Lynda who lives on a farm in Colorado looked at that year ago post from yesterday and asked me how this all happened. That a New Zealand girl could wind up living in the middle of nowhere with an American man. It is not a long story, but I guess it is a sweet one. I think all our stories are special. Just finding someone you can live with is pretty special all in itself.
Well, when I was seventeen I came to the United States as an Exchange Student. I came straight from the beach out to the prairies. I was skinny, with glasses and hair all over the place. All legs and hair in those days. This was the last gasp of the seventies not a year for high fashion but great jeans. I had been nursing a sick Mum and going to a convent school. I was the fizzy coke bomb bottle.
I lived, for a year, just down the road from here, in a big house with John’s family. His Mother ‘The Matriarch’ was a teacher at our school. John was a senior, and in the same grade as me, so he was delegated to drive me to school every day. He had a penchant for old Chevy cars and Bob Dylan.
I did not. Bob Dylan sounded screechy to me and his car was awfully drafty and not terribly clean. I was a chatter box and he was as silent as the proverbial grave. I was into English, books and driving around with gaggles of girls and he was into physics and cars. I was a pompom girl (the most awkward one who could never learn the routines and fell over her own feet). He and his hairy mates (hairy being the boy fashion of the time) went to the games and parked on the dark side of the field. I knew nobody so I was friends with everybody. He lingered and watched and I darted about in my giggly butterfly fashion tasting most things and taking very little notice of other things. He was a solid A student and I was suspended for three days for smoking in the art room and another time I was seen jumping out of a two story window on a dare. Well I am sure you get the idea by now. The shaken coke bottle had been opened and I just fizzed with delight all over the place.
He tells me now that he had a crush on me but he was not a big talker and I never stood still for long anyway. You can see his problem. I had rather a wild time, was frequently rescued by him or his older brother when I got into trouble, and left at the end of a year none the wiser.
As I sat in the bus with all the other AFS students on our way to the big reunion in Washington before we were all put on our respective planes and shipped back home, I opened my diary. A tiny torn strip of paper fell out. On it was written I Love You. In capitals. Each letter below the other. That is all. Just I Love you. The letters had been traced over again and again so the letters were strong but made up of many many tiny lines and you could have read it like braille on the reverse side.
But I had no idea who had written this little note, on this tiny scrap of paper, torn into a little rectangle as though dissected from a bigger picture. I still have it in that little diary with the tiny brass lock, in a big trunk in New Zealand (along with about forty other diaries I might add… piles of them, I wrote everything down. Most of it is rubbish).
Many years later after my own children were grown, I returned to Illinois to meet up with John’s mother again. John was back in town. He told me that when I walked down the curving wooden staircase in his mother’s house he knew. But he waited. It took him four years of me visiting his family two or three times a year, to finally ask me to stay. Our John asked me five times to marry him. 
I said no four times. Living all the way out here in the country was an enormous change from the high life I was living amongst the film set in London. Spending weekends in trendy bars drinking champagne, wearing cool shoes, spending ungodly amounts on coats and scarves (my weakness) and flying all over Europe with my not terribly demanding but very well paid job. So he waited again and asked me again. He said it would be fine. And on the fifth time I was ready so I said yes.
And he was right. I found my home here. As you know I am not gushy about these things. I think there is a lot more to a good relationship than love and sex. These are part of a bigger picture. There has to be compatibility and respect, kindness, gentle forgiveness and a lot of good old fashioned work. Marriage is not easy. There also needs to be patience and Our John is the master of that. Plus a cow. I think a naughty cow is good for a marriage too! But most of all I think you have to WANT to live with this person in this life.
Bob Dylan I can still do without. 
Good morning. Have a lovely, lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
103 responses to “Do you want to hear how John and I met?”
I wonder if your life would have been different if John had spoken those words to you all those years ago.
Christine
I was probably too young and wild then.. I think Life determined the correct timing.. c
you have a Fortress of Well Being – tremendous article; lovely! total best wishes
Thank you for sharing! Lovely.
Another piece to the puzzle … I do take issue, though, with your describing it as a “short story.” Any tale that takes spans 2 (ahem) decades and crosses 3 continents s hardly short. There’s time, though, for the details. A wise friend once told me there’s always time. 🙂
Have a great day, Celi!
You have such a way of looking at things..is it raining up your way, we have had rain all day.. i even lit the fire, not because it is cold, just gloomy.. c
It’s rained off-and-on all day. Nothing hard, more shower-like. Yes, it is gloomy. One gray blanket covers the sky, a sure sign that Winter is coming and perfect for a fire.
Enjoy that fire, Celi, and the rest of your day!
That is a gorgeous story, Celi! How wonderful for you both to have found each other again! Can we persuade you to post a wedding photo? 😉
You know, I thought I recognized a kindred spirit.
Just as I suspected, a fellow wild child. Terrific post, celi.
Such a sweet story. Love is such a happy thing to find.
I absolutely LOVE this story! And I am in complete accord as to what makes a good marriage. Complete accord. Seems we’ve both been the wild child, now married to the stogy old boring kind for us in those days. So happy with my Chris, as you are with John. For all the best reasons!
AHHH! ’tis the stuff of dreams! What a great story and, as you say, a very sweet one. Thank you for sharing! Oddly, I am the silent one (who would have thought) and Terry is the social one of our little team.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
I love this post – what a lovely story.
Celi,
This one moved me to tears. Maybe it’s because I found the person I could really live this life with the second time around. Had it not been for that first round, though, I wouldn’t have the sons and the beautiful grandchildren. I would have had a very different life if I’d stayed with him, though. A lovely, lovely tale. Maybe one of these days, I’ll tell the story of how my second husband and I met. I always say he was “dropped on my doorstep.” Beautiful story!
I want to know that story too Gerry!
So would I Veronica.. we will have to keep reminding Gerry.. c
Gerry and I are into a memoir challenge. (Gerry is so much better at it than I am, I’m twisting all the rules) The challenge is supposed to include 25 years so I’m hoping G’s going to post her story. It’s absolutely fascinating learning about my friends in my writing group. I love, LOVE people’s stories.
Make sure I get to read it when she does, with my dimwit internet connection I sometimes miss stuff.. the memoir challenge looks great! c
Lucky ducky you! Robert and I are still trying to figure out this Vancouver/England two houses, two countries three kids-turned into seven life. That’s why I love to read your blog…lets me escape my madness for a few minutes. 🙂 Next life = organic farm.
I think both of you should run away to that wee cottage in the forest.. c
That brought a tear to my eye. If the story was in a movie most of us would probably think, “How lovely and how improbable in real life”. So, good for both of you!
BTW, Bob Dylan’s not so bad, he’s a bit more accessible than the Grateful Dead 😉
Cecilia, I am so glad that you shared this story. It is fantastic. I love your descriptions, especially of your seventies fashion and hair. I can just imagine the pair of you and the years in between where you each likely learned a lot about yourselves. Groundwork done – now your’re collecting on the investment. Wonderful.