Engage!

A few weeks into my stay at Maryhouse, a rumor began circulating that Ted and I were engaged.  Though untrue, this was not an unfounded rumor.  During a meeting of the community Ted made sure to let folks know that he would be in and out for the summer, saying, “Amy has two siblings getting married this summer—and, maybe possibly, we would get married this summer.”  The ladies of the house let out a cheer, “he said it out loud!” they cried.  I was not in the room.  Ensuing congratulations took me by surprise.  After a few days, I had an explanation ready on my tongue before someone could get out their full, “I hear you have news…”  Even Ted’s sister asked me if it was true that we were getting married this summer (I will admit, I had begun a half-joking/half-serious campaign over e-mail for a triple wedding of Nee siblings, combining Adam and Grace’s already planned nuptials with my potential).  One afternoon a woman who occasionally volunteers, whom I’d met only once called the house phone,

 “Amy, I hear that you are engaged.”

“[laughing] I am not, actually.”

“Really? Someone told me you are.”

“It’s been going around.”

“[Disappointed] Well, I won these theater tickets and I wanted to give them to you and Ted as an engagement present.”

“Oh, how kind!”

“[Resigned] I guess you can have them anyway.”

“Thanks!”

Gradually, after much laughter, blushing and explanation, people were getting used to the idea that Ted and I were actually not engaged.  But it was in the air now, on our minds, if everybody else was talking about it, shouldn’t we?  Were these blithe mentions of slipping a wedding into the midst of those already set by sibling jokes or plans?  On the last day of March Ted mustered his courage and called Momma Nee, intending to ask whether she and Pop would like more time with him before he considered asking for their blessing on our marriage.  He stood cute and sheepish in the middle of his room, sharing this plan with me, his hair grown out mad-professor style, wearing a faded red War Resisters League t-shirt and blue jeans my mom had originally bought for my dad but found were too small.  I leaned on the door frame silently taking it all in – his plan, him, our life together in this house – until he shooed me out of his room and I went to mine.  At first diverting myself with a novel, I couldn’t shake the nagging thought that this was a significant moment; life altering conversations were underway, epic commitments being considered!  So I took out an old journal and revisited the notes I’d made about Ted and the ever gradually dawning desire for the mingling of our lives including this reflection I’d jotted down during a silent retreat I had just before moving to NY:

... I feel that I do want to live a religious life, but not as “a religious” in the Catholic sense of the word.  I want to live a religious life – angled always toward loving relationship (attentive, appreciative, accepting, affectionate, allowing; with reverence and devotion, curiosity and mystery) with God and recognition of God in all things – as a Catholic Worker and (dare I write it?) married to Ted (who teaches me to see and to feel and to respond)…
…Dear God, what has come over me?  It is the end of the day, 10:52 pm.  I am in bed – ready to pray and sleep.  But I am suddenly burning with an (almost) irresistible urge to call Teddy and tell him that I do know now that yes, I want to marry him.  I don’t want to have to wait until I see him or even until the retreat is over… 

But I did wait, and in fact, had not told him yet, still wrestling with myself, trying to discern what is best and playing my cards close to the vest in the meantime.  I laid down in my room, just adjacent to his, wondering what words were being exchanged next door, and wrote: “ Most of the time I wish we were married already, but every once in a while I begin to think the notion of such a commitment, such a life, is outrageous.”

 An hour later I heard his door open.

“How did it go?”

“It was really nice.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Ehm, the Hunger Games, Georgia—I didn’t say anything about taking a trip there or about us.”

“Seriously?”

“The timing didn’t seem right.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

“No, just wondering what’s going to happen with all this.  Can we go?”

We were going to stay the night at his parents, who were out of town, taking advantage of the opportunity to have some time alone and cook a meal for two instead of fifty.  It was a beautiful night, preparing food and sharing a meal together.  Building a fire to cuddle and sip wine beside.  Maybe it was the atmosphere, or the wine, or maybe I was just ready to open the conversation; in any case, I ever so innocently asked,

“Did I ever tell you I almost called and proposed to you?”

“What?!”

“While I was on silent retreat, the night I started sending you text messages.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.  I hinted about it in a letter, but that’s the letter that got lost on Devon Ave. before it made it to a mailbox.”

“Unbelievable.”

The next morning was Palm Sunday.  As we were preparing for mass, Ted started getting messages from our friend Joanne (who knew we would be using the theater tickets that had been given earlier due to the misinformation that was were engaged) some of which he read aloud to me:

“Doesn’t using an engagement present make you contractually obligated to actually become engaged beforehand?”

“I’m working on it!”

“I call BS! Screw your courage to the sticking post!”

Walking home from mass, I asked Ted what he wanted with regards to all this engagement talk. 

“I hear what other people think, and I know what I think, but what are you thinking?  Do you want to have it be something dramatic, to surprise me?  Do you want it to be collaborative?  Do you want me to surprise you?”

“Well, I think something collaborative would be more in keeping with the relationship we have and want to have.”

“True.”

“So what does the engagement mean then, if it’s something we talk about in advance?  And what is the purpose really of being engaged.  Is it just a time to plan the wedding? An open door to start really asking seriously if we do want to be married?  A time to learn what that even means and prepare ourselves?”

We decided that if, hypothetically, we were engaged, we would want to spend the time between engagement and marriage talking to couples and to each other, and learning what this means, and who we are, and how we want to be in relationship.  By this time we are once again in his parents’ kitchen, between the island and the wide clear windows that face the backyard.

“So,” Ted says, “can I just ask you now?”

“Um—ask me what? What do you mean?  Do you see that black squirrel?”  Suddenly feeling shy, I couldn’t bear to look at his face.

“Amy, you’re going to have to look at me.”

“I can’t.” Is he being serious? Is this really what’s happening?  I felt capacity only for questions.

“Amy, I need eye contact for this,” gently taking my face in his hands, “Amy Elizabeth Martha Nee, will you marry me.”

“Mhm.” I intoned, leaning into him, hiding my face in his shoulder.

“Mhm? Mhm! What does that mean? Is that a maybe? A yes?!”

“Ha, yes, yes!”

“Okay now you ask me with my full name, if you know it.”

“Of course I know it! But is it Vern or Vernon?”

“Vern.”

“Vern Edward Walker, will you marry me?”

“Yes! Enthusiastically! Ecstatically! Clearly!”

And so it was, and so it is.  We are getting married this summer.

The Beginning