1 year!

Its been a year since Rachel and I "got together." That is crazy! I'm so happy that we are married. Its interesting looking back because every relationship seems like marriage isn't possible, or too hard, or not going to happen until it does! And I'm so happy it did. Its fun to think about decisions you make carrying so much weight...and we're mostly oblivious to the effects they have on our future selves. I wish I could see everything that way, I'd make better decisions. I am so happy I made the decisions to pursue Rachel, as scared as I was. It has brought me happiness I couldn't really suspect or anticipate. When I think of our beginning relationship and what we are like now, it's amazing how thing have changed. And all for the better in my mind. I love Rachel more than I ever have, and I know her better than I ever have. I hope that always continues.

I teach relationship classes for my job. One thing I always discuss is how things can get old and stale. I realize that this is a choice. It is the way our brain works. We ignore the normal or ever-present. It's in our nature. When we allow our mind to do what it will, we slip into equilibrium. Usually it's not the best equilibrium, but it's peaceful. I think in relationships this transfers as a sense of boredom or things getting old. Everybody has felt this feeling in some relationship in their life, if not in the most important relationship in their life. It is something that makes us scared of commitment and scared of marriage.

I try to teach that you have to overcome this part of yourself, the part that gets used to the normal. We should be oh so grateful for the things that are so normally good in our lives. In fact, if you look at the way most everyone is living, our lives here are usually anything but normal...and I mean that in the best way. My life is anything but normal. I live with the girl I love, and I love her more and more every day. What luck, I say! Every day should be a celebration of sorts, a celebration of the great blessing that is my only Racher. When it isn't, whose fault would that be? Really, it's only my fault. I choose what sticks out to me, I choose what I remember. Unless we fight our minds urges to make things normal so it can forget about them, I feel we're doomed to unhappiness. The truth is, when you're looking for it, no person becomes old. When you care for them, you keep finding interesting things out about them...or they keep doing more and more interesting things the more you know them! I find this true about Rachel. Every time she tells me a story of her childhood I get a new perspective on who she is. It's insanely interesting.

I may be just young and naive, but one thing I do know is that it is a choice for us to keep our relationships up. To keep them new. It isn't out of our hands or up to destiny. We choose who we love and who we will continue to love. It's all about the small choices, like choosing to be "together." I'm so happy I chose Rachel and that she chose me also. I hope we always choose eachother, however many other choices we make!

Rachel's Burgeoning Domesticity

Now that Racher is married, she has turned into a domestic goddess! We want to be the sort of people who are not closed off to the rest of the world, like so many other newly wed couples. So we've been inviting people over to eat here and there. Rachel always cooks something REALLY good! She is so sweet because she tries to find out what they like so she can cook something they will enjoy when they come! I fall in love with her every time it happens! Whenever Rachel does anything domestic, she always makes a funny and cute comment about her "burgeoning domesticity." She's said it a bunch, but it still makes me laugh every time she says it! Nothing could be funnier than burgeoning domesticity! It really is burgeoning though! I need to learn how to cook because it must feel really good to be burgeoning into a domestic goddess!

I love beads, and as a result I went to the bead fairy store here in Orem. Rachel kept calling me the bead fairy and I told here that instead I was the bead pharaoh...it sounded more masculine. I love playing with my Racher. Rachel is so sweet to me, and once again, her endless antics make her such fun company. I love her and am so happy with her!

I was a quick wet boy, diving too deep for coins. All of your street light eyes wide on my plastic toys

Note from February 12th 2010:

Dearest, only, Racher,

I love you tons! Sorry I stayed so late, I really was going to let you sleep since you’re sick. Thanks for being so good to me. You’re the most beautiful girl in the world to me, I feel like I know you really well. I can’t wait to discover more hidden wonderful things in you…I promise I’ll find them!

Love Jonathan

I miss those days.

With your halo slipping down

This is the warmest conference weekend I can ever remember! I'm obsessed with it--and with the glorious September that just finished with brilliantly warm days. It's like Summer came out with an extended version. Jonathan and I went on a walk and I noted with glee that it felt green like July. I bless nature for delaying my winter grief. And for the soft golden glow through the trees in the evenings I can see from the living room in our little house.

We're home with my family and it's wonderful. I wanted to share this: My bendita mother has written a poem for each of her married children and shared it at their wedding luncheon. I love her for doing that...they are so deeply sweet and personal. I remember that Doug's was about a little bird and mine is about the Heaven-fear I share with my mother (some may understand). I love her so much for knowing this part of me, and for giving voice to my hope. When she shared this poem she mentioned that she and I were good friends and we had grown up together, and that this was a burden we shared. She is right. I remember we all talked about poems that day: both my parents, my grandfather and I. It's in the blood of my life. I'm praying that it will come back so I can write again, too. Here is my mother's poem!

Search for Cibola

Legend tells of a city of gold,

shimmering in the desert,

which lay on a level stretch,

at the brow of a roundish hill,

whose people drink

living water

from golden cups

that fall from the trees.

Cibola, beautiful Cibola,

Soul of desire

Supernal joy.

Many sought Cibola. .

Her vision,

launched galleons and

consumed the strength

of mariners and mighty men,

who wagered all,

for a glimpse

of her glory.

But found instead

a dusty pueblo

home to dark eyed natives

who measured treasure

in women and children,

and neat rows of

corn, squash, and beans.

Cibola

never was.

Yet some say,

for a moment,

from a distance

in early dawn,

they see her,

when morning’s piercing ray

bathes adobe walls

in brilliance.

Cibola, beautiful Cibola,

Soul of desire

Supernal joy.

Many seek Cibola.

and lured by dreams of glory,

lust for glitter

that consumes but never fills

and die empty,

certain

the dream is dust.

Cibola, beautiful Cibola,

Soul of desire

Supernal joy.

Cibola was and is.

Be still.

From a distance

at dawning,

you will sense her,

as piercing love

bathes your adobe

in brilliance.

Search for Cibola!

Let her vision warm you.

Let hunger for wholeness

consume you,

and keep your feet

all the dusty length to her gate.

Cibola, beautiful Cibola.

Soul of desire

Supernal joy.

Cibola

still lies on a level stretch,

at the brow of a roundish hill.

Measure her treasure

in the eyes of your children,

in your neat rows of

corn, squash and beans

and find her,

at last,

at home.

I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now (Sealing)

I need to write about this before time sweeps it farther away, this jewel of memory, this most precious day. Since the floods came up in our basement this summer and destroyed a few of my journals and other dear things I've been bitter about chronically anything in my life, but I need to get better!

The day we got married was absolutely glorious, (which thing was foretold, and which I never ever believed) and it felt just like a door opening. Melanie and Pidwerbecki stayed the night with me and got up in the gray dawn to drive to American Fork. On the way I asked if we could talk about good memories, the times we had been most happy. I kept peering out the window and thinking, I'll never see these things again the same way! It was SO silly. I think the trauma the day before the wedding (being dragged into busy lanes of traffic by the kind man who was towing me, not realizing that my steering wheel was locked) made me more innocent, relieved and humble about everything. I had the squirmy, sickish first-day-of-school feeling in my belly until I stepped into the temple, with tall shoes and tall hair, and my hands were in my beloved's.

And, Oh my love! My darling! Once I was with him I just felt confident and joyous. We re-read "The Waning of Belonging" the day before and I kept thinking, "i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)." We couldn't stop beaming at each other. Jonathan saves his sweetest self for me. I was so happy! It sounds cliche but I did feel like I was floating. I floated around all the other preening brides in the dressing room. I floated around the temple workers who wanted to cut the braided thread out of my hair (oh please!). I floated around that which was less than welcome and all of my anxiety stress doubt floated away, out the windows of the crystal palace and all that remained with me was an open heart.

I remember tottering into the room, clutching Jonathan's hand. There were so many faces in there that I love! My sweet family, my mission president and his wife, my lovely companions (Wells--who counts as a companion--Pidwerbecki and Hna. Katie Christine), dear Celeste, Calie (and it was so sweet to see her in the temple since we were children together!) Hollie and Mario who got there first, my grandparents and aunts and uncles, my beautiful cousin Debbie and her parents and brothers, the Urban Tribe, the people who were seconds away from being my in-laws. And with the morn, those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since and lost awhile!

Our sealing made me feel so visible to God. I had so many fears and so much heartache about this part. I prayed my guts out that it wouldn't be for once a compelling to humiliation, but that it would be lovely and empowering. The first delightful thing that happened was that the man who came up to me in the hall and asked, "Is this the right guy?" was Joseph F. McConkie, son of Bruce R. and more significantly, author of this magnificent discurso that altered the course of my mission and made Hermana Morena a true messenger. I was so amazed! I'd had no idea he was even a sealer, let alone at that particular temple, and to be sealed by a man whose words had so deeply impacted my life and made me a more powerful missionary was SUCH AN INCREDIBLE BLESSING!!! I was so grateful I felt dazed. The second amazing thing was that the words he spoke before he married us were ineffably profound, poignant, and personal. It was exactly the candor and "style," if that word doesn't sound vulgar in this context, that fit us and rang deep into our hearts. I can't speak for Jonathan I guess, but I felt called up to be my best self, to follow Christ and to honor my family and my husband in a way that made me feel absolutely free, adored, and powerful. This may not be significant to all, but his mentioning Heavenly Mother and "your heavenly parents" and saying, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--and of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel--" meant everything to me. I knew Jonathan was happy and relieved. We kept squeezing each other's hands whenever Brother McConkie said something particularly insightful. It was an incredible sealing. Many people told me later that they had thoughts during it that they considered to be revelation, that they learned a lot from it and one of my aunts referred to it as "meaty." I've written down as much as I can remember from it, and it doesn't seem the best forum to share all of it here. After sharing his counsel, Brother McConkie said, "Okay, let's get you married," and then we knelt at the altar and promised and now Jonathan is my husband! He is mine forever! My constant one, my sweet love. I am so glad to be his wife! I'm so grateful for the God who heard my prayer and kindly honored the wish of my troubled heart.

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the roof of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)