Second First Kiss

Jo told you about our road trip to the redwoods. What she didn't tell you is that the night before we left on our road trip I told her via text message (because I'm a wimp) that I liked her. She said that she thought I was the greatest thing ever and I fell asleep smiling. 

By the time we got to the Redwoods I was completely, madly in love with her. 

There were two problems. 

1. BYU

2. Even though Jo said I was the greatest thing ever (which should have been enough, but wasn't) she never said she liked me back. 

Once we got to Stout Grove I was so conflicted and frustrated by everything. Here I had the most beautiful girl in one of the most beautiful places on earth and I felt like I couldn't be happy. I felt like all my commitments to BYU and the honor code were keeping me from loving the one person I could laugh with. The one person I could just talk to about anything. The one person I could sit with in silence without any awkwardness. I felt like I couldn't love the one person I loved the most. As we walked through Stout Grove I was very quiet and distant because I wanted to stick it out and finish my last semester at BYU and follow all the rules and keep all my promises. But I wanted so much just to take her hand and never let go. 

At some point during our meanderings in the grove, Jo walked ahead along the path and I stayed behind. After a while I made my way slowly up the trail until I met Jo on a bridge as she was coming back. We stood there a few moments. I may have asked her where she went. She probably told me she just walked far enough down the trail until she could see the river. We stood there a little longer. Me being quiet and awkward. Her, being beautiful and basically irresistible. That moment all I wanted to do was kiss her. 

There we were in the middle of this gorgeous grove of giant trees on a bridge over stream. It would have been such an epic kiss. So romantic. So perfect. So absolutely memorable. 

I didn't kiss her then. 

I kept all my little desires pent up until a day or two later when we were somewhere in the middle of Nevada on our way home and I slid my hand up to hers and held it till our palms were sticky and sweaty. 

A couple months after that (it was in October) I finally decided that waiting wasn't worth it anymore. BYU wasn't worth it enough to not kiss the girl of my dreams. It wasn't on a bridge in the redwoods. It was in her apartment in the dark and it was a fail. I kissed her. She didn't kiss me back. 

I know she didn't kiss me because we had both agreed that we wouldn't kiss until I was done with BYU. She was willing to wait. 

I never forgot about that time on the bridge when I could have kissed her and it would have been perfect. 

Last weekend Jo and I had our second first kiss on a bridge over a stream in the Redwoods. And we exchanged rings inscribed with "being here is so much" because it really is. Being here is so much and everything seems to need us in this fleeting world. Us, the most fleeting. The first time we went to the Redwoods, I made Jo read that poem as we sat on the biggest log I've ever sat on. Those trees are sacred. They know what it means to love. And now, thanks to them, so do I. 

~live your own truth~

Being Here Is So Much

This past weekend Tiffany and I exchanged rings
On a bridge
In the redwoods.

I know.
It's pretty romantic.

But let me give you a little background story so that you can appreciate it even more.

In August of last year, Tiffany and I left for a 10 day road trip through California.  We hadn't known each other super long at that point, but we were already good friends.  She was easy to be around; easy to talk to.  I liked that I had found someone who played the way I did, someone that I could be excited about life with.

We spent 4 days meandering our way up through beautiful forests, around breathtaking lakes, and through little towns.  On the 5th day we made it to the coast.  And the trees.

Any of you who know me well know that I love trees.  But love seems too small a word.  I feel connected to trees.  Nothing is more spiritual, in my mind, than a tree.  A tree understands the seasons.  It sees the changes in the weather, in humanity, in the landscape, and in itself, all while remaining steadily grounded.  But there was a depth in those redwoods that I had never felt before, those giants who had been around for thousands of years.  There is a sacredness in those woods for which there are no words.

The next 3 days of that trip were full of so much beauty, inside and out.  I was being torn open by those trees, expanding and widening my sense of self.  And experiencing that with Tiffany only intensified the beauty.

On our last day in the redwoods we visited Stout Grove, a section of forest filled with the most beautiful trees I had ever seen.  It was there, in that grove, that I opened myself to love.  While walking alone among those silent giants, I felt them whispering that it was okay.  It was okay to open myself to another person, to let her into my heart.  I had spent the last 2 years on an intense journey of self-discovery, learning to see both the world and myself in new ways, but now the trees were telling me it was okay to let someone else come along for the ride.  It was in that grove that I realized I had been falling in love with her, and falling hard.  That is where everything shifted for me.

Last week, one year after that trip, we returned to Stout Grove and exchanged rings there on a special bridge (I'm sure Tif will tell you more about that).  It has been one hell of a year, full of lots of learning, lots of fun, and lots of love.  Adding another person to your story pushes your own self-discovery to a whole new level.  In the past year I have felt every possible emotion and have discovered things about myself, and about her, that are both beautiful and scary.  The unknown is always a little scary.  But it has been a breathtaking journey that I wouldn't trade for anything.

I have more to say about rings and what I like (and don't like) about them, but I think I'll save that for another post.

My ring has the imprint of a leaf on it, to remind me that seasons change, and I will too, but that if I am rooted in love, anything is possible, including falling in love with the most beautiful soul on earth.  Inside the ring are inscribed the words "being here is so much," which is a quote from my favorite poem, The Ninth Elegy by Rainer Maria Rilke (you can read the whole thing here).


"...being here is so much, and everything
seems to need us in this fleeting world, and 
strangely speaks to us.  Us, the most fleeting. Once
for everything, only once.  Once and no more.  And we, too,
only once.  Never again.  But to have been here,
this once, if only this once:
to have been of the earth seems irrevocable."