Poetic License 2

Here i am at my confirmation with my godparents in front of a Catholic church in Matamoros, Mexico. Apparently i was catholic the first seven years of my life, when we lived there. Except for dad, of course, by then he had taken up with what turned out to be a religion that is the opposite of Catholicism. A religion that hates Catholicism and refuses to celebrate Christmas and birthdays. We just didn't know it, yet.

If i was the romantic type, i might say that everything happens for a reason. Like having been confirmed Catholic before my father whisked us off to a world where Armagedon loomed nearer every day, or so it seemed to me. So when Trish called to tell me that i would have to become Catholic, i was able to say: oh, but i am! I was baptised and confirmed and i have my confirmation certificate to prove it; i just never did my first communion. She said: ok, mail it to me; that will get the ball rolling, we'll worry about the rest later.

The only thing we had to worry about was the premarital counceling that Catholic couples have go through together; but we were allowed to go through that individually. I called Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Wichita Falls and explained the situation; the father there was hesitant at first, but finally agreed. I was actually nervous to meet this man because i hadn't been around a priest since i was seven, but he turned out to be guy just a few years older than me from Ft. Worth. He talked to me about the sacraments and the usual stuff concerning marrige; i actually enjoyed our little talks. Trish went to her talks with a group where she was the only one without their future spouse. She said the deacon giving the talks told the grooms-to-be: (and this is most important) do not get drunk at the wedding because then you won't be able to determine if your bride was a virgin on your wedding night.

My advice would be the opposite, i would say: gentleman, ignorance is bliss, drink up. Bringing Catholicism to Mexico was just a bad idea.

There was to be no legal union by a justice of the peace for us because according to U.S. Immigration rules Trish had get her fiancee visa in Monterrey and once on U.S. soil, we could then marry legally. The problem: the Catholic church requires a couple to be legally married before it does a wedding mass.

The way things work in Durango, Mexico is all about appearences. Trish's parents could not have her just disappear without a good explination for distant family and espeacially neighbors. "She got a visa through her boyfriend, so she's going to Texas with him because he promised to marry her there," was not going to cut it.
Chaperon or no chaperon, their daughter was not going anywhere without at least the appearence of decorum. It's the european blood, the state of Durango was settled by people of the Basque region of Spain nearly 500 years ago. I believe the Aztec had a more relaxed constitution.

I have asked Trish how her parents were able to get us into that church for a wedding mass without the civil marrige certificate, but she has never given me a straight answer.

All my family drove down to Durango with me a couple of days before the wedding. The ceremony was at 8pm with the reception after in a private home; we spent most of the day together running all over town.

The time between arriving at the church and arriving at the reception is fuzzy, but this is my interpretation of the events. Upon entering the church i was told to go stand in front of the alter, which i did; but when i looked back at Trish, the priest was standing next to her and motioning me to join them, which i did. So, i join them in mid conversation, i don't know what's going on, but Trish had instructed me to say yes to anything the priest might ask, which we did. Now, at this point in the story, i have to speculate because, like i've said, Trish won't tell me what was going on; so, knowing that Mexicans will always go for the big lie when a little one or no lie at all will do, i think they told this priest that i was part of a drug cartel, because in all the telenovelas i've watched, the drug dealing groom is always marring some woman when he's already married to some other gal.

This would explain what happened next: the priest pulls me aside and asks me something which at the time i thought was one thing, but 20 years later, in which time, my spanish and understanding of Mexicans has improved, i now know that he was asking me, in his fancy priest talk, if i was already married. Well, whatever it was that i thought he was asking at the time and the answer to this question, luckily, was the same; and, luckily, i had decided to go with my gut on that question. This man was no fool, he knows something is going on, he doesn't want a mockery made out of this sacrament, he's afraid that the reason why we could not produce a marrige cetificate was that i was otherwise bound.

This was at the end of April. In June, we went to Judge Nancy here in Burk and she did the honors. I tell Trish that those few precious weeks between our fake wedding and our legal union were the happiest weeks of my life; a dream come true, thanks to the U.S. goverment.

That's why we have two anniversaries. We traditonally celebrate our fake wedding, but also aknowledge our legal union each year. This year everything conspired against us so we were not able to do anything on that day in April and we kept putting it off until i came up with the idea of changing our official anniversary to our June date from now on. It will go well with my birthday and Father's Day
that month.

I also tell Trish that i'm not 100% sure we're legally married because that day in June, Judge Nancy had me translate what she was saying into spanish, and you know, i'm a terrible translator; remember, at one point i said: she's saying that thing they always say in the movies, you know? You call that a translation? You didn't know what you were saying yes to, therefore not legal; we may still be living in sin. She just says that she's 100% sure that i'm an idiot... well, maybe she doesn't say it, but i know that look.

Poetic License

I've discovered that it is easy to sound (figuratively speaking) like a jerk or an idiot when you comment about marrige. When you're dealing with a sensitive subject like marrige, people will decide what tone they're going to hear based on the weight of their personal baggage; and, let's face it, marrige can be the very definition of the word: ambivalence.  So, i'm just going to throw my opinions out there, and not worry about what tone anyone thinks i'm taking. I'm not trying to change the world, for heaven's sake, i'm just talking about it.

"no one wants to get married,"

That quote was part of my stream of thought in my last post, and even though i cannot justify it, i decided to leave it in. It can be taken as humor, like most exaggeration, but i was also hoping to shake people up, plant a seed, make the reader wonder if maybe there is something to it.

Marrige does what it's supposed to do: provide a couple with legal union; it does nothing else, though. But, seems to me, in american society the word "marrrige" has become synonymous with "instant happiness and magic." That's why when people fall in love, right away, they think: i want to marry this person; it's what people in america have been fed since childhood. You go to school, go to church,
join the Republican Party, and marry your sweetheart. Maybe in India it is different, since marriges are an arranged affair.

I try to see through the propaganda. When i knew i had fallen for Trish, 21 years ago, my first thought was not: i want to marry this this girl; i did not see her in a wedding dress or feel a desire to be legally bound to her. I simply felt a desire to share my life with her. I suppose most people would say that a secular person like myself, with my family background, of course i'm going to have a distorted view of this institution. I don't think that has anything to do with it; i think it's my proclivity towards progressiveness.

The marrige license started showing up in the middle ages; before then, a couple would just have to stand in front of their friends and family or the god of their choice and declare their commitment. The purpose of the license is exclusion: underage people, of course, are excluded to keep them from making the biggest mistake of their lives; and at one time, a man and woman of different color need not apply, also. I'm all for governing the masses  but we've seen what people of one color can do to people of another color, or of another religion. Of course,
marrige should be regulated, it's a legal contract, but it should be as easy as filling out some forms and filing them to dissolve it for two consenting adults who own nothing and have no children. It is ridiculous to have to pay lawyers exorbitant
sums of money and have it drag on so long.

So, yes i have some problems with the system of legal union, but i did not ask Trish to "shack up" with me. There was no point in doing that for more than one reason. There are two things that Mexicans take very seriously, make that three: baptisms, weddings, and funerals; they're mandatory. I was too young to protest the first, couldn't get out of the second, but i'm sure as hell getting out of the third, i'm donating my body to science. I want them to see how well i've evolved, but i digress.

I did not have to ask Trish what her parents would have thought if i had voiced my desire to live in sin with their daughter, i had my own parents. The fact was: if i wanted Trish to share my life here, we would have to marry. I did not hesitate, i did not think: dang it, now i have to get married! It was the law of the land and it's not like i am against marrige, some of my best friends are married. (If Trish read my blog, she would laugh at that because she knows i have no friends.)

So, just as soon as she said yes, i went about investigating the proper way of doing this thing. My friends, the ones i used to have, told me to just pay a coyote to bring her across the river and then marry her and fix her papers, simple as that, and absolutely wrong. I petitioned for a fiancee visa on her behalf. Several months later she would receive an appointment at the U.S. consulate in Monterrey for an interview; there she would either be approved to enter the U.S. or not; she got it on the first try, i was so proud of her.

But let's go back, back to before i sent the application in to what was then U.S. Immigration and Naturalization; it read very clearly on the application: the fiancee must stay a fiancee until she entered the U.S., she could then marry the fiance. I think this was when i started to think: this is getting interesting. When i called Trish to explain the situation, i tried to not giggle because i already thought i knew where this was going; she said she would talk to her parents.

Back then, hardly anyone in Trish's family or my Mexican family, for that matter, had passports, let alone U.S. visas, which are not easily obtained in Mexico. When the verdict came in, Trish called to tell me that her parents would agree to let her go with me if we had a church ceremony in Durango. I asked her how we would do that, because i knew that couples had to get married in a civil ceremony by a justice of the peace before going to the church ceremony. She said that in Mexico, if you know the right people, anything is possible. And that's when i started to get excited about this "wedding."

The only two pictures of Trish and me before we got married, 1989.

Que te quita

My 12 year old and i were shooting baskets at the park last night when the temperture had gone down to 100 degrees. He was telling me that earlier, on Twitter, all of the sudden there were like tons of people all excited and like celebrating that Proposition 8 had been repealed.

I asked him if he knew like, what that was all about? he said something about GL&B's wanting to get married. So, i explained, this is going on in California (or Californication, as RWR would call it) and it's not about wanting to get married, nobody wants to get married, people get married to provide and protect their spouses and to have a fun wedding. This is about giving people equal rights.

Right Wing Religion, the biggest opposers of gay marrige, does not like it for the same reason it won't accept evolution as the reason for our existence: it threatens their belief system. That belief system keeps their world in order, supposedly keeps everyone in line, and insures their reward in the afterlife. It is against anything that might undermine bible teaching. Fear seems to be the main ingredient for intolerance.

I tell my kids: do not make assumptions about people, you will often be wrong,
and it leads to discrimination.

Anyway, it's too early for California gays to celebrate, but any excuse for a party, just like Mexicans. They should remember, RWR are a tenacious bunch, they have God on their side.

What i would say to a RWR person about gay marrige is what my mom used to say to me when i refused to try something new, she would ask me: que te quita? Which means: what does it take from you? And she would make a circle with her thumb and forefinger, hold it in front of my face and say: this is how much it takes  from you!