When by now and tree by leaf, she laughed his joy she cried his grief

We're back from Flo Rida and we had 4 days in town to work our little guts out before the next adventure: Bendito Mexico! Viva!

I wish I had blogged more consistently so far this summer--every week is its own little universe full of personality, struggles and sweetness. I love living here with David & Laurel, Brian and Natalie and Derek. I love the late hours and the movies and playing games. I love the songs Jonathan sings about me and being greeted by a chorus of "Only Racher" or variations thereof every time I walk into a room. I love the sunlight and the cotton that floats all down our street from the trees at the top of our block. I love the feverish wedding planning and how it inspires me creatively. I love working with DCFS and the days that I'm busiest and can spring from cita to cita--I love meeting with people in their homes, all the Spanish referrals I get from Vantage Point, and the way they act like my opinion matters in PDR. I love listening to my clients. I love teaching in Relief Society and the girls I visit-teach.

Most of all I love my life with Jonathan! He is the sweetness that swirls around me all the time, wherever I am. I am so happy when I'm talking to him--just like on our first date I have a compulsion to tell him everything! He takes away the shame of my youth--when I tell him about my childhood and my juventud he loves me in those stages. We talk about our children every day and what we want to give them, teach them, keep them away from. Now that it's beautiful outside, we go hiking and it feels so good and victorious to be out in the sun. When we're in the mountains sometimes I feel like we are the only two people in the world. I don't want to lose these moments, I know it will never be quite like this ever again. Change always carves our lives into a different shape.

I love being engaged to Jonathan. The 14th of June found us at the Epcot Center at the beginning of our Orlando adventure with my soon-to-be suegras, cunados y sobrinos. At some point I realized--"Hey! We get married two months from today!" It seems absurd that the day will ever really come, I've been talking about and planning for it for so long now that it's started to seem like a story we told of two people who were going to get married, but it's US! It's all really true! Our stories are going to merge, forever, from now on! Whenever I am seized upon by the knowledge that the time is galumphing every closer, I feel surprised by the joy I feel. If you ask anyone who has known me semi-well before meeting Jonathan, they would tell you this is something that I thought could never be. Our relationship was tough for me at the beginning--not because Jonathan wasn't a perfect dream, but because it was bewildering and frightening for me to let other relationships go and to change my habits. I had to detox from my non-committal, evasive approach to relationships. It was painful! But Jonathan was so patient and loving with me. When I think about it now, I can't understand why he even wanted to be with me back then...but I did change, and I did give him my whole heart. As we got closer it stopped seeming like a leap of faith that took so much effort for me and began to feel like waking up to who I really was. Because of that, and for many other reasons, I feel God in our relationship. That gives me so much peace that despite challenges and our human selfishness and pride, we can keep loving each other, and moving forward. "Bird by snow and stir by still...with up so floating many bells down." :)