It was the coldest day of the spring.  We asked Kim and Josh to snuggle because it was the only thing keeping them warm.  Khalil Gibran says that love is trembling happiness and I liked that idea. Trembling is only something experienced in extremes.  People jump out of planes to feel that energy. Some things just have enough force to make your body shiver from the inside out.  Love finds a perfect balance in stability and staying on the edge of your seat.

unable to blame my insecurities on him this time

so ashamed that the little girl inside

felt like she could never own a pair of Dita Von Teese eyes.

ashamed I was American

ashamed I took up space

wanting to be smaller

more like a key hole

more of a doormat

ashamed it took so long to admit getting older scares the shit out of me.

I can’t ask you to suck the venom out

or expect you to ride in on a white horse and save me

when I find I can’t meet my own imposed expectations

The magazines are churning out panic

we are deer frozen because someone knows it’s there

I watched bashfully those girls lit up in red

they were selling an image of what I wish I had

but staring in red windows all I could see

what’s obvious to you but still eludes me

my own self-hate reflected back silently.

(I swear they aren’t cell phone photos, they were taken with 120 mm black and white film, 3200 ISO, Diana F+ at the red light district)

“watch out now girl” Phill said in his blues-man voice, as a cluster of bikes came quickly up behind us. He knows how lost I get in my own world, I won’t be bothered by bikes coming at me quickly while photographing. For as much of a fuss as I make about gender norms, you never make fun of me for being stereotypical when I pack way to much in a giant pink suitcase and you end up having to be the person pulling it all over Europe. (while I carry your much lighter sensible bag and struggle with even that.) This has been a year of a first for us. Our First year of living together, our first car together, our first dog together, the first year we learned to be OK that I am hopelessly messy and he likes the lawn mowed on a diagonal. The first year we learned its our differences that make us better people. I have learned to appreciate those annoying things that we do that don’t make sense to each other. I don’t want to ever live with out them now.

This was also the first time you got to go home, to the Netherlands. As long as I have known him, his pride for his family history was a foreign concept to me.  I don’t even know my nationality let alone my great grandparent’s names. He met people for the first time that have legendary places in family stories. Tante Zus for example is a family heirloom; everyone who had returned from the Netherlands always said that when you went, you had to meet Tante zus.  We met her and found she was as legendary as her reputation painted her to be. She sent us home with chocolates and hugs, she laughed with us and told us stories of how she and her sister made her wedding dress and what the world looked like when it seemed like whole thing had gone mad. we got to have our first Tante Zus story, and we felt honored. We went to a house the has been in the family for generations. Phill may have lived at this house had his grandfather not decided to move after world war two. We walked around the farm to find the bullet holes still in the barn walls from when the Nazi’s came in and took over such a beautiful peaceful city. In fact we learned that Holland was the only country in the world that protested the deportation of the Jews. Over 30,000 Jews were hidden in Holland and the dutch people risked their jobs and their lives to stand up for human rights.

The whole trip is an experience I can barely put into words because the memories still don’t feel real. Wandering around Bruges sharing beers and chocolates and sleeping in the most 90′s grunge hostel, so happy to be there that we weren’t even disappointed to find that Absinthe doesn’t actually make you hallucinate it just tastes terrible. Meeting people who barely know you but showed us so much love because you share the same roots in a your family tree.  Having to go to the hermitage to see the Van Gogh exhibit because the Van Gogh Museum was closed for renovations. Finding comfort knowing only you would know how crushed I was and now it’s only you who knows what a religious experience even that was. (especially after following a red string through a coblestone city to find it) Seeing one of the most progressive and forward thinking places in the world and finding their slogan to be “I am Amsterdam”  feeling so inspired in a place where even the rude people were polite and realizing what bad citizens of the world we can be when we expect everyone else  to speak our language.

There were so many firsts this year, and it continues to be that all of my favorite firsts have always started with you.

Love,

Baby Duck

Koen and Linda are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Linda can speak 4 languages, can party like a rock star and makes some really delicious sour kraut and mashed potatoes. On top of being really funny and really beautiful. She has a sense of sweetness that makes her really endearing and easily liked but she also has this fun wild side that makes her exciting. Her bachelorette party photos are hilarious because she spent most of it dancing with her friends dressed in a blue smurf costume.

Koen is smart, handsome and driven. He is the kind of guy who organizes his tool shed, and DVD’s.  I spent a week at their house and had the unique experience of getting to see a couple work together on the highly stressful ‘week-of-the-wedding’.  Koen made sure everything was taken care of and accounted for on top of baking (I shit you not) the best wedding cake to ever touch my taste buds. Let me reiterate that, Koen made their wedding cake the day before their wedding. It was a white chocolate cake with raspberry and crème and it was incredible. Simply put Koen is the man!

Their wedding was inspiring for for so many reasons because it was so unique and beautiful. Linda’s Job actually includes marrying people at the court house, so for her own wedding she and Koen went to the court house and one of her colleagues married her. Afterwards the most lively, rambunctious and fun party took place in their honor. It lasted well into the night where people only danced and sang more as the night went on.  A dutch song, sung at birthdays and weddings was sung multiple times with everyone joining in like irish drinking songs. It was the most fun reception I have ever seen.

I felt so honored to be able to not only be apart of documenting their wedding day but being a witness to their life. They have been together since they were 15 years old, where they met at a dance club. They have been through years of good times, bad times, and adventures. They have traveled the world together. They got engaged in Venice and for their honeymoon went to Africa. They have supported each other in their goals and encouraged each other to keep striving for more. In so many ways they have grown up together.  They’ve seen each other graduate from high school and then college and get their first house.  Now they are promising to be there for first promotions, first birthday parties, and 50^th wedding anniversaries. It felt monumental to be there for their wedding. You could not help but feel the excitement. It was what weddings for as long as they have existed, have always been about; celebrating two people who found someone to grow with forever and everyone they love joining together to wishing them a long, happy life.

Hieperdepiep Hoera!