This is the proposal story in its entirety. It'll almost certainly get cut down for Facebook and emails. Really, it's quite long.
So I got a text message on Wednesday afternoon at about 4:00 from Nate. He asked me when I was going to be done with work, and when I said "4:30, why?" he said "Picnic at the park."
Nate had the week off work (as is prone to happen in the land of carpentry), so he'd been puttering around being a houseboyfriend for the last couple of days. He's always been a fantastic housekeeper, much better than I am (thank you, military college), and when he's not working, he does stuff around the house to feel useful and like he's contributing, even if there isn't a specific dollar amount attached to it. He'd surprised me by making dinner or cleaning up the apartment in the past, but he'd never surprised me with a spontaneous date before, so I was totally pleased and squeed a little bit and texted him back that I'd be there as soon as I could.
Work, of course, conspired, and I didn't end up leaving until about five. Full disclosure time--it did, at the time, cross my mind that he was going to propose over the picnic and I spent about five minutes dreading the "romantic" picnic with tiny expensive finger foods and artfully strewn rose petals and a hired violinist and eventually him galloping up on a white horse and how crushingly awkward the whole thing would be because seriously, I'd feel way underdressed and probably just spend the whole time worried about whether I was supposed to cry now or after we'd gotten back to the apartment and made tender, meaningful love, or what. Seriously, I'm really not that kind of girl.
...So when I got the text that said "Your burger is almost ready!" I relaxed. Burgers. Exactly the level of romance I'm prepared to handle.
Sure enough, when I showed up at Lookout Park, there he was in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt grilling burgers at one of the public barbecue grills. Casual, relaxed, smiling, perfectly normal. I relaxed. Lookout Park is on the other side of the freeway from my work, about 2 minutes' drive. It a small playground, some public grills and picnic tables, and a steep path down to the public beach, as well as a coin-operated dog shower along with the public bathrooms and swimmers' shower. I've occasionally taken the steep path down to the beach with a coworker during my lunch break, taking off my shoes and walking in the warm sand. There are always lots of dogs and people running, walking, or playing with their families in the park or on the beach. That day, there was a passel of under-five children and their parents playing in the playground, a couple of painters eating lunch out of the back of their van, and a corporate-looking guy sitting in his car talking on his cell phone, looking out over the sea.
Nate and I said our hellos and laughed about the fact that the only charcoal Trader Joe's sold came in 18-pound bags, so now we have charcoal for years. I admired the burgers (Nate's trademark Monster Burgers, which involve sandwiching a lump of cheese between two small patties--seriously, give it a try. Your arteries will collapse with joy.) He'd gotten a bottle of Italian grapefruit soda from Trader Joe's, so I poured us each a glass while we waited for the burgers to cook. I mentioned how nice it was to have a surprise date and that he was so thoughtful, and he grinned and said "I do it," which is his way of saying "You're welcome." and "I'm proud of myself." and "I'm happy you're happy." at the same time.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.
"You can get the avocados out of the freezer bag," he suggested.
We have this little freezer bag about the size of a lunch box that's perfect for packing produce and individual ice packs. Nate actually bought it for me to take snacks to work in, but we mostly use it for a shopping bag and to pack lunches in. I unzipped the bag and there were two containers of pre-made guacamole squeezed in among two champagne glasses, a bottle of dessert wine, and a ring box.
"Oh." I said.
"That's for you!" Nate said helpfully.
At that point my brain completely switched off, so I took the guacamole out of the bag, zipped it up, and handed it to Nate. Helping, see? I can be super helpful. He prompted me to open the freezer bag again and I said something really witty and intelligent (something like "Uhhhhh."), so he opened the bag for me, took out the ring box, and handed it to me.
The ring is gorgeous. During one of those many conversations we'd had over the past few months that started with "HYPOTHETICALLY..." I'd mentioned not being terribly interested in diamonds--overpriced, difficult to guarantee that they're ethically sourced, and, frankly, I like color. Doing something "because it's traditional" rarely satisfies me as a reason for anything, so I didn't feel the need for a diamond ring.
I had, however, found some tourmaline jewelry in my favorite color (teal-blue) and told Nate about it when he was asking me for good birthday or holiday gift ideas, and he'd apparently taken the idea and run with it. He had a ring custom made by a jeweler he'd found on Etsy--taking a variation on one of their standard designs, he'd had them make it in white gold with a blue-green tourmaline in the center. The design is called the "Rose Garden" design, but it reminds me of water curling and intertwining vines.
When I opened the box, my usual penchant for extraneous profanity deserted me and I managed a "Wow." Nate took the box back from me, did the whole down-on-one-knee thing, and asked me to marry him.
I said yes. Then said yes again. Then, just to make sure, said yes another forty or fifty times. There was kissing. Then I said "Okay, and now I'm going to have a heart attack for a minute." and sat down.
There was this feeling like when you first jump off a really springy diving board, bouncing upwards before you start to fall--the moment of hanging in the air where gravity is meeting up with momentum. I waited for gravity to kick in, but it didn't. I thought about whether I was going to cry, and decided I wasn't. We opened the bottle of wine. I ate part of my burger and tore up the rest of my bun to feed to an extremely bossy seagull who'd been harassing us throughout. When he ate too big a bite of bun and started shaking his head like he was choking, I was prepared to administer an avian Heimlich, but he got through it okay.
The man who'd been sitting in his car talking on his cell phone had finished his conversation and was about to leave. He put his car in reverse and, as he was doing the three point turn to get out of his parking space, he rolled down his window and called "So, did you say yes?"
"Yeah!" I replied.
He grinned. "That's great! Congratulations!" and drove away.
Then I cried. Just for a minute.
I decided I wasn't ready to tell people we were engaged yet. I decided I was clearly having strong enough emotions about this that I should take a couple of days to process it. I realized there was absolutely no way to say that without making it sound awful. I realized I had all kinds of adrenaline-fueled energy and asked if he wanted to go for a walk on the beach. By that point, both of our burgers were gone, so we packed up the cars and headed down the hill.
We passed a memorial bench halfway down the hill with a plaque on it, "Lila's Bench," and started naming everything we walked by: "The [Nate's Full Name] Leaf," on a tree, "The [My Name] Commemorative Link," in a chain-link fence, "The [Our Last Names Hyphenated] Inaugural Trash Cans."
We took our shoes off and hid them behind a rock on the beach, rolling up our pant legs and heading south along the coast. I made a fist out of my left hand--the ring was about a half-size too big and I worried about losing it in the sand. I wanted to go down and walk in the surf, so we did. I made extremely mature noises as the cold water overran my toes and splashed up my legs.
Everything seemed to have a surreal, underwater quality, like I was asleep and dreaming. The sun wasn't really going down yet, but the light was getting soft and orange, staining the ocean with bright blue-green highlights that flickered like glass. A dachshund trotted past us self-importantly, a piece of driftwood longer than he was and three inches thick in his mouth. The sound of the surf was soothing, loud enough that we had to raise our voices to be heard over it.
"What do we do now?" I said after about five minutes of silence.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do we set a date? Make a guest list? Change our Facebook statuses? What?"
"Whatever we want, I guess." He grinned. "We should probably call our families."
"Oh yeah." I swallowed some apprehension. My parents would probably not be as on board with the whole "getting engaged" thing as one would hope.
We kept walking, stopping to pet the occasional dog, sandy and stringy-furred from playing in the waves. I skipped rocks off the water. We held hands. I watched the wet sand ripple out, taut and dry-looking, when we stepped on it. Pelicans and shorebirds dive-bombed fish in the sea. Excitement started to percolate up from my belly.
"Let's go up to that big rockfall and turn around," I suggested. Said rockfall was a man-made tumble of grey stones lodged up against the curve of the hill. We walked out to the stone parked the farthest out from the hill and I reached out to touch it, but Nate darted in and put his hand on it first so I ended up putting my hand on his.
We turned around and made it about ten steps before I stopped, gasping, as dolphins broke the surface of the ocean not far out from the shore. There were three of them, silhouetted black against the water and sky, glossy crescent-moon shapes and dorsal fins arching back and forth through the waves. We stood and watched them for about five minutes before continuing the walk back to the park.
About halfway back, Nate pointed out another set of dolphins which were swimming along parallel to us at about the same speed as we were walking. I couldn't tell if they were the same dolphins we'd seen back by the rockfall, but it really seemed like they were keeping us company and seeing us off the beach. When we reached the path, the dolphins swam around a little bit, going back and forth, and headed south down the coast.
"So, um, did you, like, rent the dolphins?" I asked as we started up the hill. "Because that was pretty perfect."
He laughed and said no. We stopped at the top of the hill to wash our feet off at the outdoor shower. As we were walking back to the parking lot, I saw two small rabbits dart under the bushes along the edge of the hill.
"Bunnies!" I exclaimed.
"Really? Yay! I was hoping we'd see them!"
"Oh yeah? Why?"
He grinned. "Mostly so you would say 'Bunnies!'"
We had to go our separate ways in the parking lot--him in his truck, me in my car. We had a long hug and kiss and got in our cars. I couldn't stop smiling. Somewhere along the walk to the rocks and back, I'd gotten over the nervousness and started getting excited. I wanted to tell our families and friends. I wanted to change our Facebook statuses. I wanted to plan and orchestrate and prep. I was ready.
"We should make some phone calls," I called out the window as I backed out of my parking space.
And so we did.
So I got a text message on Wednesday afternoon at about 4:00 from Nate. He asked me when I was going to be done with work, and when I said "4:30, why?" he said "Picnic at the park."
Nate had the week off work (as is prone to happen in the land of carpentry), so he'd been puttering around being a houseboyfriend for the last couple of days. He's always been a fantastic housekeeper, much better than I am (thank you, military college), and when he's not working, he does stuff around the house to feel useful and like he's contributing, even if there isn't a specific dollar amount attached to it. He'd surprised me by making dinner or cleaning up the apartment in the past, but he'd never surprised me with a spontaneous date before, so I was totally pleased and squeed a little bit and texted him back that I'd be there as soon as I could.
Work, of course, conspired, and I didn't end up leaving until about five. Full disclosure time--it did, at the time, cross my mind that he was going to propose over the picnic and I spent about five minutes dreading the "romantic" picnic with tiny expensive finger foods and artfully strewn rose petals and a hired violinist and eventually him galloping up on a white horse and how crushingly awkward the whole thing would be because seriously, I'd feel way underdressed and probably just spend the whole time worried about whether I was supposed to cry now or after we'd gotten back to the apartment and made tender, meaningful love, or what. Seriously, I'm really not that kind of girl.
...So when I got the text that said "Your burger is almost ready!" I relaxed. Burgers. Exactly the level of romance I'm prepared to handle.
Sure enough, when I showed up at Lookout Park, there he was in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt grilling burgers at one of the public barbecue grills. Casual, relaxed, smiling, perfectly normal. I relaxed. Lookout Park is on the other side of the freeway from my work, about 2 minutes' drive. It a small playground, some public grills and picnic tables, and a steep path down to the public beach, as well as a coin-operated dog shower along with the public bathrooms and swimmers' shower. I've occasionally taken the steep path down to the beach with a coworker during my lunch break, taking off my shoes and walking in the warm sand. There are always lots of dogs and people running, walking, or playing with their families in the park or on the beach. That day, there was a passel of under-five children and their parents playing in the playground, a couple of painters eating lunch out of the back of their van, and a corporate-looking guy sitting in his car talking on his cell phone, looking out over the sea.
Nate and I said our hellos and laughed about the fact that the only charcoal Trader Joe's sold came in 18-pound bags, so now we have charcoal for years. I admired the burgers (Nate's trademark Monster Burgers, which involve sandwiching a lump of cheese between two small patties--seriously, give it a try. Your arteries will collapse with joy.) He'd gotten a bottle of Italian grapefruit soda from Trader Joe's, so I poured us each a glass while we waited for the burgers to cook. I mentioned how nice it was to have a surprise date and that he was so thoughtful, and he grinned and said "I do it," which is his way of saying "You're welcome." and "I'm proud of myself." and "I'm happy you're happy." at the same time.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked.
"You can get the avocados out of the freezer bag," he suggested.
We have this little freezer bag about the size of a lunch box that's perfect for packing produce and individual ice packs. Nate actually bought it for me to take snacks to work in, but we mostly use it for a shopping bag and to pack lunches in. I unzipped the bag and there were two containers of pre-made guacamole squeezed in among two champagne glasses, a bottle of dessert wine, and a ring box.
"Oh." I said.
"That's for you!" Nate said helpfully.
At that point my brain completely switched off, so I took the guacamole out of the bag, zipped it up, and handed it to Nate. Helping, see? I can be super helpful. He prompted me to open the freezer bag again and I said something really witty and intelligent (something like "Uhhhhh."), so he opened the bag for me, took out the ring box, and handed it to me.
The ring is gorgeous. During one of those many conversations we'd had over the past few months that started with "HYPOTHETICALLY..." I'd mentioned not being terribly interested in diamonds--overpriced, difficult to guarantee that they're ethically sourced, and, frankly, I like color. Doing something "because it's traditional" rarely satisfies me as a reason for anything, so I didn't feel the need for a diamond ring.
I had, however, found some tourmaline jewelry in my favorite color (teal-blue) and told Nate about it when he was asking me for good birthday or holiday gift ideas, and he'd apparently taken the idea and run with it. He had a ring custom made by a jeweler he'd found on Etsy--taking a variation on one of their standard designs, he'd had them make it in white gold with a blue-green tourmaline in the center. The design is called the "Rose Garden" design, but it reminds me of water curling and intertwining vines.
When I opened the box, my usual penchant for extraneous profanity deserted me and I managed a "Wow." Nate took the box back from me, did the whole down-on-one-knee thing, and asked me to marry him.
I said yes. Then said yes again. Then, just to make sure, said yes another forty or fifty times. There was kissing. Then I said "Okay, and now I'm going to have a heart attack for a minute." and sat down.
There was this feeling like when you first jump off a really springy diving board, bouncing upwards before you start to fall--the moment of hanging in the air where gravity is meeting up with momentum. I waited for gravity to kick in, but it didn't. I thought about whether I was going to cry, and decided I wasn't. We opened the bottle of wine. I ate part of my burger and tore up the rest of my bun to feed to an extremely bossy seagull who'd been harassing us throughout. When he ate too big a bite of bun and started shaking his head like he was choking, I was prepared to administer an avian Heimlich, but he got through it okay.
The man who'd been sitting in his car talking on his cell phone had finished his conversation and was about to leave. He put his car in reverse and, as he was doing the three point turn to get out of his parking space, he rolled down his window and called "So, did you say yes?"
"Yeah!" I replied.
He grinned. "That's great! Congratulations!" and drove away.
Then I cried. Just for a minute.
I decided I wasn't ready to tell people we were engaged yet. I decided I was clearly having strong enough emotions about this that I should take a couple of days to process it. I realized there was absolutely no way to say that without making it sound awful. I realized I had all kinds of adrenaline-fueled energy and asked if he wanted to go for a walk on the beach. By that point, both of our burgers were gone, so we packed up the cars and headed down the hill.
We passed a memorial bench halfway down the hill with a plaque on it, "Lila's Bench," and started naming everything we walked by: "The [Nate's Full Name] Leaf," on a tree, "The [My Name] Commemorative Link," in a chain-link fence, "The [Our Last Names Hyphenated] Inaugural Trash Cans."
We took our shoes off and hid them behind a rock on the beach, rolling up our pant legs and heading south along the coast. I made a fist out of my left hand--the ring was about a half-size too big and I worried about losing it in the sand. I wanted to go down and walk in the surf, so we did. I made extremely mature noises as the cold water overran my toes and splashed up my legs.
Everything seemed to have a surreal, underwater quality, like I was asleep and dreaming. The sun wasn't really going down yet, but the light was getting soft and orange, staining the ocean with bright blue-green highlights that flickered like glass. A dachshund trotted past us self-importantly, a piece of driftwood longer than he was and three inches thick in his mouth. The sound of the surf was soothing, loud enough that we had to raise our voices to be heard over it.
"What do we do now?" I said after about five minutes of silence.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, do we set a date? Make a guest list? Change our Facebook statuses? What?"
"Whatever we want, I guess." He grinned. "We should probably call our families."
"Oh yeah." I swallowed some apprehension. My parents would probably not be as on board with the whole "getting engaged" thing as one would hope.
We kept walking, stopping to pet the occasional dog, sandy and stringy-furred from playing in the waves. I skipped rocks off the water. We held hands. I watched the wet sand ripple out, taut and dry-looking, when we stepped on it. Pelicans and shorebirds dive-bombed fish in the sea. Excitement started to percolate up from my belly.
"Let's go up to that big rockfall and turn around," I suggested. Said rockfall was a man-made tumble of grey stones lodged up against the curve of the hill. We walked out to the stone parked the farthest out from the hill and I reached out to touch it, but Nate darted in and put his hand on it first so I ended up putting my hand on his.
We turned around and made it about ten steps before I stopped, gasping, as dolphins broke the surface of the ocean not far out from the shore. There were three of them, silhouetted black against the water and sky, glossy crescent-moon shapes and dorsal fins arching back and forth through the waves. We stood and watched them for about five minutes before continuing the walk back to the park.
About halfway back, Nate pointed out another set of dolphins which were swimming along parallel to us at about the same speed as we were walking. I couldn't tell if they were the same dolphins we'd seen back by the rockfall, but it really seemed like they were keeping us company and seeing us off the beach. When we reached the path, the dolphins swam around a little bit, going back and forth, and headed south down the coast.
"So, um, did you, like, rent the dolphins?" I asked as we started up the hill. "Because that was pretty perfect."
He laughed and said no. We stopped at the top of the hill to wash our feet off at the outdoor shower. As we were walking back to the parking lot, I saw two small rabbits dart under the bushes along the edge of the hill.
"Bunnies!" I exclaimed.
"Really? Yay! I was hoping we'd see them!"
"Oh yeah? Why?"
He grinned. "Mostly so you would say 'Bunnies!'"
We had to go our separate ways in the parking lot--him in his truck, me in my car. We had a long hug and kiss and got in our cars. I couldn't stop smiling. Somewhere along the walk to the rocks and back, I'd gotten over the nervousness and started getting excited. I wanted to tell our families and friends. I wanted to change our Facebook statuses. I wanted to plan and orchestrate and prep. I was ready.
"We should make some phone calls," I called out the window as I backed out of my parking space.
And so we did.
Excellent! Well done, Nate. /applaud/cheer/high-five
ReplyDeleteObligatory cook's aside: If 18# of charcoal lasts you more than a few weeks of good weather, you don't grill enough and risk losing your California citizenship :)