We're Getting Hitched!

Solo courted me with coconuts, bananas, and play dates in the sea. He took the time to explain the intricacies of village tradition and helped me feel at home. He taught me the Fijian word for the Milky Way and that the moon has a wife. He told me a three hour bedtime story about the history of his clan, including the name of every single third cousin, and how they came to be here. He has a big heart and a certain disregard for the rules. A perfect combination! Together we just have so much damn fun!

It wasn’t until one day when we were riding bareback on his horse down the beach at low tide when I felt the butterflies deep in the pit of my stomach. I had begun to fall for this young man who I was supposed to call “brother”, this coconut cowboy who blatantly defied the tabu placed on my head. I tried so hard to suppress it because I knew there’d be trouble. Alas, I failed, and so we became partners in crime in a pseudo-incestuous, pseudo-secret affair.

Our decision to get married was one initially prompted by Solo looking over at me as we sat together months later on that same beach and him saying out of the blue like it wasn’t a big deal, "I don’t know about you, but I know I could spend my whole life with you."

Deep inside me I tangibly felt a changing of the tides. It was a really big deal! The wall built up around my heart was washing out to sea. I was letting love happen to me.

Later I told Solo that it didn’t feel official, that I wanted him to ask me to marry him. He said, "Like in the movies?!" So I hunted for a local pearl and a local jeweler, and the rest he planned… kinda like in the movies ;)

When we rented a house in Savusavu for Christmas, Solo worked with the caretaker to prepare a romantic dinner on the beach. He hid my ring in a bouquet of flowers he picked and wrapped in tin foil. He was so sweetly nervous as he told me how much he cared about me and asked me to marry him (in English).

Of course I said "Io"! (Yes!) And bawled like a baby.

After dinner I asked him what he'd say in Fijian, and it made it that much more special to hear it in his native tongue. 

I never thought I would get proposed to by a man in a skirt, but I couldn't be happier and can't wait for what's to come in 2014!