Editor’s note: This is the third post in a series about surprises. Here are the lines for part one and part two.

I’m writing this week’s dispatch from Marfa, where my dear friend Dani and I are having a girlfriend getaway. 

We’re going on sunset walks and shopping for last minute groceries at the market and making meals in a strange kitchen and all the other rituals of a road trip. 

Coming off the heels of a wedding and an engagement, I was originally going to publish a column about rituals last week. 

But then the Uvalde shooting happened and, like many of you, I entered a state of grief. 

I thought about writing about the rituals of this kind of trauma and grieving. Talking about it in hushed tones so the kids don’t hear. Posting whatever compelling sentiment we can conjure on our social media channels and in conversations with friends. 

But because there are happy things going on, even as we all learn how to deal with this anger, this disgust, this impulse to do something, I wanted to write about rituals more broadly. The once-in-a-lifetime ones. The boring ones. The ones we create for ourselves to mark meaningful moments that matter more to us than anyone else.

Last month, my kids and I went to Costa Rica with my mom and sister for my cousin’s wedding. I’d only been to one destination wedding before — to Marfa, coincidentally — and this experience was a full-scale reminder of what happens when two people bring their loved ones together for what is essentially summer camp.