I belong with you, you belong with me, you're my sweetheart

Jonny Strange and I have been married just 2 short years now...in January/February we'll have as many years married as we have children, hopefully we can cut that out pretty soon. :) I love our life together so dearly. This August has been especially delicious after the rigors of the bridge course; all the free time and time together makes me giddy. I try to be conscious of how much goodness in is every day so that I don't take it for granted. I want to remember this happy mostly carefree version of us, all our talks, our jokes, the songs Jonathan makes up. I love Jonathan's intelligence, how passionate he is about the ideas that "light his mind on fire," his sense of humor and his kindness. He is good to people, so good to me and Chai. So often I ask myself, how did this happen? How did I get so lucky? I certainly didn't deserve it. As time spirals on and my dating days ("my mad existence") get further behind me, I mostly feel ashamed of my lack of perspective, selfishness and woeful boundary fails during that time. I don't think I was "real" until I met Jonathan, just a scared little shade of who I could be. I know this sounds very femme fatal, Grimms fairie tales where the princess needs to be rescued by the prince breaking the spell, and then she wakes up and comes back to life. (I just told Jonathan that and he said "YOU broke the spell, Racher! You broke the spell of my cold, cold heart!" So, equal-opportunity fairy tale :) It was more like his self-awareness and courage had a healing affect on my soul. I think our relationship is healing and self-healing and that's why it is a good place to be. I'm so glad we are together. With Jonathan I'm like the little Christmas tree in the e.e cummings poem, "...and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy."

For this anniversary, (we called it our "honeymoon") we went to Salt Lake overnight without our Lolly! Oh what bliss to be alone! My pictures are sporadic but here are some of the things we did: We left Saturday morning and went to the farmer's market, which we loved. We ate goat cheese and amazing bread and Carribean food and bought homemade soap and admired all the lovely expensive crafts. We had a scintillating conversation about Jacob 4 vs. D&C 132 (very apt honeymoon topic).

Next we went to Gigal Gardens! So pleasingly different and strange. 

Carving lyrics into stone is probably what I would do if I were a sculptor. 

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So pleasingly different and...Strange. :)

I included this because it's Jonathan always jokes that it's his favorite scripture. :) Also the sculptures behind the rock are amazing. 

This is an interpretation of a scripture I really do LOVE! "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." I love the idea of weapons being changed into instruments facilitating creation, growth, livelihood. 

We loved the flower gardens, too. It was such a glorious summer day.

We saw this driving by and had to stop, because it just seemed like a place we would belong. :) It was a gift shop with all manner of political, feminist, anti war, anti establishment merch: posters, pamphlets, t-shirts, beanies, bumper stickers, etc. I bought a poster of a Latina woman breastfeeding that said "LA LECHE MATERNA ES LA MEJOR." I put it up in my office at work.

There were thousands of subversive pins. We each bought one out of these pictured here, can you guess which ones? 

I took this picture because this jacket seemed to cover a lot of ground. :)

Lunch at Mazza! It was so wonderful and fresh. 

This is our hotel room at Little America. We got a free upgrade for being young lovers, it was bien lujoso, although the best part was the anticipation of enjoying a Chai-free night. 

Room with a view!

Part of the view. And that night there was a random fireworks show that we could see perfectly from our balcony. 

We went to Liberty Park (at which point my camera died), ate dinner at the Copper Onion, got ice cream at Nelsons in Holladay, and then ate candy in bed while watching Battlestar. We took advantage of our alone time...lots of times :). In the morning we drove around the city, walked through a flea market (which Jonathan scoffed at until he saw the  booth with the vintage Star Wars toys) and had breakfast at the Original Pancake House, which was AMAZING! By that time, of course, we missed our little bunny desperately (funny how that always happens within a couple of hours of leaving him, no matter how nice a break sounds) and went back and eagerly retrieved him from Ogden, when he was running amok at church per usual. It was a glorious honeymoon. I love my Jon Earth as it is in Heaven.

P.S, Here is a wedding picture, because why not?

OH! Pleasant exercise of hope and joy!

For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love!

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

--Wordsworth