Today is my wedding anniversary. January 23, the dead of winter. "Ah, destination wedding," you may be thinking. No, no. No one had destination weddings in
those days. I know, not everyone would consider a January wedding in Chicago of all places. I had been living in North Carolina for a year and a half, teaching freshman English at NC State. The future husband and I had some big long-distance charges in those days. Then in October, we met in Boston for Columbus Day weekend. We decided to get married after my semester ended. So between late October and the wedding, I resigned from my job, the future husband bought a condo, I packed up my stuff and had it moved to Chicago, and that was that.
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| over the threshold |
The day of our wedding was bitter cold with a dusting of snow on the ground. We all wore heavy coats and gloves to the wedding. The wedding was in Bond Chapel, a wonderful small Gothic chapel on the University of Chicago campus. We had only nine guests, including the best man and matron of honor. I wore purple. It was a high-necked, long-sleeved, fitted wool dress (hey, it was January) that I can't even imagine being able to fit into again. We held our "reception" in our new condo with homemade food, a sweet little cake, and lots of champagne. It was fun, low-key, and just right.
Yesterday we decided to revisit the old neighborhood. We went by Bond Chapel. An Eastern Orthodox service was just ending. We waited until we saw some people leave, then we sneaked in for a peek. Whoops, they were having a fellowship lunch in the foyer. It was a little awkward, but we slipped past the people with their paper plates of food to see the nave and the stained glass windows. It looked exactly the same.
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| Bond Chapel |
We went past our first home, the condo across from a park. The park was filled with children sledding down a little hill. There seemed to be more children than when we lived there. The Lutheran School of Theology two doors down had expanded its parking lot and blocked access to the alley, but otherwise, everything looked almost exactly the same.
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| third floor walk-up and a stained glass pizza |
We also went to lunch at our favorite pizza place, Medici on 57th. I snapped a phone picture of my husband with a bit of wall and booth background and sent it to our daughter. "Guess where we are?" She texted back, "Without me?" Yep. Just the two of us, back in the neighborhood where our married life began on another cold January day in Chicago, twenty-four years ago.
