I Fell in Love with His Words

So here I am, happily married to a fellow WORD NERD, who captured my heart with his words. We connect in so many ways, but at our core, I would say that our love of words draws us closer together even more.

Chuck and I have Facebook to thank for our initial connection. We were in a common interest group with other singles, and I had posted a cartoon that sparked a conversation that we took to private messaging. We Clicked from the Beginning. Immediately, I was attracted to Chuck's use of words; he had an impressive vocabulary, was familiar with conventions of grammar, and he even knew how to spell. Be still, my heart.

When we met for the first time, it was in the Asheville airport in North Carolina. When Chuck took me in his arms, and I looked into his eyes that night, I said, "You are perfect. You are just what I thought you would be." 

You see, I had already fallen in love with his voice, his words, and who he was inside. Meeting him in person just confirmed everything I knew about him during the weeks we corresponded, talked on the phone, and Skyped.

At the end of that first week on a chilly Friday morning on a beautiful panoramic overlook in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, Chuck Bennorth asked me to marry him in a haiku. 

Next to you always,

this is my heart's true desire.

Will you marry me?

My mind raced to form the perfect haiku response, and my silence sent the wrong message to my sweetheart, and I could see his nervousness growing, so, exasperated, I finally told him, "I can't think of a haiku reply fast enough, but, of course, I will!"

We wrote our own vows for each other, working on them for the weeks before our wedding. CHUCK'S VOWS were so meaningful to me, knowing he had carefully chosen his words for me. MY VOWS were my best attempt to verbalize how I felt about this wonderful man, and my promises to make him my priority. We continue to write separately, and together, sharing our love through our words, spoken and written.

Throughout the 12 hours we are apart each day, I smile when my phone dings with various notifications. We exchange emails, Facebook messages, and texts. We play Upwords and Words with Friends, online word game apps that are on our phones. 

Chuck asks for a topic each day for writing, and he shares haiku and free verse poetry with me in our online journal we keep together on Evernote. We compose poems with our magnetic words on the fridge.

There is a composition notebook in which we write back and forth. Within the pages, we write words only for each other. Things too personal for anyone but us. There are affirmations, confessions, apologies, poetry, and through it all, a love that deepens with each and every word.

Both of us blog, but because Chuck is gainfully employed, and we'd like to keep it that way, he only writes in his occasionally, and I try to write each week day. His blog entries feel like gifts to me; he shares his point of view of our life and love with the world in his writing.

Our house is filled with books. There are bookshelves, of course, and also stacks of books scattered here and there. Each week, we go to the Saint Charles Public Library (Mama, aren't you proud?), and we bring home books about authors, poetry, and writing, and Chuck selects several books on tape to listen to on his long commute between home and work. 

I bought Chuck a book about haiku at Town House Book Store on one of my walks into town.

Words are the greatest gift to me. Texts, emails, letters, cards, poems, books; I love a gift that can be enjoyed over and over again. Whether the words are silly jokes or whispered secrets or serious conversations, when they are shared between word nerds like us, their significance grows.

I fell in love with his words; I fall deeper and deeper each day.