Twelve years ago today, JD and I married on the shore of Lake Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border. Our friend Steve Luckesen served as our best man; my sister Patricia as the matron of honor, and JD’s daughters Anika and Kara as bridesmaids. Our friend Steve Holder officiated. All of these people have, on that day and since, held important roles in supporting our marriage. As have several other friends, whether they realize it or not – by something they’ve said, or not said, or by simply continuing to show up, and share in the journey.

As I’ve written about elsewhere, JD and I met in 2010, when we were both assigned to the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil spill, in Mobile, Alabama. The following spring, we moved to Utah, followed by Nevada in the fall. He proposed a year later, and on September 29, 2013, we married. Before meeting him, I had never taken more than a week’s vacation from school or work. Within our first year together, I’d seen the Grand Canyon; walked the beaches of Baja California, Mexico; driven up the Alaska-Canada Highway from Salt Lake City, Utah to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; and seen glaciers for the first time while floating the Alsek River through Canada and Alaska. JD’s sense of adventure and passion for travel was infectious – with him, parts of me that I had silenced while pursuing academic and career paths began to awaken again.

JD had recently retired when we met – as he joked at our wedding, there are some differences in our “numbers”, and not just with respect to our height. While we often dreamt of my retiring early so we would have some time to travel more, for many years, I wasn’t ready. Like JD’s 33-year career with the National Park Service, I loved my work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was much more than a stable job and a paycheck. It was a calling, that allowed me to express myself through work that I deeply loved.

But, as I’ve also written elsewhere, several events led me to leave that path, in 2019. And as with most major transitions in my life, that change has been bittersweet. Yet, it has given and continues to give so much more than I ever could have imagined.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

— Joseph Campbell

Some of the most meaningful events of my life have not been the ones I have planned. Instead, they have had an element of something that some might call serendipity. Of course, just because I recognize this doesn’t mean that I have suddenly become willing to let go of my efforts to take control.

However, during my years with JD, I have begun to learn to be willing. Outwardly, sometimes this looks bold and adventurous, like jumping in his boat through Lava Rapids, or riding motorcycles through foreign lands. More often, it’s less obvious. Inwardly, it looks – and feels – more like trust, and less like fear.

When JD and I arrived at our hotel in Cape Town, I made a passing comment about looking for a ring, for myself. He smiled coyly, then disappeared for a moment, returning with a small box. Acknowledging that he cannot keep a surprise (which he truly cannot), he sat before me and asked if I wanted to open it, or wait for our anniversary – then still days ahead. Now I ask you, what woman do you know that would have chosen to wait at a moment like that? Well, I am not that woman.

I opened the box to find a beautiful ring, bearing a gorgeous royal blue stone bearing streaks of midnight blue and black, be-speckled with flecks of white, set in a silver band. Instantly, I was reminded of the first time I saw the night sky at Punta Bufeo, Baja California, Mexico – when I ventured there with JD, 15 years ago.

The decision to go to Baja with him back then was one of those moments that felt a lot more like choosing to trust something larger than fear. As we lay together on the roof at Punta Bufeo under the night sky, I remember looking up at the Milky Way and telling him that my head was spinning. My life at that moment was full of change – at times, it felt like I was swimming in a rapid. There on the roof in the dark, JD reached for my hand, and asked me to trust him. Although I knew a lot less then than I do now about what that meant, or how to do it, I still remember how it felt to pause, allow my fearful heart to begin to relax back open, and become willing to embrace whatever came next.

And I will forever be so glad that I did.

Happy anniversary, my darling JD. May we be lucky enough to celebrate another 12 years together, one day at a time.

P.S. – for those of you wondering, the ring was a perfect fit!

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

— Rumi