07/21/2010: "Kristin is Getting Married"

I am leaving in the morning for a wedding. The first one I've been to in years.

The bride and groom are from here (Calgary) and away (Norway) and as my wandering life would have it I'm a friend of the Norwegian and met her through work I did there.

She is the kind of woman who carries a champagne whip in her luggage and will meet you in Barcelona for the weekend with a few days notice.

She has seen her share of trouble and heartbreak enough for a lifetime. But she is brave and optimistic and radiates possibility, letting herself be swept away by love, from home and all that is familiar, to a new life here in Canada.

This poem, by Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge is for Kristin and her new husband Kary, in honour of their marriage.


It’s the dream we carry in secret

that something miraculous will happen,

that it must happen –

that time will open

that the heart will open

that doors will open

that the rockface will open

that spring will gush –

that the dream will open,

that one morning we will glide into

some little harbour we didn’t know was there.


Three morals in this story:

1. We carry a dream in secret that something miraculous will happen.
2. Sometimes it does.
3. But it asks you to let go of your familiar shores, and let yourself be carried away.

Yours with creativity and imagination,
Darlene