Shirley's wedding speech

Members of the wedding, you will know already from the marriage ceremony this morning that this wedding is both a celebration and a dream composed and realised by the bride and groom.

We have stepped into a collective dream which beginning with the morning ceremony involved us in their homage to nature and the works of man. The lavish beauty of the bride and groom and their attendants, the clarinet players, the simple barn, the encompassing landscape, ritual gestures, words from Latin, English, Hebrew, your presence, illuminate the vows of the beloved one to the other.

Retracing Naomi’s research footsteps for an exhibition at the Jewish Museum Material Treasures, I read an account of a Palestinian wedding by a curator at the British Museum. From this I realise how restrained Kevin and Naomi have been after all and also why Ruby referred at the rehearsal to a missing horse. I quote:

At dusk the groom’s male relatives left the merrymaking at his home and set off to fetch the bride. The groom stayed behind, but please note Lesley, the groom’s mother went with them carrying the mock bride (a doll, a person?). The horse was decorated “for the groom” i.e. with articles of clothing identical to some of the brides. On its head a saffeh, (coin headdress), on its back, a red coat.

When the escorts arrived at the bride’s house, she mounted the horse wearing a white underdress, the red atlas coat, coin headdresses (plural) her silver jewellery, a red face veil and over her head and body a white coat. As she sat on the horses back, a pair of her husband’s shoes were placed on her feet and a sword was placed in her hands. A leaf from the prickly pear (the sabra) was stuck on the point of the sword and candles were stuck on its spines. The procession of members of both families and the other villagers (that’s all of you) then set off for the groom’s house led by female relatives of the bride who walked in front of the horse, one carrying her trousseau in a box, others the mattress, quilt and bridal cushions stuffed with straw.

None of us can have been surprised that Naomi and Kevin would curate rather than merely arrange, this wedding celebration and that all its elements have been chosen for their meaning. What Naomi and Kevin are in the workplace, writers and curators, is who they are. In my view the best curators are deeply maternal creatures, a quality present in some privileged men like Kevin. They don’t work with artists, they adopt them—lock stock and barrel. This involves entering a relationship with the person as well as the person’s work. That’s the kind of people they are, nothing to do with training or qualifications. Many people here have been enriched thereby as friends, as artists, as colleagues and as members of their family.

They are both wonderful with children. Each of the five children in the wedding party engages with both of them with unusual pleasure and excitement, the youngest of them Hannah, Rosa and Sophia, literally, shrieking for joy when they put in an appearance. Esther and Ruby are more sophisticated, but from what 1 can see they know full well where to go to find support, challenges, comfort, stimulation, guidance. These are girls who know their onions, a useful quality in a world where onions, like tomatoes may soon be deprived of their bite.

To pursue the culinary metaphor more closely - it is hard to imagine either the bride or groom unless they had lived in the country of the Song Songs, surviving in the world which existed before the discovery of the spice road. They thrive on the distinctive flavours of other cultures, music costume, customs, food. My pantry full of spices supplied by each of them at different times. I’ve adopted them all except one of Kevin’s contributions. This is a small rigid vacuum packed brick of wheat grain “Il Farro” the packet is labelled and then its botanical name. Triticum diccocum—my modest Italian reveals that this was the first known cereal for human consumption, discovered in the Latin period. Pure Kevin, Only after the wedding rehearsal which included some reading of Virgil do I return to this gift for the packet mentions that Virgil referred to Il farro in a series of his poems. Book I, verse 73. Only then am I led to speculate that Kevin gave this gift to me many moons ago, as a coded message of his intention to pop the question.

Weddings focus the lens of memory. In mine three photos of Naomi stand out. The first, at about Rosa’s or Sophia’s age, has her pushing a manual lawn mower in the back garden. Environmental household policy probably banned the use of a motor mower. This was more fun. She pushes it with enormous concentration and effort. Naomi the industrious.

A shot at about age 6, Hannah’s age, finds her wearing an ironed and starched apron provided by Nana Cass in her breakfast room in Sydney. Tiptoe on a chair, she peers into the cupboard with the sliding door. Was she wondering even then what to make for dinner or was this the origin of her interest in style, in artefacts. Was she conducting a study of the material culture which differed from ours at home, in this cabinet of curiosities? Naomi the observer, the investigator.

The third photo is of Naomi at about Esther’s age, dressed up for a play, I think as Cleopatra. She poses in full make up, exotic and perfectly in role. Naomi the accomplished performer, the professional.

My new son-in- law is also supremely industrious and inquiring, but more enigmatic. One contacts his mercurial nature almost by stealth through his subtle gestures, thoughtful acts, allusions, beautifully composed digital birthday cards, a discreet display of books he has studied by or about a single author, or subject, gifts from his voyages to other cultures, a surprise Email about what to do when Passover falls on the Sabbath, the title of a book you must read and would never otherwise have heard of. Cricket, music, retro clothing, the craft of musical instruments, paper, Albania, Russian literature and politics, Bosnia, Lacan, the trammies. And so much more. . Kevin is the Marco Polo of the world wide web. I’m hopelessly behind on his overseas study trips and will never catch up. We still haven’t had that lunch about your trip to Russia, Kevin. And that’s five countries ago.

How like everything else weddings have changed, yet how much the tribute to the beloved remains the same. After 46 years of marriage I’m sticking to my story: do not be deceived by matching towel sets—all marriages are mixed. Kevin and Naomi are so unalike in temperament and so passionate about identical things. It seems at times that their household is experiencing every climatic zone in the world at the same time, yet these two people are deeply respectful of each others otherness and private needs. It’s a lively address, 6 Blyth Street, Brunswick. Under that roof there is much love. And it flows between Naomi and Kevin and Esther and Ruby. In all directions.

Next to the bride and groom the two happiest people in Melbourne about this wedding are Esther and Ruby. You should have seen their faces when Naomi put on her red dress this morning. Constantly I run into people who say aren’t Esther and Ruby wonderful. Indeed.

Consider Esther’s passionate commitment to music, what a loving friend she is, her observation of people captured in her written stories, her untutored comprehension of how a sewing machine can be taken apart and almost put back together, her wicked taste for American soaps when she’s having a sickie in our bed, her skill clipping our nutty dog, her glittering smile, her delight in her little cousins, Hannah and Rosa.

And Ruby, so much her own person who years ago- when I suggested she sit down to eat her breakfast at the table, since this was what other people do, told me “Well I don’t!” This decisiveness extends to many of her activities and interests, for instance her black or white ceramic pieces which any mature artist might envy, would, she told me, always be glazed either black or white, she had no interest in any other glaze. On Sundays she has worked as a volunteer at the Collingwood children’s farm and lately has found her way to vigils outside the Maribyrnong detention centre. Sounding like a proud grandmother??

The child is father to the man and it seems to me sometimes that E and R are Naomi and Kevin’s parents. So much so that think it my duty to alert them to the fact that N and K are not actually leaving home, after this wedding. After a 24 hour honeymoon they will be back girls, and together with all of you who have shared this collective dream I wish them Mazaltov and more of life’s riches with which they are already, blessed.