There was Something in my Eye

Like 25 years ago or so my aunt got married in Idaho, and my brother and I were the altar boys. I think my mom thought it was a funny role to assign to us because we did it again for an uncle. I liked the flowing robes just fine.

But we didn’t know anything about it (always waiting until the last moment for the priest to make a desperate motion or sound to guide our next course of action) and didn’t appreciate our position in a confined room in the back of the church, where there’s no hiding from the all-seeing eye of the Lord and your recent sins are all too prescient on your conscious.

I don’t remember a lot about the trip out there. I remember the top of my head was bleached blonde. I was overweight. Maybe I had braces. My life was bathed in sin.

But I do remember the ceremony. At some point while the bride and groom stood attentive to the priest and the room was captivated, something got in my eye, like a lash or something, and the more I rubbed the more irritated it felt. Tears were streaming down my face, I grew more and more embarrassed, the ceremony continued, and still the irritation, rubbing and weeping persisted until the recessional.

Afterwards, guests told my parents they’d been truly touched by my uncontrollable display of emotion. I didn’t know my aunt all that well; I definitely didn’t know her husband. I’d never been to Idaho. More importantly, I’d never had a lash in my eye.

I remember getting into the rental van after the ceremony. It was hot, and on our way to wherever it was we went next I have a vivid recollection of seeing my first tumbleweed. The way it moved across the road confirmed the cartoons as being depictions of an honest-to-God truth. It was hard to believe that something so quixotic could play out its role so stereotypically.

Nothing’s there, nothing’s left, so the skeletal husk gets blown along by the wind and desperately scatters its remaining seeds atop dry, rocky soil. That’s the way I’d always imagined it, and that’s exactly how it was to be seen.

I didn’t want all those people to see me crying, but I knew they had. Sometimes it’s best to leave attachment behind.