By Alyce Wilson
(InYourTown.com, June 2001)

Through my lens, in supreme close-up, my brother and his new bride looked into each other's eyes as they made their wedding vows. The camera shook in my hands while I surprised myself by sobbing uncontrollably. They say there's no such thing as crying from joy.

You're really crying, they say, because this happy moment reminds you of all the miserable moments before. You cry at someone's success because it brings to mind your own failures. If that's true, I was crying because that moment of sheer beauty counteracted every ugly hypocrisy.

The celebrities themselves don't give us much hope, either. Falling in love with one's costar and jumping into a disposable marriage (with pre-nups) is common. For every Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, there are ten celebrity marriages that barely last longer than the movies that sparked them.

How often do you see a real love story on the silver screen? Here's my own screen treatment for a real tale of love.

The hero has been beat up by love so hard that he has inexplicable nightmares about bowls of pudding and crocodiles. The heroine, traumatized by betrayal, won't watch anything but sci-fi and Cheech and Chong. Everything else makes her cry.

They meet at a party and feel a strange bond. It's as if she knows all about his pudding crocodiles, and he understands about weeping through Tootsie. To them it feels as if they've entered a world of wonder, if only for one night.

Afterwards, they immediately do nothing. They are terrified of making a mistake, of having their hearts stomped on like sweet grapes. (It is said that "heart juice" is a delicacy in Shangri-La.)

But the world of wonder seeps into their daily groove. His crocodiles lose their teeth; she can watch Tootsie without wailing. He shows up on her doorstep; she calls him at midnight. They agree to give it a shot, heart juice be damned.

As weeks go on in a montage of moonlight and daydreams, his pudding crocodiles give way to dream journeys of exquisite light and cloud. She works her way up from light comedy to romance to drama, until finally she can even watch Magnolia, or Shakespeare in Love, or anything.

On occasion, they have fights out of the misconception that they should have fights. But they only play at it, like children play soldiers. Afterwards, they fall into each others' arms, as if enjoying a refreshing after-play snack.

One morning, they wake up and her hair has whitened. The corners of his eyes have wrinkled. Long ago, the world of wonder became real to them; they live in it as casually as they used to dwell in misery. They go sailing on his boat, the S.S. Crocodile Pudding, and one day they disappear into a sea of sunsets. Or one of them sails off while the other stands on the shore, waving. Or they sink in strong surf, gulping kisses.

The thing is, we never know how love will end, and we seldom expect it when it begins. We don't know what shape, size, color or fragrance it will be. But it is real.

Believe me. I have photographs.

Blessings to Andy and Mary Wilson, united in bliss on May 19, 2001