The taxi, the jetty and the marriage boat

True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy's hot fire,
Whose wishes soon as granted fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind - Walter Scott

A little after 9am, the adorable Ms C, in a lovely lilac dress, came out of her house into her yard to marry her Mr K. I watched the wedding from the gate, where I was waiting for a cab that wouldn't materialise.

Yes I had to be at a church for the next wedding at 9.30am - because yes Ms C, a close office comrade, and Ms Ong, my favourite friend, were both doing the marriage thing on the same morning and I wanted to be at both weddings. I had to. (Am a I wedding whore? Maybe.) Never mind that (a) I live on the western end, (b) Ms C lives on the northern end, (c) Ms Ong lives on the eastern end, (d) I don't drive, and (e) many cabbies don't get out of bed before noon on weekends, to be true to their nature of never ever being there for you when you need them.

So, where was I? Yes, at the gate.

On one hand, it was good that the cab that I had called was so late, I didn't have to miss a moment of Ms C's ceremony. Not one "I will", not one "I do", not one joke by her jolly justice of peace ("don't hold your cert, hold your wife"). On the other hand, it was bad for the cabbie and bad for my karma. He finally found his way to Ms C's house at 9.20am; I wasn't good enough to spare him a scolding. But he's a great old Hokkien guy who ignored my scolding, talked to his friend on his walkie-talkie, and still sped me to the church in time for me to scoot up the stairs, steal in through what turned out to be the back door and see... Ms Ong's bridesmaid and matron of honour marching towards me?

And here's Ms Ong now, all bridal and aglow. And there's her father. And there's the man who will be her husband, Mr Lan. And as she walks towards him - and towards me, because I'm standing somewhere behind him - I try to wave to them to tell them, "I made it! I was this close to killing the taxi man and he was this close to getting me killed with his speeding and my hair is messy but I made it!" I might have been waving like a drowning man but no one seems to see me - and it's fine. It's like when your friends are about to begin a very important journey - that's not yours to take with them and really, with regard to marriage, you're more of the armchair travel type - and the next best thing that you can do is just to be at the jetty as they're setting sail. I'm very, very glad to have got to the jetty - twice - today.