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[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love pt. 6/6

“The book of love is long and boring. No one can lift the damn thing. It’s full of charts, and facts, and figures, and instructions for dancing. But I love it when you read to me, and you can read me anything.

— Peter Gabriel, The Book of Love

So one again we found ourselves swaying, my hands clasped around his neck and taking in coffee-colored eyes with tree ring lines. Once again in a room full of people feeling like the only two there. “This is how it started…” I trail off. How can everything feel so momentous and yet so ordinary, so natural? As if it was always marching towards this moment surrounded by loves so authentic, with hearts in each chair that we feel so tied to, with exhilaration and safety side by side.

This life has felt preordained towards this joy. Maybe it is, or maybe my worldview has been softened by the love I have gained in the past decade. Either way, I am grateful.

[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love, pt. 5/6

The blustery, saccharine commitments of a wedding ceremony had never appealed to me. Outside of religious ceremonies they felt like a fossilized formality meant only to differentiate a wedding from any other party.

Then, I experienced my own. The hot evening sun bared down through a glass roof on my love and I, igniting two pairs of brown eyes into something golden, green, and red. I felt only peace—could comprehend nothing but the man I watched grow over the past decade standing across from me.

We slid rings we had already been wearing onto shaky hands, combined whiskey into a decanter where no drop could go back into its original bottle unchanged. We kissed, took in the joy, and walked out as Beethoven’s 9th rang out behind us.

Now the full weight of the ceremony made sense to me, who could never before fully comprehend the girls in flowing white. The celebration of friendship, of peace, of kindred hearts, of being known and loved. I had sat skeptical of the words I had heard repeated over clasped hands until they tumbled across my own lips, supported by every day of the last decade I had spent in communion with him.

[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love, pt. 4/6

My wedding day was the best day of my life.

We had tempered our expectations; “we’re introverts,” we told each other. “We’re not going to have the best day.”

We had endured an interesting civil ceremony in a kitschy foyer two months prior to get ahead of some legal documents, and imagined that we would look more fondly on that funny memory than the pomp and circumstance of the actual wedding day we spent the better part of two years planning.

Having all of our friends and loved ones travel to our town should have felt surreal, but it felt as common as breathing. It felt like we could walk down to our neighborhood bar and see all of our people there every week, when in fact this was likely the only day in our lifetime that our loved ones were in the same room.

Time expanded as my best friend and mom got ready with me. It felt so normal, as if we lived in the hotel suite and spent every Saturday doing our hair, makeup, and picking out outfits together. Layers of makeup and a very white dress necessitated that I not allow the gravity of the moment to dawn on me.

This, of course, fell apart the moment I walked towards my soon-to-be husband. Despite my best efforts not to ruminate on the beautiful path that had taken us to this moment, I still broke down and let out a stifled sob before he could turn around for our first look. A handful of happy tears were spilled and wiped gently with a lace handkerchief. Lighthearted jokes were exchanged, deep breaths and stunning portraits were taken. The cellist began practicing and tears fell anew.

[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love, pt. 3/6

There were many tears shed over our move from the rugged mountains to the Midwest. Idolizing Muir and Thoreau pulled me across the US in search of wild places, breathless hikes and the painful hobby of conquering them. Surely I was retiring some part of myself and burying it in the Wasatch range, never to be seen again.

I had all but resigned myself to a lonely suburban life when I came across a posting for a hike for women only in my new town. A young mom determined to carve out space for herself in her new life was hosting a quick jaunt up a trail with a sweeping view.

After two years of monthly hikes, a community blossomed. One you could walk in and out of, a community that knows your allergies and when you need a home cooked meal dropped off and what your mom’s name is and yes, don’t worry if you can’t make it!

In parallel, I stopped caring about being the one who loves more (what a gift, to love the most) and made it into a goal. How much love could I put into the world? What kind of foundation could I build where I am?

After months of this, the doubt I had over who would line the aisles as I walked down vanished. Suddenly, my parents and siblings were there. My dearest friend would know that she holds a treasured space in my heart. My new community was there—people who understood who I was today.

I was ready for a marriage then.

[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love, pt. 2/6

“We’re thinking next spring,” a friend said to me, gently flashing a foggy mountain morning-colored gem with spidery grey veins set in a gold band on her left hand.

A magical person from a different lifetime, one now incompatible with adult stress, long workdays, and requisite prone recovery time. Her intended was rightly entranced by her and the relationship had progressed quickly.

Rings and marriage had already begun to occupy an outsized portion of my thoughts—the time already spent together, a sparkly diamond—but a wedding felt expensive, impossible. In the wash of melting compatibility with old friends I couldn’t imagine having anyone beside me, couldn’t see myself wanting to share the emotional intimacy of my relationship with even my immediate family. I began tempering their expectations. “You know, it won’t be in a church,” I said to my mother. “I won’t invite many people.” I had always felt othered by extended family; had grown up hours away when most of the family lived within minutes of one another.

I imagined this friend walking slowly up to her father, the pastor, with her siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends from all walks of life packing the church. Her mom, shedding a tear or two in the front pew. While I knew that my love was permanent, I couldn’t imagine that an event so love-filled would ever be ours.

I’m very happy to have been wrong.

[coconutleaf]

a meditation on love, pt. 1

“I feel strange about how happy I am,” I said to a friend on the phone, walking around the duck pond at our apartment complex.

We met at 21 and 22, me on the healing end of a mental health crisis and him in the middle of grad school—a fever dream of grueling academics, functional alcoholism, and the liminal acquaintanceships of young adulthood. Fate turned my head and drew me to the gaunt face and bright eyes standing alone in a crowded college dive bar. At the time I moved like a hunted fox, aware that behind every face was some danger I had not yet uncovered, but when I saw him my soul must have recognized its source of peace from another lifetime. There was no lightning bolt crushing, no desperate want, simply the easy rhythm of a pair that had already spent years and years sitting on their porch at night, chatting as the stars swept to the west overhead. Maybe that’s why my arms found themselves draped on his shoulders on that very first night, swaying gently from side to side as we exchanged gentle jokes; just as we would at our wedding 10 years later. Maybe that’s why I let him kiss me.

I used to wish that I was a better person when we met, but if I had been, the years of growth as a person and pair would not have been as sweet. The first years were full of electricity and steam, charges thundering and being drawn together. A summer spent swimming in the pool and drinking decent wine purchased from the gas station. Days working two shifts from 4:30am to 10pm with a nap on his couch in between. Enjoying cleaning for him and then resenting it. A fondest memory, a rooftop sushi date I attended in chacos. The last bit of childhood, enjoyed together.

The chiaroscuro of it all, working through the mess weighed on me—shouldn’t it have been perfect the entire time? Of course not; my sheepish admission to my friend was borne out of a narrow view of what a lifetime together looks like. All that had always mattered was that we were always building, nurturing this thing between us.

[coconutleaf]

attended my first professional conference last year. Chicago was a gorgeous city, and I accidentally booked the wrong hotel so I was even closer to things to do. The mistake was likely one of a few that ultimately got me booted from that nightmare of a company, but even if I had done everything perfectly it still wasn’t a good fit—namely, working until 7-8 regularly to make up for executive floundering was ridiculous. Being let go was a mercy, and I landed on my feet quickly. Met some cool people in the business, had coffee at the roastery I had always wanted to visit, saw the bean—a stunning experience—and had excellent deep dish. Life is good.