Swallowed By Cloud Nine

If my ten years of blogging has taught me anything, it is that if a steadfast blogger woman goes MIA it is because she has stumbled upon the delights of cloud nine. After all these wild illusions, I am no different. 

(Yes, I am engaged.)

I have missed this blog though, and my lucky readers will be glad to know that my fiancé is also a writer, and we are keeping the other accountable to our earthly passions.

The writing shall carry on!!

Andy (aka Shagbark Hick from twitter or Randy from his Substack County Line Notes) and I plan to be married sometime in the spring as soon as the wildflowers are ready to be made into bouquets. There is little to do this winter but to make my wedding dress. And, of course, for us to get to know each other's families and faith as thoroughly as love urges one.

Our first picture together, taken by my little brother in my father's junk yard. 

If you all remember, I left end of last summer for a long road trip that lasted just about five months. I was weary to know what to do with my broken heart. I had followed a vision past its end, and although the harvest appeared plentiful, I held no fruit from which I wished to save seeds. I couldn't even tell what the last straw was anymore... the entire pile had burnt to fine ash months ago. The wasteland was too cluttered to afford the peace of deserts. And while I've never struggled with the sin of complacency, I faced the flipside: bitter hardness of heart. 

As I wished to hate and despise men, I told myself I mustn't, that I must choose the path of open heartedness even if tore the last bit of strength out of me and killed me. I told a friend, "I will marry the first interesting, kind man I can find." 

I was pretending to be open. But I was daring the world to show me that such a combination in a man could even exist. God, in His mercy and kindness, filled my path with nothing but such men for the next few months. To stay true to my desire to not have a heart like Pharoah's, I forced myself to two-step with cozy strangers, play my flute loudly by ear in music jams squeezed between talented prodigies, and accompany newly met friends to bizarre parties where intoxicated, tattooed men would softly ask me if they could see the lace trim I tatted for a quilt (I certainly stood out at such parties since I held and accepted no substances). 

Despite my flippant claim, I met many interesting, kind men. And each of them chipped away at whatever it was that had built up around my heart, preparing me for the man I'd meet in the last week of my travels. 

Andy making us tea in some warehouse parking lot in Missoula Montana 

It's difficult letting go illusions we build up for ourselves, especially when we've had clear visions accompanied by searing intuition. I've met and conversed with many women who had similar stories to me, of how they met a man and instantly knew that they were to marry him. For some of these women, they have beautiful testimonies of how God told them they would marry, perhaps their husband was unaware of it at first, but eventually they did marry, and all was beautiful. But for all the beautiful stories there are many untold realities of women holding onto their revealed vision, occasionally invigorated by the stories of success and thereby sticking with something that drags on until it becomes almost sinister in nature. And yet we hold on because we knew, because it is love, because it would be wrong to quit just because we cry every day. It is how a woman was made, though, and in a perfect world, her interpretation is rewarded and reciprocated until she is made secure in the fulfillment of her promised vision. 

But visions are not the same as prophecies. They are not guarantees, nor commandments. They are nudges of some possible reality that might be ours if we allow ourselves to be offered on the alter. And yet, our sacrifice is never enough if it is not accepted. Perhaps you do say yes to the vision, and yet you are not alone, and if someone else says no a choice arises. 

Before it was too late, I defied my intuition and went to look for a new dream, or simply to sleep and let dreams, too, rest awhile.

And I encourage all young women who may be in a similar plight to reject their truth. Let yourself be given to the wind and hold onto nothing. God will find you and carry you and take you from place to place until He sees fit to place you back on Earth among the fresh dew of new morning promises.

Andy washing my living room windows

When at last I had removed myself from the alter of my choices and turned my back on the steps I'd built, and faced the wide-open nothingness of anything, the visions of what I knew to be true became meaningless. Nothing concrete existed here but aesthetics. Here I found both nihilism and my body done away with. Desires remained, fruit thrived, purposes rekindled. But it was no longer my body, my choice. 

"Not my will, Lord, but thine be done."

Because he gave but would not take away, I swallowed my freedom and surrendered to the dream-giver all ideas and basic rights... I needed neither. 

Five months is an arbitrary number. Somehow it was right for me. With friends' council, I was able to stick mostly true to the denial of self and cultivated a freshness of spirit. Childhood aspirations resurfaced, and I shared them wholeheartedly on twitter because it was the last social media platform, I felt safe to express freely on. I connected with a lovely woman my age who loved the idea of my Living Room Academy and wanted to help me make it a living reality. 

"But" she told me. "I want to also find you a husband." 

She asked me to fill her forms out, assured me she wouldn't actually give my information to anyone, but it would certainly help her know if her website glitched, and then she dropped the pressure... for a week. 

"I know you said you weren't interested in finding a husband... but I didn't really think I'd find someone that seems kinda perfect. The only issue is that he doesn't really believe in working a real job..."

My guard was up, but a man that loved poverty. This possessed my attention. I told her she could give him my number. Andy called me, and we talked nearly two hours. I answered the call between classes and music practice in North Carolina at the John C. Campbell school. At first, I was bored and disinterested... except I never had a chance to feel awkward or as if I might be doing something wrong. He kept me enthralled and made me laugh. He told me how he'd left the dumpster diving for church, and when I asked him why he couldn't do both... and he received my contrariness as something heartening. He told me he was a poet, then as I leaned into the wet grass and searched among the clovers and arranged sticks and leaves into the shape of butterflies, he asked me what I held most dear. "All things whimsical, hospitality, and books."

Andy making me lunch outside my workplace

We exchanged a letter each, and then he called me over zoom to break up with me. But even this was sweet somehow. I didn't feel rejected as I had with other men. Even in this he didn't want to make me cry but was doing what he thought to be right at the time. Before I had liked him, but as he sat there telling me things couldn't go on, I knew deep down that this man had somehow kept the doors open in such a way that a man who flits between several girls fails to do. He had put all his eggs into one basket, leaving my basket quite dry and empty. And yet now I knew I'd willingly let him fill it again because of his decisive, complete way of handling my heart. 

We didn't talk for about two months, but I only cried that first day. I felt hardly sad about the situation, just immensely grateful to have been liked by such a sweet man. I sort of felt things could still work out. But I had no idea if they would. 

Willow, our matchmaker, though, was enraged. She pressed him to reach out to me again, asking me first of course if I'd be receptive to that. After a couple weeks of wanting to but fearing my potential wrath he finally DM'd me on twitter and asked for another phone call. 

my friends gathered around Andy and me 

Those two months were good for me though. In that amount of time, I had to ask myself some honest questions. Would I revert to old dreams? I would not, not even if new dreams became equally unattainable. What would I be willing to do for a man, truly willing. Would I allow myself to fully join him in his work and in his life? 

The paradox of being a woman is that we should never change ourselves for a man and yet when someone we love needs change to honor who they are we transcend... could I love him enough, even half as much as Ruth loved Naomi? I've never looked for a man who was equally yoked to me, but for one who I knew I could yoke myself to and trust blindly into whatever life he and God would choose. And yet, in those springtime months I sorted through the actual logistics of what it might look like to deny all personal pedanticism for some greater Truth expressed only in the works of my submissive hands and feet, unable to be captured in the words of my mouth.

I'm not sure how sincerely I could have dealt with these crucial questions if we hadn't had those couple months of silence. 

He came to meet me the last half of June. I think we were both terrified of each other... we didn't hug or touch for at least four or five days! But slowly, we drew closer to each other, and shared sunsets, books, and meals. Chill and eagerly, he let me drag him through all my obligations, putting himself to use, never seeming out of place, but naturally assuming position and priority in my everyday life, and loving all my friends and family. And then he took my hand, and hugged me, and we decided we would go steady, and on the last day, after accidentally finding out I'd never kissed anyone, found a moment to kiss me. 

This summer we both had obligations that kept us in separate states. We sent many letters over the next two months, and talked on the phone whenever we could, sometimes for seven hours. We found ourselves both wishing to be where we weren't but also thankful that we were strongly doing good things for the world. At the end of my last living room academy course, he returned via the amtrack... and we haven't been separated a day since.

For a good month, he stayed in a cabin my dad fixed up for him on our property and immersed himself in my everyday life. We went to poetry open mics, hosted my friends, and he drove me to work every day and would make me lunch in the parking lot on his camp stove. I was nervous at times that I might be overwhelming him with my chaotic, bubbly life... but no, he continually impressed me with his chill, dedication to my whims, earning my trust for the times when he would be, "It's time for a break" and feeling relief that he had the insight to make us both breathe. Every day I feel grateful to be with someone who makes me laugh often and adores me and continually asks me how I am and what I'm thinking. I feel so respected and cherished and absolutely seen and safe. I love cooking for him and reading his writing and listing to his professor-esque spiels, and of bending down to his ear, to whisper sweet promises... or munch a cracker loudly. Yes, we cackle much together. 

Andy is a lot like me (just nerdier and less ditsy). He traveled hobo-style for over five years, writing poetry on his typewriter, rejecting modern societal expectations in every path he chose. He is also a devout Catholic, an excellent writer, and a man of woods and maps. Instead of keeping almonds in his pockets, he jokes about having cabbage (really, he has stuff to make a campfire).

We are now traveling on the Amtrak making our way slowly toward his family. On the way we are getting to know each other's faith and visions thoroughly, or as much as one can do such things before discovering them absolutely in the ensuing sauntering years to come. 

Life is truly a blessed experience these days, and I'm so lucky to be this happy... and I refuse to think this fairy tale shall have any uncommonly unique epilogue after our happily ever after.