Falling In Love

With Iowa and With This Man

I recently rediscovered a notebook I kept notes in during my first two classes at Cornell College. The first class is intro to philosophy, and the second is Nature Writing. Rich Martin, the professor who taught that class, was a strict sort of fella. But I am grateful to him for this class, if nothing else. He taught Faulkner, and he made us go into the woods to write.

When I came to Iowa I was still sold on being a city-girl of sorts. I didn't feel comfortable going out into nature. And I had every bias against Iowa in the books; that's why I fight so hard against people with those biases now. I thought the one place more lame than Nebraska had to be Iowa, and I was completely prepared to hate it. Now part of this was because I had only had exposure to western Iowa, and part of it was plain ol' ignorance.

It was during Nature Writing, going out into the Nature I could walk to from my dorm (I still didn't own a car) that I fell in love with Iowa. It's all chronicled in this forgotten notebook in blue ink. I was falling in love with a man at the time, not the right man. The torn emotions from that were chronicled there too. And most importantly, I was rediscovering my love for being outdoors. I still felt scared of it then. Now, I find there is no greater feeling of harmony.

I realized reading this notebook that there are different ways I fall in love. I don't think I can really describe the differences to you. Suffice it to say that when I met my husband I fell in love with him within a few weeks. Not the deeper kind of love that would come later on, but still real love. I fell in love with him like I fell in love with Iowa. Completely unexpectedly and completely naturally. I fell in love with him like I fell in love with the outdoors, like I'd been meaning to all my life.

This first year married with him has been crazy in many ways... a lot of ups and downs for us. So much to celebrate, so many blessings, and so much stress trying to establish ourselves in the adult world. I don't say this enough, for reasons I can't quite understand... this was the best year of my life. Being married and getting married were so much more wonderful than I ever let myself imagine. I thought it might somehow ruin love, be too possessive. Instead it has been so, I don't know, intimate.

Yes, intimate. Like sitting under a tree, by a body of water, listening to birds sing. Completely natural. Simple but complex. Transformative and stripping. Wearing away my sharp edges and mellowing me... in toward my center and out toward every corner of the universe.