Spliced

 There is a profound emotion in marriage, an atavistic recognition of the value of connection all the more so when it’s your sister.

The ceremony was every bit the emotional, personal and intimate celebration of life that one would expect but it expressed in the details my sister’s convictions about how life should be lived in the community that is her home. Duncan her eldest piped us through the building leaving no doubt exactly where we were. 

Lucy wore a veil as tradition demands and a family member said she’d probably rather be wearing coveralls for farm work but she of course carried herself with aplomb. 

It was a room packed with emotion but also tradition, a connection to the past and a promise for the future that drew everyone in to a ceremony that is universal. But it was quintessentially Scottish 

Check out the oathing stones, whose significance only understood during the ceremony. I added mine unaware but soon learned, and apparently these stones from this day are to be collected into a display in the garden at home. What a brilliant tradition. 

We ate, a menu made in Scotland and I was required by my sister to speak, my last public act after which I settled back to be outside the stress zone. 

After all my childhood tie-bound in school I swore I’d never wear a tie again and I didn’t for my own wedding but I once found a wooden bow tie maker in Czechia and if the occasion demands I’ll pull that out. It rides in the van and this occasion demanded. 

The dinner was perfect combining the intimacy of the moment, the breaking of bread with the traditions of Scotland. I had soup others had shrimp all locally sourced. 

Vegetarian risotto or Lucy’s own lamb. I had the lamb with crusty rugged bread to sop the gravy. 

Scotland on a plate. There was cheese and biscuits and cake and lamb koftes (meatballs) later and I hope there’s some cake lying around my dusters home because I was unable to taste it last night. I was stuffed to the point I passed on the cheese and crackers, my favorite snack and took only the lamb koftes because I wanted to honor Lucy’s work, and I did not suffer at all in so doing. 

Fig pudding for me and chocolate mousse for some. 

They are a family of musicians so the evening devolved into various performances and I kept promising myself my bed and kept failing. 

There is the classic parlor whence the ceremony began and for a while I had it to myself, a rest with a whisky and a fire seemed quintessentially in the spirit of the night. 

I got to bed after one in the morning only after much conversation and learning what an astonishing cross section of people the happy couple knows. I even met a man born in Guyana… and I met another keen to know all about Suriname a long desired bucket list place for him to visit. And luckily I suppose there was an extra hour of sleep for celebrants and workers. 

There was the loud brash confident public display of joy. 

And the serene intimacy of the small group weaving their connection seamlessly for us to hear.

I needed fresh air from time to time and between squalls I went outside in the cold windy night. There was a storm blowing in from the north Atlantic symbolic I thought of the sturdy strength of marriage with the strong stone walls of the building. 

I found serenity in the day, comfort from the timelessness of the act of marriage and the affirmation of faith in the future. 

I also took on board the Celtic nature, the organic locally rooted details, the symbolism of Scotland in the unique traditions. 

I hope by posting a few pictures here of something so positive you too will get a.revered sense of the possibilities in the face of so much negativity outside the bubble that is tiny Ullapool.  

This wasn’t just two people getting married, it was a good moment to be alive. 

Scotland forever.