The Life Literary

The Inn at Little Washington is a quaint collection of buildings in a tiny village (Washington, Virginia) with only a handful of houses, a few shops, and really one main intersection, all within sight of the Blue Ridge mountains.  I think the pastoral setting worked its calming magic on each of us.

Please indulge this brief tale about a bit of man-of-the-house pride.  When we were getting settled and set up in the fireplaced room in the small, 18th century cabin that was the venue for both wedding and wedding night, my own bride suggested we put my satchel out of sight in a safe place.  I proceeded to squirrel it away, not realizing I would be asked for five items from it (I love being prepared) in the next half hour: band-aid, screwdriver, sewing kit, reading glasses, and the one I liked best: headlight.  I don’t usually carry that very handy light I wear around my forehead in dark times of need, but in my worried over-preparing for the day, trying to anticipate all contingencies, I threw it in.  When my wife, who in a few panicked moments before the ceremony absolutely couldn’t fasten the bride’s dress’s clasp, asked for my help (imagine: the bride’s father in the dressing room and her, though all dressed, still not completely fastened; I felt like a privileged foreign dignitary in the home country’s embassy), “You don’t happen to have your headlight, do you?” I was able to be, for a minute, a central actor in a play I’ve mostly been on the fringes of these days.   Continue reading →