The Big News
We're engaged!!!
Last week when we were at Yosemite, Dylan asked me to marry him and I of course said yes. I’ve been walking around in a big bright bubble of glowy haze for the last five days and need to keep looking down at the most exquisitely perfect ring that has taken up permanent residence on my finger to believe it actually happened. And now that all the parents and siblings have been told, we can finally share the exciting news with all of you. (Pictures will follow as soon as I get a chance to sort through them all.)
I think the first time we talked about getting married was after we’d been dating only a few months. That was six years ago, so I’ve had a lot of time to think about what it would finally feel like when it happened. I must confess that I was scared it would be anticlimactic, that he would pop the question, I would answer, and we’d just go about our day as usual. I’d be happy and excited but not ecstatic, and certainly not speechless. Well, I’m glad to say I was completely wrong. I was a surprised and elated big bawling mess of tears and snot that probably looked as glamourous as a pile of wet kleenexes. So not Grace Kelly. I never imagined I would be as overwhelmed with emotion as I was. I mean, I already knew he loved me and wanted to be with me; I’d known that since I was eighteen years old. But he made the occasion so special and went unbelievably far out of his way and his comfort zone to make it so that I could barely talk at all. And that’s saying something.
We’d planned to go hiking in the park on Sunday, but neither of us really felt like walking around a lot. We decided to rent bikes instead–big, clumsy fifties-style beachcombers with handlebars that spread like a Harley’s. If you’ve ever seen the movie Heavenly Creatures with a young Kate Winslet, that was us in the scene where they’re riding their bikes through the woods. Well, minus the undercurrent of adolescent homoeroticism and the foreshadowing of the grisly murder to come. Still, I could swear I heard Mario Lanza crooning in the treetops.
We went all over the grounds, weaving on paved paths, riding with no hands, climbing little hills until our quads burned and then sailing down with our feet up on the handlebars. We took a trail to Happy Isles (we never did find out where the “isles” were) and stopped at the edge of the parched Merced River, normally rushing through the woods but in October little more than a modest mountain creek. We sat down on a huge rock in what would normally be the middle of the river and he pulled out a fat red hardcover book. I thought he might read me poetry even though I couldn’t imagine him doing that even under threat of torture. He handed me the book and said I couldn’t look at the spine but he thought I’d like it. I opened it up and there was one of my favorite pictures of us, in front the Eiffel Tower three summers ago when he looked really tan and I somehow pulled off the illusion of having cleavage. The picture was glued onto a title page he’d designed for a book called A Life Less Ordinary by Lisa and Dylan, published in Salt Lake City and Berkeley. I turned the page and there was a table of contents, each entry marking a memorable time in our relationship. There was the first day I walked into the college cafeteria. There were the nights he met me late after work at the bookstore when he’d draw a heart onto the frost on my car window. There was the time we ditched a history conference in Oregon to catch a sunset on Cannon Beach. There was the time we took a French class together and the day we adopted Eve. The last chapter was called “Together Forever.”
I turned the page and saw the Acknowledgments, a confession, as he says, of his love for me. The Merced River may have been dry, but my eyes sure weren’t, no siree. The next page was printed with the words. The words. And when I turned that page I saw he’d carved out the interior of the book--cut through 439 pages with an unwieldy box cutter for days until his hand was cramped into a permanent claw--and stashed a little black velvet box inside. And then, right at the height of this drama, a tour bus rolled by and we tried to play it cool--as cool as we could be grinning like two idiots sitting on a rock in the middle of the river with a big red book and a thousand rays of light shooting from our beaming faces. He took out the box and took out the ring. The most perfect ring in the world. Small, simple, elegant, perfect, perfect, perfect. He had it handmade for me in three days. At this point, obviously, his job was done, his role complete, the envelope signed, sealed, delivered. I knew what was happening and it was clear what my answer way. He didn’t have to do anything more at that point. But he did it anyway. Risking falling into the creek, he rolled over onto one knee, said The Words out loud, and put the ring on my finger. He hardly seemed nervous at all. I said a whole mess of unintelligible things, at least part of which he understood as “Yes, of course, a thousand times yes,” and there we were, at the bottom of a valley, on top of the world, all turned around and inside out and yet right at home and exactly where we were supposed to be.
I thought it wouldn’t change things, but it has. We are acting the way we did in the autumn of 1997, when he took me up to a hidden waterfall in a canyon in Salt Lake and I put my arms around him for the first time and he marveled at how I bounded across the boulder field like a bouncy mountain goat in those fancy suede Mary Janes.
I’m so glad I have a forum to gush in a bit. I’ve had a wonderful talk with my family, many kind words and excitement and well-wishes from friends, and lots of hugs from the people at work (even the woman who is so averse to human contact that she seems uncomfortable with her own eight-month-old fetus). But right now I can’t get enough congratulations. I’m so proud and happy and head-over-heels that I can’t help but go on and on about it. So forgive me for a little while, will you? I just can’t believe my beloved EBTR (everything but the ring) boyfriend is finally my betrothed fiancé. I feel so French I just might have to treat myself to an eclaire!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!! I think we should email and giggle and trade stories later... :)
This is not, I repeat, *not*, going to become a trend, thankyouverymuch.
Oh and cheers for you. :)
Congrats again! Now all those photos hanging around last Friday night make sense, eh?
To both of you,
How wonderfully perfect.
I knew both of you were in love the first day. The look in your eyes and the way you responded to each other seemed very familiar. I am soooo happy for both of you. Ain't love grand?
CONGRATULATIONS!!!! I love proposal stories!! And wow, did he ever go above and beyond. I'm very impressed. And oh dear, I would have cried too. 8)
gush away! how great! congrats :)
Congratulations! I just finished being engaged and have been married for a whole10 days now and I can tell you that you have the most beautiful, romantic time to look forward too! Yay! And enjoy every minute.
Well whadda ya know?? Congratulations! Here's to the six year courtship. I had one too, and know how frustrating it can get waiting for that wonderful question. It's all worth it in the end though, and I wouldn't trade the six years we spent getting to know each other and learning to love and accept each other's best qualities and shortcomings for anything. Good luck with the wedding plans. Can't wait to get the invitation!