on finding the perfect ring, a family engagement, and chuppahs

Nathan called me early one Saturday morning last March. He'd gotten it into his head to spend the day walking around downtown and wanted me to accompany him.

It was a particularly nasty morning: torrential rain, biting wind, and no A-train service north of 168th Street. I was reluctant, to say the least, but eventually let myself be persuaded.

We met up at the 125th Street train station and headed downtown. I asked what it was exactly that we were doing, and he said he'd read about this little tiny jewelry shop in the East Village that does exquisite work and only uses non-conflict diamonds and would I please help him pick out an engagement ring?

We found the perfect ring, eventually, and Nate had the jeweler expedite it so that he could bring it to Paris the following week with, I think, the intention of perhaps proposing on a bridge overlooking the Seine. (You wouldn't necessarily think it to look at him, but my brother can sometimes be quite the romantic.)

And me and my big mouth, well, I guess I figured since the proposal was only a week away, it wouldn't hurt to, you know, maybe mention it to a couple people. A few people. Not too many, I swear, and all under strict instruction to, unlike me, keep their big mouths shut.

And then the proposal didn't happen. The perfect moment never quite presented itself. And those few people have been harassing me for months now, always asking, constantly inquiring, as to my brother's good intentions. (I might exaggerate a little bit here, but still, it's stressful for a girl to have secrets, especially when she's such an utter failure at keeping them.)

But finally, finally, just after Christmas, just before the New Year, my brother found his perfect moment, in the dead of winter, at a small bed & breakfast out on one of the San Juan Islands, just off the country's western rim.

And miraculously enough, the girl said yes.

When I was a little girl, I kind of always wanted a big brother. I was happy with the brother I had, of course, but I fantasized about having an older brother, someone bigger and stronger and more worldly, to look out for me I suppose.

What I never fantasized about was having a sister, older or younger. I had my girl friends, my bosom buddies, to steal a phrase from Anne Shirley, and just never hungered for a sister.

I will stand with my brother, who is also my best friend, and his Shanna at their wedding ceremony come September. And while Shanna may not be the older brother of my childhood dreams, she's a woman to be reckoned with, and a woman who looks after her own, and a woman my family will joyously welcome as one of our own, and a woman I will be pleased and honored to have as a sister in law.

Which brings me, lastly and finally, to the chuppah. I was talking on the phone the other night with Nate about possible wedding dates, locations, ideas. I mentioned to him my not very well thought out idea of knitting for Shanna a wedding shawl. He said he thought that might be nice, but that he'd been wanting to broach the idea of me knitting a chuppah for them.

A chuppah, if you don't know, is the traditional Jewish canopy under which the bride and groom (or the groom and groom, or bride and bride, as the case may be) say their wedding vows. It represents, or so it is said, the home the couple will create together. It is open on all sides, held aloft simply on four poles, the better to welcome in the couple's loved ones, and the world around them. And it is empty, furnished only with the couple themselves, the people there to bear witness, and the love shared between them all.

The idea of knitting a chuppah for Nathan and Shanna, for these two beautiful, wonderful people who somehow found each other quite literally in the wilderness on the far side of the world, just makes me want to laugh and cry with joy.

I've tentatively found a pattern, swatched in some old yellow acrylic I had in the closet just to see if I like doing it (for a piece this big, you better find a pattern you don't hate knitting from the outset). Now I just have to figure out the yarn (lace weight? fingering? worsted? bulky? white? cream? vanilla? wool? silk? cotton? bamboo? some combination thereof?), and try not to get overwhelmed.