Newlywed

I ride my bike to campus early, crackling over the yellow leaves that cover the roads I know so well. Now in my last year as a student at BYU, these neighborhood streets are full of my own stories and memories. Here is where I used to finish my favorite long run...there I held hands with a boy for the first time...this is where I cried with my cousin/roommates over changing lives and difficult circumstances. 

I love riding my bike up the hill and parking it at the top, so when day is done I can merrily glide back down the hill again, but today I decide to park at the base of the hill and walk up.  I slip off my bike and lock it near Botany Pond, wizened tree branches around me flaunting flush, ruddy fruit. The air is still and full of anticipation, waiting for the sun to surge over craggy wall of the Wasatch Front. Such beauty and majesty seem much too...wise for me today. Here I am--recently married to a man I love and admire, completing my schooling, and in every outward appearance succeeding at a great start to life--and still, waiting. 

There are so many pieces of my life I want to construct and establish, so many hopes that are alive today only because I still have the opportunity to hope for them. Not everything has a place in my future--in the future that I now share and depend upon another to embrace and pursue with me. Am I mature enough to work with that? To move forward in establishing "us," despite the daunting, uncharted jumble of dreams and realities that we do and will face?

Step by step the cement climb bestows the burgeoning smell of ripe fruit upon me, lusciously reminiscent of my grandpa’s farm. I see the tiny crowded farmhouse, too full of family and animals to be a reliable refuge. As kids, my cousins and I would spend our hours outside hiding from our moms and our chores, building forts in the orchard or wandering the fields, chewing alfalfa and petting our favorite milk cows.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about each of my mom’s ten sisters, and how they must have sacrificed and lost so many of their girlish dreams as husbands...and children...and life...entered their worlds, each with respective needs and agendas. Those aunties took my hand, braided my hair, taught me about rain clouds, and made me food. I was happy and content; I figured we were all happy and content.  Weren’t we?

Where does a life go from here? Do I have the gumption to pursue my compass, in compassionate tandem with someone else? 

I wonder what each of my aunts would say about that. They’re all so weathered and their lives have not been fairy tales. Is that just the way it is? Life’s tough, so press on? I reach up to the branches above me, plucking a soft yellow plum and bringing it to my mouth. I lick the syrupy drop standing where the stem once connected it to the tree. It's sweet...and it's tart. It's a delicious combination. I pop the little thing into my mouth and find my way to the pit, break it loose, and spit it into the bushes. Then I chew, slowly, my mouth washing all its surfaces. The tartness has my saliva working overtime, but I do not spit it out. The sweetness is right there too, and it's enjoyable and delicious--a miraculous gift straight off the tree. Suddenly I know what my mom and aunts and perhaps every spouse and parent, looking at life with honest, faithful eyes, would say. "Life is tough, but it is also sweet. The sweetness is right there with it, a miraculous gift waiting to be experienced. Receive the bite, and don't spit it out."

Turning to continue up my path, I think again about the farm, and how sometimes during sleepovers I would get homesick when my mom and dad weren't there. I'd want to forfeit my plans--to "spit out" what seemed too overwhelming and retreat to the bland safety of what was familiar. My tears didn't help anyone, least of all myself. But there was something that did help: the smiles of my cousins and aunts in the face of my sadness. Their jokes, their laughter, their choices of joy and hope. The tart and the sweet were right there together, under the same roof, and when I chose sweetness with them, sweetness won. It took over my heart. It painted my world. It didn't ignore or oppose my sadness, it just acknowledged and then outshined it. 

I crest the staircase onto campus, breathing deeply from my climb. Faces are everywhere--students headed in different directions, each intent on personal purpose. The sun is still behind the mountain, and what will soon be bright as noon-day remains discolored with pre-dawn dusk. Gray area--just like the gray in my mind. I make a decision.

Trusting in the textbook of the rhythms of the world, I acknowledge the tartness of my human frailties--my flawed perceptions and youthful ignorance. Then I bless the man who married them, basking in the sweetness that he accepted this challenge with an open and committed heart. This combination of emotional flavors truly is delicious, and I step into the Joseph Smith Building graciously. The door closes behind me, and outside the world is bathed in streams of light as the sun finally conquers that mountain-climb...to morning.

This post is shared as part of my life's endeavors I wish to document.