"...love is something we have to learn, and we can make progress with, and that it’s not just an enthusiasm; it’s a skill. And it requires forbearance, generosity, imagination, and a million things besides. And we must fiercely resist the idea that true love must mean conflict-free love, that the course of true love is smooth. It’s not. The course of true love is rocky and bumpy at the best of times. That’s the best we can manage as the creatures we are, that flawed humanity, the better chance we’ll have of doing the true hard work of love."  /  Alain de Botton on the True Hard Work of Love and Relationships

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A series exploring the newness and intimacy of marriage via roadside curiosities. 35mm film scans shot on a Pentax k1000.

These are the kinds of views that lure us onto another trip, and what makes hitting the road seem suitable for our honeymoon. It's comforting, as always, to know that much of the US is still open and uninhabited, that there is still space to breathe and feel small.

Cacti, my desert muse, to set the scene.

Romantic and rugged, the road looks especially alluring from an overlook in central Arizona.

Here and there, signs of hope thwarted by the desert.

An accidental double-exposure perfectly depicts the dreamy, sun-drenched, luxurious mornings of Palm Springs.

A frothing, churning winter sea awaits us in San Diego; the water is by no means friendly, but it is still rejuvinating.

Bagel sandwiches and strong coffee in our pajamas to lure each other out of groggy morning stupor.

Fierce storms chase us indoors, where Jacob takes his chances with low shutter speeds in dim light.

The Mission Beach boardwalk is eerily deserted in a storm; the few of us that dare to venture onto the beach are quickly asked--unless we want to be struck by lightening--to leave by a megaphoned lifeguard.

In the desert, we opt for our lunch routine of choice: pulling off the side of the road when we see a view we like, then assembling sandwiches from the cooler in the trunk of the car.

All throughout California, towering, alien giants sweep us through their homes.

In a tiny town near the California/Nevada state line, azure sky is in both the heavens and the doors--or maybe that's intentional.

Coming into Death Valley, the land is harsh and colored in a mostly monochromatic, earthen palette. It's hard to imagine what the desolate landscape would be like in oppressive, dangerous July heat.

Towering juxtapositions: on the left, a snowy formation in Zion NP, on the right, a manmade pier patiently waiting for the storms to pass.

Bad weather turns our planned three nights in Joshua Tree turned into one, but we are still lucky enough to catch a purple fading sunset in this magical place.

In Death Valley, the sand dunes from afar almost look made out of concrete. With a relentless wind that sweeps away trails every day, we wander, uninhibited, wherever we please.

The trails in Zion are slick with ice and snow, but we brave them, Jacob my trusty scout.

Some people come to watch the sunset at Zion; I come for the cacti.

We've never seen as many full, complete rainbows as we do on this trip. A good omen for our new lives together?

Our wedding has come and gone, and the only way I can think to describe it is with the word “magical” and a single sigh. At the Colorado mountain lodge where we were married, there was more snow than I’d ever seen before in my life. Even the heavy-laden evergreen trees seemed sacred. I’ll write more about the wedding once my thoughts are more collected and I have a few more photos to share. But for now, I’m permanently living in the mountains now with my husband (!) and our weird dog, Indigo (!). Our house is on the mesa about fifteen minutes south of town, and in the morning when I take Indie out, the sky is impossibly big. Living within view of snow-capped peaks has immediately made me feel more grounded, as has the hard-packed dirt of the county road, and the close proximity to sunrises and sunsets. I can stand in the kitchen and watch a quivering bunny hop along the crust of once-deep snow, or lock eyes with a buck across the yard, his antlers blending in with bare branches. Being married—and not having to ever say goodbye for more than a few hours—is both a relief and a solace, and I'm more than happy to swap wedding planning with boring but somehow exhilarating things like tidying up. 

The day after our wedding, we started slowly making our way west from Colorado until the stormy Pacific prevented us from going further, then looped back around east via Nevada and Utah. Road trips may not be the conventional honeymoon, but when you're a couple who's happiest on the road and the desert beckons from only a few, short hours away, this trip was the ideal, quirky solution to our honeymoon dilemmas. Even with weather that was horrific at times and much colder than expected (thanks California), itineraries that didn’t go quite according to schedule, and creepy campground neighbors I was afraid might kill us in our sleep (think six small white dogs perched on a picnic table in the dark...), I was overwhelmingly grateful and relieved to navigate it all with my best friend (and new husband!). I can't wait to take a million more trips with him. 

Here's a small glimpse in digital images... *

* I made mostly film photographs on the trip, but am waiting for my scans, so stay tuned!

Our first morning spent at the Grand Canyon

Insane morning scenes after a rainy night camping in Joshua Tree National Park

The tram in Palm Springs, CA

Luxurious, sun-drenched morning in Palm Springs

The descent into Death Valley National Park

The turnoff to Badwater Basin, elevation 282 feet below sea level (Jacob likes to joke it was the lowest point in our marriage so far)

The salt flats of Badwater Basin

Sunset at the sand dunes

Snow in Zion National Park

Insane icicles in Zion

A semi-frozen waterfall in Zion

The Watchman at sunset

Monument Valley from Forrest Gump Point

There was a night in late November. It was a Sunday, I think, and I was in Colorado at Jacob's (and soon to by my) house. Damp and smelling of snow, the air held the blue hues of dusk and I, the girl whose favorite color is the green of nature, was unexpectedly struck with the beauty of the barren landscape. At my insistence, we took a walk in the stillness, spotting three silent owls perched in the spindly, bare branches. One by one, they flew away as we got closer, their wings whooshing through the shadows. Watching them made me sad, but the good, yearning kind. Then we turned back for home and there was a fire awaiting us in the wood stove and I thought, this is what awaits me for the rest of my life.

I'm in Oklahoma for the Christmas season this year and four times I've started drafting a post here to no avail. Experiencing December without the cacophony and clammer of finals reminds me of the heart-palpitating anticipation of a boy coming to visit me two years ago on a cold, gray Saturday. Although it took until that winter's melting for me to fall properly in love, the first seeds were planted that December in a rush of flushed cheeks and a furtive grasp of hands. When I see him now, my palms no longer grow clammy, nor do nerves cause my tongue to act separately from my brain, but my heart rate still goes up in the few moments before we're reunited and I think how lucky we are to have found each other.

Soon all the awful pattern of goodbyes will be behind us and we'll be--as Jacob phrased it when he proposed--permanent roommates and lovers. If I let myself think about it, I'm terrified of starting my life over in a new city, but then I realize that people move all the time and they survive, or at least mostly. I feel terribly boring as wedding planning takes up the majority of my days, but I am overcome by the outpouring of love that began the moment we announced our engagement and, five months later, has yet to slow. As I told a friend few days ago, the days right now are both nothing and everything. I am trying to be as pragmatic and sensible as possible when it comes to putting this wedding together. I've discovered that, no matter how lovely, I'm not much one for flowery pinterest boards or mason jars filled with tea lights or wedding rituals that exist only for the sake of tradition. 

People ask me if I'm excited for the wedding, and I am, but mostly I'm setting my sights on preparing for the marriage that will last the rest of our lives. Regardless of whether you are 18 or 42, there is immense gravity in promising yourself to another person until death does you part, a commitment that runs far deeper than choosing which centerpieces to have at the reception. Agreeing to marry Jacob was not an excuse to plan a pretty party, or the result of being blindly driven by hormones, or, as some would bluntly see it, the first step in throwing my life away. I'm not so naive to think that marriage will be easy, or that there won't be sacrifices--because already there have been trials and forfeits on both sides--but the thought of life without him seems impossible. By marrying him, I'm doing anything but throwing my life away. What is there to be lost when two lives join together to become one? And it is that for which my heart swells--the knowledge that as couple knit together with Christ, we are far better than either of us could be on our own. The wedding day itself will come, it will be beautiful, and then it will pass and the two of us will be left together in the quiet business of life, the place where the real excitement lies.

Fall is late this year, or maybe it is early, depending on which home I am in. In Colorado, the trees shone burnished gold and tarnished crimson in mid-September, the mountain tops dusted with the arresting beauty of the first snow, my toes perpetually cold when padding towards the promise of coffee in the kitchen, the stale smell of the heater kicking in, a faint memory of the Milky Way last night. When I drove the twelve hours back to Oklahoma, the mid-October air was thick enough to catch in heavy, sweating handfuls and the trees were still heavy-laden with green as the road stretched endlessly on and I thought, maybe no time has passed, maybe it's still summer, maybe this was all a dream. 

The first Saturday in October was so perfect I felt like crying. Like magic, we ascended above the tree line on a narrow, rocky jeep trail that would make my mom close her eyes and clutch her seatbelt if she were there, and then we dipped back down into liquid gold aspen groves, everything tinged with the saturation of color. The autumn of my dreams. Then the descent into Telluride, better known as the land of fairytales, eating a sandwich together on a bench under the kind of afternoon sun that penetrates all the way into your core. There was the drive home on undulating mountain roads, the pavement silvery and shimmering, and then egg rolls on the couch because, of course, our kitchen table is still being crafted. All fragments, all wondrous. 

This is all part of the gradual process of moving out: a month here, a month there, enough time to ease into a new life and savor the old one, or at least in theory. In our premarital advising sessions I was forced to realize that I am more anxious than I'd like to admit. Everywhere, reminders to slow down, savor, remember, cherish. Contentedness is a fickle thing and I write to make myself more aware. How else do I hold close the sense of belonging, the familiarity of rutted streets, my bare feet on the cold bathroom tile trying to hold still being while fitted for my wedding dress, the old ritual of being on the phone every night come 10pm? And then, in the other place, the satisfaction of successful meal planning, a coffee-laced Saturday morning hanging up framed maps in our--our!--home, groups silent deer with regal antlers staring at me in the yard, a stolen kiss in the middle of dicing bell peppers. A year ago, all distant dreams.

A paradox, a limbo, an in-between. Always blindly searching for a conclusion at the end of the day when perhaps there is none to be had.