It is the mountains again, always the mountains. The sky is blue, a blue that makes me imagine anything is possible, and it sets off the white-and-blue hanging glaciers of Mount Shuksan against dark greenschist rock. I stand next to Dad’s army friend George, waiting, laughing nervously, more nervous each minute. A few close friends are clustered around me, each in a knee-length, cranberry-colored silk dress of her own choosing, the warm sun drawing strong shadows under collarbones and cheeks. My dress is white, a simple lean design made of raw silk with a champagne-colored sash hanging to the ground in back below a row of tiny covered buttons.
The details are in place. I hadn’t worried too much about them, and things had arranged themselves in all the right ways. Two small bouquets of flowers have been placed on chairs in honor of Dad and Kathy, and a special note to them included in the bulletin. There is a picture of them at the lodge where we will hold the reception. We are standing in the perfect mountain meadow. There is a band that will play “Brown Eyed Girl.” I’d splurged on flowers. I wonder if I should be thinking more of them, but it is a momentary wonder. I am where I am supposed to be, waiting to walk to the person with whom I will spend the rest of my life, without whom I can’t imagine spending another day.
“It will just be a few minutes, I think,” someone tells me.
I know we have arrived on time and am not worried, but the delay seems to stretch like a lazy cat well after sunrise.
“What is it?” I ask.
“They’re just trying to get people seated,” a second person says. But the delay is longer than something like that would require.
“Seems like it’s taking a while,” I say to break the awkward pause, to calm my own nerves.
The two who’ve been talking glance at each other; something uneasy passes between them. Then there’s a pause.
“There’s a bear that’s come into the meadow,” someone says gently. “It’s not a problem. He’s just eating grass, but we’re trying to get him to move. He’s right in the path where you girls are about to walk.”
The sky flashes blue. The glacier winks. The spruce trees are suddenly the deepest green.
“A bear,” I say quietly. “With all those people in the meadow. Wow.”
I look at George, and we both smile small easy smiles. I think I see George’s eyes glistening. Of course there is a bear.
“It’s okay,” someone says, quickly. “We’re trying to get him to move along. He just doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.”
It is a half hour later when we finally walk down the hill toward the meadow, the girls in their silk dresses and the guys in tuxedos, and finally George holding his arm firmly under mine. I walk down the small hill, where there is no longer any evidence of bear, and toward the meadow, and up between the chairs, where I had thought I would feel self-conscious, but I look at my husband-to-be ahead of me, the man who will be the father of our children, of Dad and Kathy’s grandchildren. I see Peter’s smile and the tears in his eyes. And a world and a life that are deep and complex and full of wonder.