My Dear Friends and Readers,

One of the rewards of traveling is to expand self awareness by temporarily experiencing  the lives of others whose living environments differ from our own.  As humans we have to go outside of what we know to experience and understand what we don’t know that we don’t know.  This weekend I went to Taylor Falls Minnesota and St. Croix  Falls Wisconsin for a wedding celebration that was transformative.

The  chosen wedding venue was  Taylor Falls Minnesota  whose population is 973 as of the last census in 2013.  The hotel in which all wedding participants spent the weekend was located  St. Croix Falls Wisconsin, population  2,094. While in either of these two communities I only saw Caucasian people, meaning no Asian, African American, Hispanic, Indian, Native American or otherwise except for the friends and the families of the bride and groom. I mention this fact because I had an opportunity to experience how poor unemployed or underemployed Caucasian people might view my seemingly privileged Brownskinned life.  These differences of perception and fact did not keep anyone from being friendly and working together. I was reminded of how fortunate I am.

 The entire  wedding weekend  was an expression of workability and togetherness.  The families and friends of  both the Bride and Groom for the most part had never met before, yet everyone arrived at The Taylor Falls Community Center at Taylor Falls Minnesota  ready to decorate and prepare it for the wedding of two seemingly opposites.

The wedding ceremony was thought provoking, the wedding celebration kept the oldest person- the groom’s grandmother to the youngest person -the bride’s niece dancing and until both had to be taken home and put to bed.

 This writer had the most fun dancing- something I have not done in years, joyfully dancing out of step to the music. It was an organic and fitting  tribute to the musical legend, Prince who had died two days prior and who had hailed from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prince we thank you for broadening our  souls for more that four decades;to the newly married couple who will relocate to India in a couple of weeks we salute and thank you for doing the same for our families.

 Signed with love,

Brianna S. Clark

The Addict Writes

P.S. All the details of near wedding  disasters will be left unsung in this blog except for one-  where the groom’s family misplaced a rental car which was ultimately found at the wedding venue where it had sat forgotten for the weekend.