical planning and babysitters and headaches you could avoid by not going. You might also end up regrettably hungover afterwards. Or sick. But they are also a great excuse to experience something really (hopefully) good.

For this wedding in particular, we got to go back to the place where my wife and I met. We got to see old friends. I got to have a beer with two of the groomsmen from my own wedding, indulging in nostalgia and talking ambivalently about the future, kicking the future can down the road, a small refuge in knowing that maybe I had reached a place with my own health to believe that there would always be a new day to see them and see where the can ended up.

We got to see old friends’ new babies. Life had progressed. Tucked behind all of the welcoming smiles were flashes of grey hair and hints of exhaustion. That roving next phase of life had been unlocked for them and we arrived to hold and marvel at their small future, myself in suitable awe that those same people we had endless nights with now entrusted me (and themselves) to cradle so much wonderful possibility.

And we got to see two old friends’ new beginning. Love had been found. The joy was there, the vows were right, and that beautiful existential weight was lifted and committed to something more when the ceremony came to a close. Beginnings can be beautiful, and sometimes that’s all that matters. Then, the wonderful alchemy of inviting some odd strangers into a room and supplying enough wine and playing the music loud enough allowed the soup of life to congeal into that aforementioned all-encompassing good vibe that my old coworker had foretold.

I had learned his lesson a couple of years ago, but I reveled in its power.

By the end of the trip, a sort of sickness had set in. There was something bittersweet about dropping into what felt like a past life. Walking around Chicago, going to the Art Institute, indulging in the miracle of decent public transit, and seeing old friends welcome us back brought out an inevitable sense of homesickness. It was a feeling that maybe we had left a place where we should have been.

But then we made it back to Los Angeles. And like any sickness, it thankfully passed… So that we could get sick for real. As my immuno-compromised body took the gallant lead into symptom-ville, we both fell ill in the robust safety net of our home. We ordered delivery from our favorite Taiwanese restaurant. We curled up on our couch and coughed in each others faces, falling down a television hole as we passed a bottle of tylenol back and forth as if it were that last glass of wine at the wedding that we were responsibly “splitting” before the night ended— with grunting reminders to remain hydrated.

It was a reminder that home was wherever we were. There was no prescription for life.

So much credit to whoever enshrined those weddings vows and decided to end the triplet of “better or for worse”, “richer or for poorer” with “in sickness or in health.” Talk about rule of threes, Thomas Cranmer killed it with the emphasis on that one.

And while there are plenty of stories of money changing someone, nothing will test an oath like illness. Sure, cancer is the name of the game for this newsletter— but the battle lines can be equally drawn when cold and flu season comes home to roost and two forever partners are reduced to febrile id-versions of themselves— and someone still should wash all of those dishes piling up.

I have spent much time writing while in sickness, with health being only a distant glow on the horizon. But in the act of writing, if I stick with it, the words usually offer some hope that something better will come. And I’d like to think that it’s not narrative gravity requiring that all of those words end on a high note. I would prefer to think that it is a subconscious reassurance that some part of me knows something that I don’t.

And so perhaps against the arguments of the headache that I have put into a chokehold— I will confess that it was worth it. In writing this, I am forced to begrudgingly admit that the pursuit of life and all of the good vibes it has to offer has been the best remedy for whatever has ailed me. I think I feel better already.

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Sensory Activation: Things I Was Into This Week

Plus Ones (2019)

Every few months, me and some friends do something called a Movie Draft. Think of it as Fantasy Football but instead of players you pick movies and they duke it out via votes to see who chose the best lineup. Our last one was a “Rom-Com” Movie Draft and in my research I had heard that the under-seen Plus Ones (2019) was a fun one. So after ten hours of sick television viewing, we ended our coach potato session with some more wedding material.

I enjoyed it. Maya Erskine is very funny. The chemistry and banter are good. The wedding tropes are pretty spot on. I would have picked this movie as a candidate for my fantasy draft card if I thought more people have seen it— so this is my endorsement to expand its audience. It is a good rom-com. That’s all I got.

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