A few years ago, there was endless commentary on Tiger Woods, and how his game was slipping. He wasn’t as effective a player has he had been, and there was constant speculation as to why. Turned out he’d gotten engaged and married, and had done so with such secrecy and control that most of the sporting journalism community simply missed it. After the wedding, his game improved again.

and I put so much work into our handfasting on Tuesday through Friday this past week, which of course was preceded by WildFire Retreat, that I’ve found it nearly impossible to function today. I’ve had three — yes, ladies and gentlemen, 3 — naps today, each one about an hour long. And the dog has put up with it, because I’ve let her be free in the apartment. She’s been a lot mellower the last month and a half or so, since her puppy training concluded (I think she’s also sick, but that’s a different story).

In any case, I’m simply mind-boggled how much work we did in the lead-up to the event, how much work we did the day before, how much work we did the day of, and how much we did in the clean-up after, and how much we did the day after. It was an enormous amount of stuff that we needed to accomplish, and we did, but whoa, it was a lot. What’s the old adage about the military? “Lieutenants seek glory, captains think tactics, majors think strategy, and generals think logistics.” We had to move a huge amount of materiel to the site, set it up, hold the event, take it down, and re-store it. Some of it we simply left in place, for the site owners to use at their next big event.

In any case, it was a kickass party. We had about 50 people there (at least, there are fifty intentions ties on our handfasting cord), including toddlers and teens, and three-and-a-half photographers. I say a half, because I remembered my camera but forgot to hand it off to someone. A great many of our best friends were there, and we had a rocking drum circle that actually summoned the police around 9pm. We also had fire-spinning on the lawn by the labyrinth from about 9pm until 11:30 or so. I think the party finally packed it in around 11pm.

I definitely suffered from pre- and post-ritual ADD. I kept bouncing from one project or people cluster to another, making sure that people were having a good time, that things were set up properly, and that we weren’t getting bored or something like that. Yeah, right. That’s what I told myself at the time. In truth I was totally hyper and wilded-out about what was happening, and the only thing that kept me stable during the ceremony itself was the labyrinth of rock and grass under my feet.

Everyone talks about the wedding night, or the handfasting night, or the engagement night. It’s a lie. and I crawled into bed and crashed pretty hard. It took substantial effort to get out of bed in the morning and let the dog out, an hour later than usual. Sunday was no easier than Saturday; had a prior commitment to participate in a workshop on that date, and she felt she had to keep faith. So we went. I tried to nap, but I was still flying high and Rick distracted me with talk. I wound up building half of a labyrinth at Tiana’s place before the rain and thunderstorms became too much. When I’ll finish it, I’ve no idea. Maybe at the August SOPHIA, but we’ll see. Again, we slept pretty hard last night, although I read to her in bed for a long while before we slept. We were both too tired to do anything, but lying there and reading words was pretty grounding. I highly recommend reading to your lover in bed.

We got some great advice from our friends, and many good wishes, and some good presents (though we weren’t expecting any). My friends and made excellent points, and so did their partners. I won’t speak for ‘s side of events, but I think we both felt that our relationship is re-begun in many ways. We’ve got big plans for the future, I think.

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