month 1: adjustments, firsts, and singing

my love, 

it's hard to believe that it's already been a month since you and i got married. time has felt elusive since we said our vows and celebrated with our beloved community. we've experienced so much in the last month. you've whet my appetite for our future, for how we'll create our marriage. (yes, i posted this picture even though you think you look a little funny in it. what? i like how it --fine, how i-- came out...)

after that amazing dinner with family, i was eager to head to calistoga to start our honeymoon. i couldn't wait to be with you! we needed time away after such an intense six weeks of wedding planning. can you imagine if we had a longer engagement? lol. i'm not sure we could've handled that. 

i have to say, it felt so natural to get used to sharing a bed with you (a first!), and waking up next to your sweetness. you're really cute when you sleep. i was nervous about starting our marriage because it would be (and is!) such a huge adjustment from single life. i was surprised by how easy it was to be more and more myself with you. and after we got to tahoe, i started feeling so much adoration for you those first few days. i think my heart grew a little bigger. plus, i had so much fun with you roaming around tahoe, tandem biking, hiking, cooking, eating, watching movies, hot tubbing, and other wonderful things married people do together (many firsts!). ;-) 

i think you started singing again more during this portion of our tahoe trip too. i think singing means you're happy and at peace. you'd spontaneously break out in song about something random happening in the moment. "oh look, lizzy is eating again. eating eating eating. lizzy lizzy lizzy." (i know that wasn't even close.) and even though i don't give you much attention when you sing those made-up tunes, know that i think it's adorable and i love you more for them. it's just happening quietly in my heart. 

then we headed south to yosemite with jb & nino for honeymoon part i.5. it was a gift to be able to spend time with your our cousins, even eating crappy lodge food. golly, the food was so bad i remember feeling embarrassed that our french cousins had to eat it. but...redemption wasn't far off. a really good pizza joint, oysters from tomales bay oyster company, and a korean feast can easily cure things. haha.

i remember the day we picked them up in reno, they fell asleep in the back while you drove down the 580s. i took this picture at about the exact time our ceremony started one week prior. i thought, "you are my man." actually, i probably said it out loud given how extroverted i am with you. ;) hehe. i love looking at this photo of you. it makes me feel incredibly peaceful knowing that we committed to living out the rest of our lives together. that you are mine and i am yours. i think it was one of the first moments when i could finally sink into that new reality. 

jb & nino. ahh.... they are such sweet people. i'm lucky that i inherit them into my life by way of you. although my communication with them isn't as fluid as i would hope, what farts can do for relationships is astounding. it was so much fun to share that lodge room and drive all over california with them. and you know what i'd say my favorite part of yosemite was...yup, you guessed it: the black bear sighting!!! it was SO AWESOME when you told us all to stop and look to our right. and just like that... the bear walked right in front of us. my eyes almost fell out of their sockets because i was so elated. it was all of our first time seeing a bear! 

after our cousins left, we stopped by mountain view for a few days to scrub down your apt before handing in your keys. you spent the first day or two by yourself in your old space to clear out your belongings in order to move into my our place. i wondered what went through your head during that time alone, sifting through everything you own. you'd come home to me at night, tired. not because it was necessarily physically taxing, but because it seemed you went through an emotional marathon of closing that chapter of your life. i remember feeling glad to see you at the end of the day. i missed you, even though we were only apart for a matter of hours. as independent as i can be, i've been so surprised that i want to spend all my time with you! (although, writing this alone is pretty nice. haha)

then it was time for honeymoon part ii. friends joining us at our amazing tahoe cabin (thanks to the durdens!). it was so much fun to be in community and practice hospitality with you. we i spent too much on groceries to make sure we had "enough" food. we took them on bike rides. cooked together. shared meals around that giant table. it was such a gift to be with them, and with you. matt makes awesome pancakes and candice is crazy. joy & billy can cook some damn good chicken and mary makes mean meals. and poor tiff, she was so sick! :( and i will never forget the last night that it started snowing. it felt like magic. the snow was so dry and crunchy, we jumped straight into the hot tub! hard apple cider + snowfall was amazing. and waking up the next morning blew me away. we went from warm sunny days to a winter wonderland overnight. i had never seen the torch being passed from one season to the next so clearly, and there it was. all i wanted to do was play, and you were concerned for our safety back home. we had a bit of a conflict later about that and other things, but as usual....we resolved it quickly. (of course after some huffing and puffing and silent awkwardness on the road. i think i'm getting better at conflict resolution. don't you think?)  :)

sometimes in the morning, if i wake up before you, i like to watch you sleep (and take photos). there you are my love! my peaceful bunny.

being married to you is not just about the fun adventures we've been on....but it's the simple daily things. it's all the stuff that happens between these photos. it's the moments we're present to each other. (sometimes cooking, but definitely) eating together, asking about your day even if we spent the whole of it together, being in the same room doing separate things, all the ways you mock me and i can't help but howl, the small looks and expressions, the result of curiosity or lack thereof, the check-ins we have about how sex was, hearing your footsteps and knowing you've come home to me, it's the learnings. lots of learnings.... constant learning. i promised you i would be your best student in my vows, and i hope you feel like you are more known each day. because i certainly feel more known (and therefore loved) by you.

thanks for being you, samuel. for being my beloved. for loving me through and through. you are so good to me, especially when i don't deserve it. i've felt so served each time you: offer me food when i've already had my meal because you know i'd like a taste, tell me you love everything about me when i complain about my growing belly (no i'm not pregnant), open the car door and ask, "ready?" before you close it, ride my emotional waves and stand as a steady rock, & hold me for no reason but as an outpouring of love.

i am in love with you! and i look forward to what's to come. i can't imagine who else i'd rather be on this journey with but you. 

love always, 
your bird-dragon

ps. i know you love this song so here's one more for today. 

today is friday.

the next day is when everything changes.

since getting back from europe on september 1st, i have been thinking about this wedding day, almost non-stop. i'm exhausted from having my brain start at 65mph every morning and from being in a state of gogogo. it's been stressful and tiring, and i have certainly not been my best self. samuel will attest to this fact. (i've said, "i'm sorry for ______," about a thousand times to him.)

but. 

what brings me back to an even slightly better state of being is by letting my gratitude settle in. during these last couple weeks, i've been so moved by all of the care and love that our friends have poured out on us, on me. i am completely taken by everyone's generosity. i feel undeserving of so much abundance, and yet i feel i am supposed to just soak it in and receive. and to simply look in everyone's eyes and say, "thank you." 

what this process has shown me is that people really love me. they really love us. like....a lot of them, and like....a lot of love! they are our family, our church community, our friends: our dearly beloveds.

i can't wait for the gathering of all these beloveds, to bear witness to one of the most important decisions i'll make in my lifetime. i'd be lying if i didn't mention that as much as i'm elated to be married, i'm scared! it's such a huge decision! a tiny part of me wonders if i'm ready to do this. and then this huge part of me responds with, "trust me. this is going to be the best adventure you'll ever go on. let's fly!"

so i walk to the edge of the cliff, spread my arms, and take a deep breath before i jump...

30 going on 13.

in 13 days, i'll be wed. 
omygod. 

30 year old me, is getting married. the day i thought would've happened four years ago, has finally arrived. (let me just say that i am so grateful that reality doesn't follow the plans i mapped out during my immature 18th year of life. bo--ring!)

you might assume that i'd be really excited b/c the sun's shining, birds are chirping, and life is just dandy! i'm getting married, wheeeeee! right?

today, i barely woke up at 9:30 and mostly just felt bad. why? i couldn't figure it out for the first two hours of the morning when i laid in bed and finally murdered level 29 of candy crush. (it's taken probably over 40 tries to pass that level w/o any aid!)

but it started hitting me while i was on the phone with my oldest sister. i am really sad. as excited as i am to commit my life to my beloved, each day leads me closer to saying goodbye and closing this chapter of my single life. it's been an amazing 30 years of being my free bird self. but i think what's been striking me most is saying goodbye to viewing my family of origin as #1. they have been my family. they have been my priority. but with marriage, it's creating a new family. one where i choose my husband to be #1.

i know that getting married doesn't mean i am abandoning my family of origin or vice versa, but there is a real internal shift that's happening. i feel it. it seems good and natural for this to happen, but inherent in this shift is grief. 

amidst all this, this quote is really speaking to me today. it's comforting.

"deep commitment brings deep healing, and deep healing brings deep generosity. commitment allows us to take the lids off the jars that are our lives, and helps us to embrace drastic changes." 
-marjory bankson

i hope to get to a place of deep generosity, over and over. 

havasupai | four hours

my right ankle flared up again on wednesday night after our 10 mile hike in. so the next day, i ended up staring at havasu falls for four hours while waiting for the rest of the ladies to come back from picking up our permit in the village.


sometimes the gift of physical pain is that it forces us to be still. our bodies will have it no other way. it's rare these days to be given the luxury to just sit and stare at something beautiful. i soaked in that time by either staring at havasu fall or dangling my feet in the water, thinking much about nothing, just being there, feeling the rays of sun on my arms.


murphy (the campground ranger and local havasupai) eventually came by to chat. (we met earlier that day.) i asked him questions about his life on the reservation, his family, the tribe, the struggles of life on the res, etc, and he shared candidly what he could. from our conversation, i hope to never forget how he responded to my question, "what gives you hope?" it wasn't so much the words that followed, but the intonations in his voice, the blank look on his face, the obvious inward journey he was unexpectedly thrusted into. murphy repeated, "hope?" my heart broke a little bit in that moment.


after he left, i spent some time staring at a couple who stood on solid rock, just holding each other. the husband's gentle caress, the wife's trusting embrace, touched a part of me that longs for a partner like the one they've found in each other. compassionate, not demanding anything, instead generously giving and receiving, and comfortable to just be with each other.


i later talked to the woman by saying to her, "can i share an observation?" a big smile and an open heart said, "sure!" i told her, "you two seem like you're very much in love." this sparked a longer conversation about how she's been married for over twenty years and that it is (as in currently) not easy. they've had many struggles and have been working hard at their marriage, most recently going to counseling 1-2xs/week for a year and a half. "we're still learning," she humbly told me. it was such a gift to be witness to such a real process of loving.