Hawthorn and Cauliflower

The unluckiest day to get married is a Saturday in May, at least according to English superstition. My best friend and I discovered this last night as we were browsing Oxfam’s online shop¹ for wedding dresses.

It’s such a stereotypically girl thing to do – and neither of us is dating anyone² so it’s really more of an academic exercise than anything else. But some of these dresses were actually really amazing. Some of them were the trendy strapless kind, of course, which are lovely but not for me³, but I think I found my hypothetical wedding dress.⁴ Some of the dresses are not so amazing. There was one in particular that was just horrifyingly bad. It overemphasized the hips and butt area, and didn’t look like it would fit an actual woman. My eyes, they burned. But some of the dresses were great, and in the fictional world where I get married and have a wedding⁵, I am at least looking at Oxfam first.⁶

Not all the dresses were white, either. There was a silver one and a gold one and one with a tartan train. It got us thinking about the traditions and superstitions around weddings. Most people know “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” but did you know that Saturday used to be considered unlucky for weddings? Wednesday was the best day to get married. And May used to be an unlucky month. July and August weren’t bad, but November and December would bring you the most happiness. There are also superstitions about the dress colour and what day you buy the ring. And of course there are the traditions within the ceremony itself: the bridesmaids’ role as decoys, leaving the bridal outfit unfinished until the morning of the wedding, the cake, the confetti, shoes on the back of the car.

But my favourite by far is the medieval Breton tradition around the proposal. This just fascinates me. A suitor would leave a hawthorn branch outside his beloved’s door on May Day. If she accepted, she would leave it there. If she rejected him, she would replace it with a cauliflower. This brings all sorts of questions to my mind. What if the girl was away for the day? What if there was more than one marriageable daughter in the house? What if a girl had more than one suitor? What if someone interfered and stole the hawthorn branch, or the cauliflower? What does a boy do if he wants to propose on a different date? On the surface it seems like such a simple procedure, but I am afraid that it would be more trouble than it’s worth. But as long as they don’t get married on a May Saturday, I’m sure everything would work out.

¹Did you know that Oxfam sells wedding dresses through its online shop? Did you know that Oxfam has an online shop? They do. I volunteer there.

²She only seems to attract creepy guys, and I only seem to help guys figure out that they want someone else.

³I’d be too worried about it falling down, no matter how tightly it was taped and bound.

⁴My views on marriage and weddings are firm, although not immutable, and very similar to my views on children: great and wonderful and special….when they’re other people’s.

⁵That order is deliberate.

⁶I think I'm done with the footnotes now.

I tried to do the jumping-footnotes thing, but it didn't work....I'll learn html better and then come back and fix them. Sorry for making you all scroll up and down.

Two emotional/philosophical things have been on my mind lately. I am putting them in one entry because they are sort of connected.

First is the idea of living in the moment. People keep saying that you should “live in the moment” and enjoy things as they happen without thinking too much of what the future holds. The idea is that if you're always looking ahead, you miss out on the things that are happening now.

The problem is that our culture is not set up to live in the moment. Take my current situation. I am a graduate student on a one-year master's program, studying something that I love in a city that I love. And the first thing that my course convener said to me when I arrived? “Have you thought about what you're doing next?” This was before I had even officially chosen what classes I was going to take this year. The number one question that I get is “what are you going to do next?” This beats even “are you enjoying it” and “what are you studying” for frequency of questions that I get asked.

While I understand that it is necessary to look to the future, and that certain paths require a lot of advance planning, it is incredibly frustrating to me. I just got here! I am not ready to think about leaving yet! Can't I just enjoy my year here without worrying about what it's going to lead to? Part of the reason I chose this program was in the hopes that it will give me more clarity about what I want to do with my life – particularly what academic area I want to focus on. However, that can't happen until I actually experience this year. And, actually, the way that part of the course is organized, it won't happen until next semester, when I am taking more literature classes. I want to experience this year without the question of “what's next” hanging over my head. The question is not going to go away – even now it is always in the back of my mind – but I need it to stay in the back of my mind and not be constantly in the forefront.

The other thing, which is connected because it occasionally keeps me from fully experiencing this year, is looking to the past. I went back to Slovakia last week, which gave me a sense of closure about my experience there. However, the second-most common question I got (after “what's next for you”) was “when are you coming back?” The thing is, I'm not. If I can't find a job/place for me here in the UK, I will consider going back to Slovakia and teaching English at one of the universities or something similar. But I do not think that I will go back to the ELCA program and teach at one of the high schools. I don't even think that I will go back independently and teach at one of the high schools. I've done it. It's over.

I also have a friend in Slovakia – I love her dearly – who is constantly trying to improve her English by taking tests. Which she then sends to me to correct for her. And sometimes she sends me her students' work to correct. And it's really starting to bother me, because the only time she talks to me is when she has things she wants me to do. And the things she wants me to do are either things she should be doing herself, or things that I am not in a mental place to do anymore.

It's not that I don't love Slovakia – I do, and I will always treasure my time there and my friends there. But that is not my life right now. I need to focus on my life here and my experience here, and not feel constantly dragged back to what I was doing before.

It should not be this hard to be able to focus on this year and what is happening now. I hate that both the past and the future are pulling me away from what should be a good, meaningful experience.

Being at home

I have been thinking about writing a book based on my experiences in Slovakia, and an exploration of what makes a place “home”. There are a lot of trite things written about it, most notably the phrase “home is where the heart is” but I think there's more to it than that. In my book, I'm going to attempt to trace the three – maybe four – different threads that can make you feel at home.

The first thing is being around people that you enjoy. This doesn't have to be family, per se; in fact, for many people I know, being around their family is a hindrance to happiness. But if you have a good social group, things are a lot easier. I have been in a situation where every other aspect of “home” is right, but I don't have a good social group. It killed the place for me, to the point where I'm still not comfortable going back.

The second thing is being in a place that you enjoy. Some people are at their best in cities with good shopping; others in a place with a lot of history; others in smaller towns where they can get to know their neighbors. However, if you're in a place where you can't even stand leaving your house, you're probably in the wrong place.

The third thing is doing something that you enjoy. If you have a job that you loathe, you're not going to enjoy your life. If you have a job that you love, you will. It maybe shouldn't be quite that simple, but it is.

The fourth thing, and the one that probably isn't as important as the others – after all, I have never had it and yet I have been at home in several places – is the presence of love. It probably plays in to the first thing – being around people you enjoy – but it deserves a separate point anyway. It is sort of like the crowning jewel of home – being in a happy, stable relationship on top of everything else will make a place perfect.

I have been very lucky in my life, to have had homes many different places. I have had four different places where I have lived that I have had the first three points. I have lived with people I liked, in a place that I liked, doing things that I liked. I'm doing it again now, in fact. But I have found that if I'm missing any one of those three parts, I'm not at home.