Somehow we are compelled to share, express…it makes us human. I am not sure how I can find words for this last year. I am sitting on a plane, arriving back home just in time for my one year wedding anniversary today.

Two and a half years ago I met this man who was just passing through Chicago, who was holding his nephew at a Baha’i meeting and who I immediately thought was pretty darn handsome. It took me a little while to get to know him, and thank God he stuck around long enough for us and took a chance on this Midwestern half-Persian girl who can’t stop planning. anything. ever. Shea Munion, you are a brave man.

It took me a long time to go through wedding photos, reconcile a few things, and to find ways to settle into the life we have now. When I think about what was going on in my life last summer and fall, and how quickly everything happened (a wedding, new jobs, planning four conferences while planning a wedding in three months while traveling, adjusting to sharing my space) I am actually a little impressed that I’m actually functional.  (There have been times that it has been a little questionable, however!)

One year anniversary posts can get a little…saccharine at times, and I find it challenging to find the right balance of sweet and honest. Marriage is amazing, and it is also a lot of work. (Sorry for the clichés!) I want to say that because we are not being fair to those who look up to us as examples when we pretend that it isn’t. Shea and I had a lot of honest, heartfelt, loving, searching conversations while we were getting to know each other, and thank God and our families that we had been learning about this process for years before we even met each other. It was deliberate, but it was also a sweet time that I look back on with a bit of wistfulness and also a knowing smile when I think about the things we were worried about then. I am lucky to be married to a man who brings out a playful side in me, who laughs with me and makes me a little crazy with his exuberance while I am also in awe of it.

Sometimes I laugh when I realize that I’m still figuring out what his favorite dessert is (he doesn’t have just one, I think?), or when we are having a conversation in which I realize we’re trying to say the same thing but have different words or concepts for it. Nothing is perfect and we certainly aren’t. I recognize my immediate need to just get things done and that marrying Shea has given me the gift of a man who helps me slow down a little bit, take a breath, and maybe just relax or go on a bike ride.

We aren’t exactly opposites, though it can seem that way. And it is truly amazing to be able to have a spouse who wants to serve the Faith with such dedication, and who I can make plans with to be able to serve in my own way (and sometimes that overlaps). Ten months into our marriage, Shea joined me as a member of our Local Spiritual Assembly, and we are learning what it means to serve in that way together.

Two independent people make the choice to get married and spend eternity together (that’s right, the choice. He didn’t fall out of the sky into my life and suddenly we magically got married. Ok well there was a little bit of magic involved but that might be a story for another post). I am thankful for family members who welcomed each of us into the other’s family life, for friends who were supportive or nudged us in each others direction or listened to me when I was losing my mind a little, for our little Baha’i community in Wilmette who have loved us so much and welcomed Shea with open arms.

There are days when I look around in awe of the fact that this is my life, that I have a husband that I try not to embarrass by writing about (but really, come on, it’s hard to resist). He is kind, patient, funny in a way most people never get to see, talented at drawing people out and eliciting trust, loving with all people and especially with children, pure-hearted, and mischievous. He is not afraid to travel and try new things (which sometimes scares me). He takes care of our little baby marriage and of me.

Let’s go on some more adventures, my love. I can’t wait.

There have been happenings. It has been a little chaotic, a little overwhelming, and a little hilarious.

A week ago we were parked outside on the street in Chicago and a U-Haul cargo van backed into the front right side of my car and drove away. I saw it happen but didn’t get a plate number. This meant filing a police report (nothing to do about it unfortunately) and taking my car in for an estimate this past weekend. Now my car will be in the shop for 2 days, at least we have Shea’s.

The big event, however, was on Friday night. Shea and I met up at his train stop and went together from work, a little after 5 pm. For those of you who don’t know, our commute is at least 1 hr 15 minutes, on a good day, door to door. Some days it takes longer. We were cheerfully headed home when, just past the Howard stop, the train shook, shrieked, and ground to a halt.

As bad as riding the CTA is sometimes, it usually doesn’t do that. Pretty immediately we figured out that one of the cars on the train had derailed. They ushered us onto the first 2 cars of the train while they tried to figure out what to do…which meant that we were all packed like sardines…for 1 hour and 45 minutes. One young lady was telling someone that her date was waiting at the train platform behind us…and the whole car started asking her questions about how they met and where they were going for dinner. It was pretty great.

We got our information about what was happening from Twitter, friends/family outside the train, & news sites, but we had no real idea of when we’d be able to leave. At around 8:00 pm they finally informed us that they had pulled another train alongside ours and had set up planks to allow us to walk across. The firefighters assisted and everyone transferred cars. By the time we pulled back into Howard Station it was around 8:20 and we decided to take Uber home. I didn’t walk in the front door until 8:45.

All told, it took us nearly 4 hours to get home on Friday night. Whew!

This was a chaotic year. A very good one, but I feel like I haven’t really stopped moving.

In January 2013, Shea and I took our first trip together, driving to Minnesota to visit family and friends in sub-zero temperatures. In February I celebrated 3 years of condo ownership, and starting facilitating a Ruhi group of junior youth/youth at my home every week, which I am still doing. The letter announcing the Baha’i youth conferences came out February 8 and I started working on their coordination in the United States. In March we celebrated Naw-Ruz (Baha’i New Year) and in April I took a much-needed week-long vacation in Florida with dear friends.

In May, Shea and I received consent to marry, and in June we announced our engagement. The planning for the conferences kicked into high gear and I spent 30 days traveling from June to August: Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles. While planning a wedding with my fiancé. Let’s just say that a great many spreadsheets and emails were involved.

Shea and I got married on August 3 and had our honeymoon in San Diego. We also attended Green Lake Baha’i Conference in Wisconsin in August.

We celebrated my 30th birthday in September and went apple picking with family. I received a job offer from my new employer in September and started work on September 30. It is my dream job and I love what I do. It is fulfilling and being an event coordinator is fun, though it is an incredible amount of work.

In October we threw a Halloween party, in November I traveled to Las Vegas for the first time (for work) and wasn’t too impressed by anything except the food. We celebrated our first Thanksgiving together with family. In December I traveled to Colorado for the first time (for work) and then Shea and I made a quick trip to Minnesota to see family (sub-zero temperatures again!).

There were births, weddings, and passings, too many to go into here. Many friends visited Chicago, there were countless dinner parties and evenings with friends and family. Friday marks 5 months of marriage and we are enjoying married life (but still haven’t figured out a good answer to the question “How’s married life?”). I miss writing here and am trying to get back to it more, now that I am figuring out my schedule and crazy commute. Riding the train for 2 hours a day is a bit draining but I am reading a lot of books.

Here we go, another year…

Woke up to snow falling softly and it has continued all day. We have all the blinds open, watching the silence deepen and people slide by, bundled to their eyes. We made crepes and bacon and coffee and juice, we are together and it is winter.

This is one of those days when it would be wonderful not to have to leave the house, when I wish I had a fireplace, but these are little wishes and I am content with this kind of coziness.

Happy Saturday!

Happy Autumn, everyone!

(Even though it is 40 degrees in Chicago right now)

Dear Blog,

I haven’t written since July, which is very unlike me. Then again, this summer was pretty unprecedented with travel for the 114 Baha’i Youth Conferences and getting married in the middle of it all.  A few weeks ago I was offered a new job and yesterday was my last day at the Baha’i National Center, after 4 1/2 years of work there. I start on Monday and it will be a very different adventure. I can’t wait!

It is a lot of change, a lot of new things…so much travel, a new marriage, a new job, a new last name…but then I am reminded how good it is, how lucky I am, and it helps me manage the minor moments of chaos.

Sometimes it is hard to write because I feel this immense pressure to write a comprehensive, cohesive post. Then I have to remind myself that this is only a blog, and I just need to keep writing. I can always add, always write another post.

This is a way for me to get started again, to jump over the barrier that comes up now and again. Now, I have a moment to breathe and I will continue on.

with love,

Sholeh Samadani Munion (Loehle)

I had a plan to write all sorts of blog posts recently. And then…well, I had to dive into the 4 youth conferences I’m working on and then something else really big happened in my life and suddenly it was the end of July and I hadn’t written anything in nearly 2 months.

On June 28, 2003, I wrote my first post on the current incarnation of this blog. It was about me putting food in my purse. Somehow that is fitting. This June was 10 continuous years of writing here. A decade of thoughts. It is hard to believe. I’ve been blogging since 2001 but I have been consistently writing here for such a long time, I can’t imagine ever shutting this down. I have to thank my friend Paul (and his family) for hosting this blog for so many years. I couldn’t have done it myself.

But now for the really big news.

In a few short days, I will be getting married to Shea. 

I keep trying to find words to explain all of this and having a hard time doing so. We met last year and discovered this love between us through lots of conversations, prayer, walks in parks, and cooking together. Now I am getting married to a kind, patient, loving, funny man and am overjoyed to be doing so. I don’t like getting too personal on my blog most of the time, and as much as I want to write everything here, I am keeping some things off the internet. But this is just too much not to share. It is a little surreal sometimes!

Here we go, on our grand adventure!

Work is not all about serious things. My coworkers and I get up to various (mostly harmless) antics sometimes. Laughter helps with so many things, since it can be very demanding around here. We merely took advantage of an opportunity (in this case, a stuffed Aflac promotional duck that was hanging out in the lobby for a day).

 One day last week was mostly bearable, so we walked down to the Wilmette Harbor and watched the sailboats whisk around the harbor. There were young people being trained to sail, and you could hear the shouts as they nearly knocked into each other several times.

 During a week when nothing seemed to be going right, I found this chair in the alley next to where I park my car. I deliberated on taking it for 24 hours, but when I saw it was still there on the second day, I dragged it upstairs, hoping I wouldn’t discover a hidden flaw. It is in very good condition and matches the decor in my home perfectly.

Outside of the grocery store near my place. Just a pig roasting in the parking lot. It was an amusing surprise for my quiet little village.

We are anticipating spring, but it has been slow to come to Chicago. Finally the flowers are blooming and I am starting to look at the summer festival schedule.

Finally, Nineteen Months (the photoblog that I am an editor for) relaunched at Naw-Ruz and has a gorgeous new design. Check it out!

This morning I woke up to the sounds of a thunderstorm raging against my windows. I woke up before my alarm, so I lay in bed, trying to wake up by checking emails. Unfortunately my coordination is not the best in the morning, so I dropped the phone on my face and the corner of it left a welt under my eye. Ouch.

The streets were flooded today, so I was lucky to make it to work without stalling my car. There were four cars stalled in a road that I usually take to work. It also took twice as long to drive to work (20 minutes instead of 10), and some people just never made it in to the office. I had to climb into my car from the passenger side from my parking spot at home.

I was going to take photos of all of the standing water to illustrate the extent of the situation, but by the time I left work a lot of the water had receded in this area. Just Google it. Parts of the Chicago area are badly flooded.

I had to cancel my haircut in Schaumburg (about 40 minutes away) because I had no interest in driving in storms/flooded streets, and found a salon in Wilmette that looked promising. After having a very nice chat with the stylist and after she gave me a fantastic haircut, we discovered that the scheduler had messed up the pricing. So I got a $60 haircut for $45.

Realizing that one of the few places that is open in Wilmette at 8 pm is the library, I headed over to get some books. Discovered that 3 of my favorite authors have come out with new books and I was able to snag them to read. It may be that a lot of my frustration recently has been because of a lack of immersion in books. It is a peaceful time for me when I can spend hours reading a book that I enjoy. So if you don’t hear from me for a while…it may be because my nose is buried in a book.

Most of the time I don’t write about unpleasant things here. But something happened just now that left me shaking so badly that I had to pull into a parking lot and write it down.

I was driving in Lincoln Park, relying on google maps to get me to my destination (which was a bit confusing from where I was). A guy driving a very expensive little vintage sports car was driving quite fast behind me, and there were a lot of cars on the road. So I was being careful and going slower than I normally do (maybe 20 mph?) He started honking at me and flicking me off. At that moment, someone tried to back out in front of me, so I hit my brakes. He was trying to go around me so he ended up stuck behind me still.

When we stopped at the light he got out of his car and came over to my open window yelling. “You f*****g c***, what the f*** is wrong with you?” And he kept repeating that and gesturing like he wanted to reach into my partially open window and strangle me. I told him that I was going to call the cops and he said that I should. I rolled up my window and he went back to his car.

The light changed and I turned onto another street. I saw that he followed me for about a block and then turned and disappeared.

I was terrified he might have a gun. I was terrified that he would do something on a crowded street, even with a dozen people watching. He was older, bigger, and more intimidating, and he was a man. I don’t intimidate easily, but I also live in a gun-crazy country, in a city that is passing a law allowing concealed carry. I can handle a lot, and could have driven away, except there are some things you can’t outrun.

Where does a person learn to explode in such hateful violence against people they don’t know? What makes a man say such things to someone? I can’t remember the last time someone called me those things, but it was so shocking I didn’t even know how to respond. If he had come up to my window and been pleasant, or asked if I needed help finding something, we could have had a pleasant interaction.

His assumption that he was allowed to speak to me in that manner was unacceptable, but I could do nothing about it. And there is nothing unique in the experience I just had. A lot worse happens every day.

I hear there was this big football game last night or something. I watched a few minutes of halftime, which just made me sad that those beautiful ladies couldn’t find something classier to wear. I then got bored and turned everything off to read a book and drink tea. I ended up finishing the book (at least 300 pages) by the time I was tired enough to go to bed, and felt that it was a perfect way to spend my Sunday evening.

I have to say though, the commentary on Twitter made me laugh. Good job, everyone. You managed to keep me updated on the talking points and dissuade me from watching nearly all of the commercials (heard they were awful!).

And now Monday is here and, as always, I wish the weekend was longer.

I have to say that this year started off with a lot of things…none of which I’ll talk about here for now, except in a very general way. I will say that a lot was thrown at me at once, in a way that was validating, scary, joyful, destructive, and just plain overwhelming, all in different ways.

But then, somehow, everything resolves itself. Just within a few weeks, I found some paths to clarity, and it is amazing. I am not there yet, but it is a good feeling to start.

I am looking forward to this year.

I have been thinking about some of the difficult things going on in my life right now, and while I should not dismiss them as small or insignificant, I can choose to focus on better things, on the good things, at least in this space. I have been spending a lot of time in my condo this last week, sick with a nasty cold, and someone told me today to think about the things that make me happy.

We had our first snow in Chicago this week. While normally this would make me sad, as I am not a fan of winter, I have actually been loving the beauty of this particular snowfall, and the drifting flurries throughout the week. I went out to snap some photos the other day, mostly for Nineteen Months, and it reminded me of how much I love traipsing around with my camera, hopefully with a few friends in tow. I miss that.

We made sushi last weekend, experimenting with different ideas to create so many rolls that we ate it over the course of two evenings. We laughed and worked together. It was lovely. I am loving the conversations, the diving into the joy of everything. It is good to remember these moments.

I have been working on cleaning up the Wilmette Baha’i Archives for months now, but recently have had more incentive because we’re losing our storage space and have to move everything. As Archivist for our local community, I thought it would be helpful to go through over 70 years worth of papers before moving it. For every box that I go through, I trash about 1/3 of it. Mostly duplicate copies of things, or stuff we never should have kept in the first place. While it is a stressful thing sometimes, I also find really cool stuff sometimes.

 
I know entirely too many cute babies and kids. I’ve had the benefit of hanging out with a lot of them recently. Sometimes when things are rough, I just need a hug from a baby. Seriously, it fixes everything. I have also started hosting monthly dinner parties, which is the perfect thing in a Chicago winter, and I love having people over to my place. Sometimes it is a bit exhausting to be the one to initiate social contact with people on a regular basis, but this helps me feel a bit more connected.