varying degrees of light

The entire sky was one giant soft-box of rainy light, diffused evenly for us to see the wet pavement and the wedding guests, hunched over their umbrellas, dashing into the building. Five groomsmen, two fathers, a priest, an usher and the groom - all in brown tuxes, sitting around a table of home baked cookies, bagels, grapes and carrots that went mostly untouched - waiting for the ceremony to begin, watching the minutes pass.
Jacob, soon to be Piper's husband, was calm and looked younger than I had ever seen. Having had shaved his beard and let his hair grow long, I felt like I had just met him again in some small, conservative Christian school where the kids were late to first period because they were loading hogs with their dads.
And yet, there we were.
I am twenty years old, and it was the seventh wedding I'd been to since graduating from high school. The room was dim - the lights were off in the building, and I imagined what it be like to photograph the men, and boys, in their tuxes, lit from the soft glow of the rain outside. Sitting, sprawled in our chairs, maybe a little anxious, but not too much, sharing a few laughs and mostly, steadily, wrapping our minds around the coming situation.
We will walk out of the room and down the hallway. The band will play. We'll line up and walk each other down, through the room full of people that we know, or knew, and (for me) have trouble to keep from smiling, laughing, waving. In a matter of moments, they will be married.
And then they were. Piper walked down the aisle with her father and Jacob received her. I saw the look in her eyes and, later, was told about the look in his, and we were all near the edge of blubbering tears.
Who can explain such things?

-

1) The line "We're free to fly the crimson sky. The sun won't melt our wings tonight." from an album I bought several years ago, by a band that I loved like you do when you're thirteen years old. Driving back today, from Traer to Sioux Center, meant crossing the beautiful state of Iowa in the middle of a mid-March snow fall. Small, neglected and dying towns of Iowa - stuck in the faded vitality of decades before our existence - contain some of the saddest images I've seen in a while. Imagining, in light of the weekend's celebration, the lives that these people have lived - marriage, children, parenting, support and goodbye to children, watching them graduate, leave, work, become confident in themselves, letting them be terrified in their independence, and continuing on with existence in their homes, having had built the town and sustained it for so long. I guessed I'd like to have shaken some hands. But the lyric still.

2) The worn, sky blue sweatshirt from high school that my friend was wearing tonight - it being Sunday and, for her, the weekend brought a close to several good things and the prelude to goodbye to several talented, magnificent friends. I sat and watched my friend bristle and shake in anger, falling over her words and in the middle of it all - I don't know why - we both said, "It's okay," and "I'm sorry." Over and over again. When I left, having said goodbyes in simple and calm confessions of "I can't take this right now," and yet another "I'm sorry" and a brief blocking of my exit (which kills me), her anger still hung vividly in the room and I found no comfort in the lyric above, the song still in my head. I played other music, met other friends, but it is there still - the anger without sight of consolation, and the doubt for myself and what I've been doing.
There are some unattainable ideas that we fight for - myself and others with me - and it's not uncommon for others to find our efforts in vain.
So what's the trouble?