Chapter 10: Shortening the distance

Keeping in touch with the Atlantic Ocean between us was hard to do. We had to work around the 7 hour time difference, family obligations, and limited privacy.  It was also a really healthy challenge because it made us get creative in how we communicated. We started making videos for each other. Tim was back and forth between the mountains in Grenoble and Paris doing some videography work for a corporate communications firm and I flew down to Florida to be with my family for Christmas. The videos were brilliant for sharing all of our travel, experiences, and family events with each other. Whatever we did or saw throughout our days, we shot a few seconds of video so we could show each other what we were up to. We used everything from my macbook's Photobooth application to Tim's Canon 5D Mark II camera to film these clips.
Please enjoy a musical mash-up of some of our video mails set to music :)

If his goal was to win me over with all those classic Parisian scenes and Chartreuse mountain views, he achieved it. He probably won you over too.  I watched his videos over and over again.

We were hosting these videos all over the place and sometimes trying to email them to each other without success. I got tired of the chaos of disorganized information so on Christmas day I created a private blog for us to post our news to each other.

I tried to not make the design too feminine, so he'd actually want to use it. This blog was a communication tool that really worked for us since we were both blog savvy already. It was like a bulletin board: whenever one of us had a thought, video, or picture to share, we posted it and let the other person check it at their own convenience and leave a response.
I love this diptych of our opposite places. He was in the mountains and I was at the beach.

This was when the longing started. He was always on my mind and I wished so badly to be with him in all he was doing. Even though it was hard, these digital greetings and updates helped us immensely to understand one another and share our lives.
But still, I had to get up there to see him and decided to make it a little sooner than I originally planned.

Our first day in France

It took less than seven hours to fly from Newark to Switzerland. Here, it is customary to greet a friend or new acquaintance with a bise (pronounced: bees), short for bisou, which means a kiss. Each region of France has its own way of doing the bise, some start on the left cheek and then kiss the right, some regions kiss four times and others two. Tim says here in Grenoble they start on the right and just kiss twice, unless the person you're greeting is from up north and stubbornly holds on to their own style of doing the bise four times. It happens very fast when you first see someone; a fluid, thoughtless good manner for all French people.
All I have to do to survive here is smile often, listen closely, speak sparingly, and most importantly: start on the right.

Chapter 9: See you soon

On Monday morning, I got up early, put on some coffee, and started working on importing, sorting, and editing my pictures from the day before. Tim joined me about halfway through this process and offered to show me a few tricks of his trade before we left the house to go out for breakfast.  Once again, he was very kind and not overbearing in his guidance on how I processed my pictures.
"You could do this to warm up the white balance if you wanted to, but that's just what I like."

It is a cozy thing to wake up and sit at the kitchen table with someone, drinking coffee and talking. I loved this part of our time together, and I still really love my Tim time every morning.

Aixois bistro is one of my favorite Kansas City restaurants, and it's French, so we had to go.  We had just enough time to eat a nice meal together before he had to start his drive back to Chicago.
When we got settled at our table, the conversation suddenly became halting and awkward. It was like all the natural ease we'd had flowing suddenly stopped and we could barely come up with a new topic to discuss over breakfast.

As we were finishing our meal, I excused myself to go to the ladies' room, and as I was washing my hands in the sink I remember staring at my reflection in the mirror, inwardly demanding that girl to tell me what was going on.
And then I realized: he still didn't have an answer from me about whether or not I would come to Chicago. He was about to leave and had no idea what I was thinking. I felt horrible and resolved to go right out there and tell him that I did want to put forth the same amount of effort into this that he already had and travel to Chicago to see his life there and meet his friends too.

When I returned to the table, Tim was getting his coat on to leave.
"Want to take a walk before I go?"

Excellent. I would have plenty of opportunity to set this straight.

The weather was bright and cold as we set off through Brookside and Tim and I were able to converse easily again.
Lesson in dating: the forward moving walking process is so much easier on new relationships than staring at each other across a table.
We talked about our families some more and what it was like to grow up in two different cultures. I had a hard time finding a natural segue into telling him I wanted to come visit and after a long loop through the neighborhood--with our endpoint in site--bless his heart, he asked me again.

"So do you think you'd want to come up to visit sometime in the next couple of months?"
"Yeah, I really do."
"Really?!"
"Absolutely. Maybe in January if you have a free weekend?"

He was so excited. I was so excited. I think he even did a little skip/jump on the sidewalk like he always does when he's happy. He told me all about what we would do and what he would show me in downtown Chicago and how we would meet his friends and hang out with his brother and his fiancee.

"..and we can go ice skating in Millennium Park and go up in the John Hancock Tower and we'll go to a Blues bar..."

He had all these ideas. It was adorable.

We got back to my house, and in a matter of minutes his car was packed and we were in front of my house saying goodbye. We hugged. The kind of hug that lasts one and a half seconds and you're both wearing thick overcoats and when it's over feels like it was no real hug at all. It was the only time we'd touched since the first awkward hug when he arrived. Closing that space made me jumpy. We said 'see you soon', and he was gone

I went inside, laid on my couch, and tried to lock every memory into my head and analyze all that had happened. I was relieved that it was over so I could rest and think and be alone. I called my mom and told her that I thought he was wonderful and perfect, but I couldn't be sure until I got to Chicago and saw him in his own environment.

And then I went on with my day, and I started to miss him. The next day, he called me as he was boarding his plane to France.

And now, one year later, we are about to board a plane to France together to spend Christmas with his family. It will be the first time I've been back to the country where I grew up since 1998. I'll start this series back up in January on the anniversary of my first visit to Chicago to tell you all the details of that trip, or you can sneak a peak right here.  Thank you so much for reading. There's plenty more coming.

Chapter 8: What next?

After the Crossroads, we drove to Loose park and left our cameras in the car this time.
My awesome moment of feeling fun, free, and lighthearted about the whole situation fleeted as soon as I realized that our time together was drawing very short, he was planning on leaving in the morning, and we hadn't talked squarely about what was going on between us or where to go next. I channeled that uncertainty (in classic Bethany style) through feeling pressure to say and do the right thing, and I had no idea what that was in the moment. My greatest fear was that he was about to ask me to be his girlfriend, and even though I wasn't ready to say yes to that, I really didn't want this process of getting acquainted to end. I could feel the conversation coming soon, and I was right.

After walking a couple of laps around the park, Tim piped up:
"I know this is kind of early, but I really like you. And I'd love it if you came up to Chicago to visit and meet my friends and my brother sometime."

To which I replied:
"Thank you!"

I know this was awful. But it was the only honest reply I could give right then. He looked confused. Of course he was confused, he had asked me an important question and I had completely thwarted his answer.
"I'm so glad you came down here, Tim. It really means a lot to me that you were willing to go through all this work so we could get to know each other in person."
"Yeah, of course. I knew if I didn't come now, I wouldn't have the chance for the next couple of months and the emails would fizzle out before then. I wanted to give this a good shot."

He was so straightforward. Clear-thinking. Decisive. And my thoughts were all half-baked and soggy.

"I had a lot of fun today."
"I did too. It's too bad I have to leave in the morning."
"What time do you have to leave?"
"Well, don't you have to be at work by 9?"
"Well, yeah, usually...but I took a personal day so I don't have to go in tomorrow."
"Really? You don't have to go in at all?"
"Nope."
"Very nice! My flight to France is on Tuesday afternoon, and I haven't done any Christmas shopping for my family yet, so I better be back in Chicago by tomorrow night."
"So we have until around noon tomorrow."


Taking the personal day was my little insurance plan for giving us more time together: if we didn't like each other, I was just going to tell him I had to be at work and then he'd have to leave early the next morning. But that wasn't the case, and it was a good time to tell him we could have the next morning together. It's okay to lie about omit these things when you have a stranger from the internet staying at your house.

Maybe the conversational tangent about having until the next morning distracted him, or maybe he was encouraged by knowing that I was enjoying myself with him, but either way he didn't bring up the unanswered question of whether or not I would come visit him and I was grateful to have some more time to think about it. We still had one more hurdle to conquer that evening: meeting all of my friends.

My church in Kansas City was the heartbeat of my social life. Most of my friends attended the Sunday night service and I never missed. I was excited to see what Tim thought of it and wanted to introduce him to all of my people. I had told a few of my closest girlfriends the unfolding story of our initial contact online and they were eager to meet him in person. Everyone got the same line:

"This is my friend Tim. He's visiting from Chicago."

Most everyone glided right passed this and asked all the normal "what do you do" and "where are you from" questions followed by the "great to meet you, gotta run!"
A couple of others who weren't in the know shook his hand while giving me a look that said "male visitor from out of town? this is interesting." 

It was important to me for Tim to see that part of my life, and after I'd had some more time to think about it, I decided I did want to make a trip to Chicago to meet his friends and see his life out there. Unfortunately, I forgot to actually tell him this. 

Chapter 7: our first date

I grabbed a wool sweater, hat, and my beloved and beat-up Olympus E-410 DSLR camera that my parents got me for Christmas several years ago. It looked very shabby next to Tim's Canon 5D Mark II camera and luxury series Prime lenses, but Tim was so sweet and encouraging about my photography efforts. 

"Oh, cool! Is that your camera? Can I play with it?"

I was embarrassed to hand it over, but he looked at it and figured with it like it was a new toy, pronounced it "very nice" and handed it back. He could have taken that opportunity to be proud, condescending, and even arrogant about his camera, but he didn't. I liked that. 

We hopped into his Mini Cooper, and I navigated us down to the Crossroads, Kansas City's art district.

"Can I warm up your butt for you?"

"What?"

He laughed and hit my seat-warmer button. Seat warmers in the winter = true love.

He started making more cheesy jokes as we drove, and I was just a sucker for them. His international background gave him comedy material that I'd never heard anyone use before, like eastern European accents and jabs at French cultural norms. I knew exactly what he was talking about and it was so funny to me. We started speaking in mixed sentences of French and English (or Franglish, as we call it) and I was so impressed that his French and English were equally perfect.

I suddenly realized that I couldn't put him in any one box or attach a specific label to him. Was he French or American? Ridiculous or sincere? Professional or whimsical? He seemed to have all these opposing character traits and he made them work together in his personality.

We arrived at the Crossroads (which were deserted that Sunday) and started taking pictures.

I tried to take a nice portrait of him, because I knew photographers spend their lives making others look good and rarely get their own picture taken, but this was the best I could do back then with my Olympus.

Then he asked me if I wanted to try his camera. His camera that cost thousands of dollars, that he used to run his business, the one that if anything happened to it he would be screwed (I didn't know then that he had two more of those at home).

"Are you sure? What if I break it?"

"Haha! You're a funny girl. These things don't break."

"Yes they do!"

"True. But it's all insured. So have fun."

So I tried his camera, and it was a dream. He took the above photo with my camera. Why didn't I wear the strap if I was so worried about breaking his Canon? What was I thinking?

Then, as I handed his camera back to him something happened, some chemistry laden exchange that I will never forget for my whole life because it was the first time I felt weak with romance over my husband.

He looked at me like I was a prize he wanted and planned on winning,  and with a confidence he had waited to unleash until that moment, said:

"Come over here. Let me take your picture."

And this is what it did to me. My eyes got drunk. I became all sheepish and delighted and dizzy.

Then I tried to pull myself together and give him a serious model face.

And he cracked a joke and made me laugh.

It was so much fun. It was easy and full of light and happiness. In my mind, we became partners that afternoon. We were equal, balancing each other out with our differences and similarities. I had started to trust him, and he made me quit taking myself and the weekend so seriously and just enjoy the unspoken things that were happening. 

And we got our very first picture together.

Chapter 6: December 5th, 2012

The concert ended and we mingled with some people we knew there. Tim introduced me to his Kansas City photographer friends, Dave and Jessi who are wedding photographers with the Smiley Face Collective. He had met them on the Don't Give Up workshop they all attended. Incidentally, Dave and Jessi's blog was how I found Tim in the first place, but somehow that didn't come up in conversation on the night of the Christmas concert. I really enjoyed meeting them, and especially appreciated that they didn't ask any questions about what we were doing and where Tim was staying and why he was even there. They were just happy to see him and wanted to hang out, so I invited them over for brunch the next morning. The name of my game was still to surround us with a buffer of other humans until further notice. 

When we got home from the concert, we made small talk on the couch for a while. That conversation is lost on me now. I think it involved youtube videos, stories about our parents, and eating M&M's from the candy dish.  I think we were both eager for a break from the work of getting acquainted with our real life selves and happy to have some privacy and rest. I showed him to his guest room and then retired to my own room. 

I distinctly remember feeling bitter against the culture of dating and all the hoops it made me jump through. Meeting potential suitors on the internet, for goodness sake, and having them drive 8 hours just for us to size each other up. It was tiring and uncertain. I went to sleep having no idea what the next day would hold.

December 5th dawned bright and cold. I went to work in the kitchen getting food ready for our little brunch party. I invited Graham over as well, so that made 6 of us. Pretty soon the house was filled with friends making easy conversation, all getting to know one another, and I had the opportunity to fade into the background and quietly take in their conversation. This put me at ease and took off the pressure I had placed on myself to produce conversation rather than listen and learn about the kind of person Tim was. I started enjoying myself and getting comfortable being around him. 

I wanted Graham to be there and get to know Tim specifically because I needed a trusted male friend's opinion of him. I wanted to watch Tim interact with a new guy in the room and see how he acted in that situation. I know that men have this secret man language they speak with their eyes, and I wanted to be able to talk to Graham later, privately, about his impressions of Tim. This may sound manipulative and sneaky of me, but let's just remember: stranger from the internet. That is all. 

[sidenote: I'm still really glad I did this. You should do it too when you meet someone from eharmony.]

Tim and Graham talked about taxes and their own small businesses and other entrepreneurial jargon that made them sound smart and responsible. They did the secret eye thing and came out friends, which I liked. Dave and Jessi brought laughter to the room. Anna and I procured crepes, fruit, and bacon. 

I love this picture that Dave snapped of Tim and Jessi right before we sat down to eat together. 

We had a wonderful time, and when everyone left to go enjoy the rest of their Sundays, I wasn't nervous or uncomfortable at the idea of being alone with Tim anymore.  He asked me if I would show him Kansas City and proposed we go out to take some pictures, just the two of us, and I really did want to go. 

Chapter 5: An Introduction

In his defense: he had been invited to a black and white Christmas party and thought it would be original to go wearing all white. He borrowed some articles of clothing from his roommate and flipped a belt inside out to make it work. Funny, once you know the context, which I didn't.

It was high time we gained a mutual understanding of each other's lives, or this was going to fizzle out over something menial.

Around midday Saturday, when he was supposed to be driving from Chicago to Kansas City, I sent him a text message asking how his trip was going and didn't hear back from him for several hours. He finally called halfway through the afternoon and told me he had been dealing with snow storms throughout much of his trip, but he should be in around 8pm.  I felt bad about all he was enduring to get to me. Would he think it was worth it by the end of the weekend?

As the afternoon dragged into early evening,  I got more nervous, which made me short tempered and hyper focused on the house being clean and the refrigerator stocked. I think I ran out for milk at 7:30pm, only to have Tim call soon after to tell me he was only minutes away. I made it home in time to pace the living room and do some breathing exercises with Anna before I heard a very regular knock on the door. Shoot. I had meant to keep an eye out and light on and greet him like I'd been expecting him, not make him stand there knocking, hoping he was at the right house.

Our front step from the porch (where he was) to the inside doorway (where I stood) was unfortunately high, meaning that when I opened the door and greeted him with a welcoming slash friendly hug,  I was a few inches taller than him.

"Hey!"
"Whoop, oh, hey, hi!"
"Come on in! Are you tired? How was your trip? Did you find the house okay? Are you hungry? This is my roommate Anna!"

Nervous chatter had to be better than awkward silence, right?

"Hey! Oh yeah,  not too bad. It was fine. Yeah, google maps. Um...can I use your bathroom?"
"Sure, right this way! This house is so old the light switch is on the outside of the bathroom door, but don't worry, we won't prank ya!"

It was all I could come up with.  I was moving so fast through these motions I didn't even take a good look at him. I couldn't think clearly and suddenly Anna and I were standing stiffly in the living room waiting for him to come out of the bathroom.

"What do you think?", she whispered.
"Not my type.", I whispered back.

I think I said this because he had dark hair, which I knew full well beforehand from pictures, but maybe I was hoping it would be lighter in real life? Or maybe it was that he smiled a lot and seemed genuine and friendly, and I tended to go for the moody, burdened intellectual over-thinkers. I don't know.

Tim came out of the bathroom and Anna and I tried to pretend we hadn't been anticipating his exit from the can as much as we were. What would happen next??

Luckily, he was hungry, and I had man food. I sat him down at the table and fed him some chili. Ten minutes later, the three of us were out the door, in my car, on the way to a Christmas concert at a church across town. Some of Tim's photographer friends attended there and wanted to see him. I wanted to get to a place where the main focus wasn't us and our awkward social predicament that sociologists haven't named yet.

I was steel that first night. I made stiff, cool jokes and snorted instead of laughed, prepared for him to send signals that he wasn't interested in me.  I handed him my iPod as I drove,  and he chose upbeat lighthearted Christmas music for us to listen to in the car. I had my hands on 10 and 2, and when he asked inquisitive things about Kansas City,  I answered factually.  We were three friends going to a Christmas concert, no one better dare think anything different.

We arrived late and climbed to the upstairs balcony. The band was singing their own version of "Last Christmas I gave you my heart." Tim leaned forward and rested his arms on the pew in front of him to take in the music.

He's been humming that song all year long.

Chapter 4: the rollercoaster of preparation

Towards the middle of that next week, it became clear that Tim was definitely coming to visit on Saturday because he was working non-stop to get all his editing done and making good progress. I kept him company while he worked via skype. We sent little videos back and forth about what we were doing. He had just gotten his new piano and was so excited about it. I swooned some more over this clip.

We talked a lot about our families that week. I learned that most of the people in his Christmas video were his immediate family: he has six brothers and sisters. I tried to learn all their names and ages.

We switched back and forth between French and English in our conversation. We kept finding out even more things we had in common and were less and less surprised by it. 

Somehow, Anna was fine with me inviting Tim to stay at our house over the weekend. 

More than once I had a reality check that he was a stranger that I met on the internet, and this could seem very shady. 

It was totally shady! And unsafe. And weird.

My one recourse was that Tim had recently attended a photography retreat/workshop with some acquaintances of mine in Colorado, and I figured if they could spend a weekend in a house with him and come out of it unscathed, I was probably safe.  Still,  I put some mace in my bedside table and commissioned Anna to not leave me alone with him until we both agreed he was harmless.

And I made a lot of plans. I planned out as many activities for us as I could that involved public places,  so if our meeting was a total social trainwreck, we wouldn't be stuck at my house staring at the walls. I decided that no matter what I thought of him after I met him, we would still have a nice weekend. Even if we decided to never see each other again. 

It was definitely a hard and strange time of preparation, being excited to meet Tim but fearful of the unknown. Hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.  It was just odd what we were doing, how we were starting this friendship. I had never wanted to start a relationship online and felt embarrassed about heading that direction. This was the kind of thing people snickered about, including me. 

A whole week of this, and before I knew it my guest bedroom was prepared, it was Friday night, and Tim sent me this picture:

Seventeen photo-shoots finished in 5 days. All so he could come meet me. This was so endearing. I got the impression from his actions that he wasn't afraid of hard work or making a bold move to pursue me.

He said he would be in Kansas City by Saturday evening, and I was fully ready to give him a chance.

...

And then he went and tweeted this picture of himself.

Chapter 3: the most awkward phone call in the world history of dating

He said he would call around 9pm, and I've learned since then that he's always on time for everything. My phone rang at 8:58pm.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this Bethany?"

His voice was...higher than I had anticipated. I cringed. 

"Yeah. How's it going, Tim?"

We hobbled through an incredibly awkward conversation. We talked about the weather in Chicago, and then in Kansas City. We both had snow. We talked about church since it was Sunday. I forget what else we talked about. Maybe his brother's job? Finally, trying to get it over with as soon as possible, I turned the conversation to his trip to Kansas City.

"So, you think you want to come down?"

"Oh, I hadn't really thought about it much. It could be fun, though, right?"

What? Was he a total flake already?

"Yeah, Kansas City's a really fun place. There's tons of cool neighborhoods. I love it a lot."

"I have some friends who live there too. They've been trying to get me to come visit."

"You'd have plenty of people to see."

I didn't even know what I wanted to say. The last thing I wanted to do was talk him into coming. It was his idea in the first place! I never asked him to come. He was already frustrating me.

"The thing is, I'm leaving for France next Tuesday to spend Christmas with my family...and I have seventeen photo-shoots to edit and mail out before I can go. I'm just not sure I'll be able to get it all done  in time to spend a weekend in Kansas City before leaving for France."

What the hell.

"Well, that sure sounds like a ton of work you've got there."

"But hey, I might be able to get it done! If I don't come this weekend, it'll be a long time before I can get away. As soon as I get back to Chicago, I'm booked the first three weekends in January shooting weddings. So I really hope I can make it."

What wedding photographer is booked for the entire month of January?! Who even gets married in January?!

"Okay...have you...do you have any place to stay while you're here?"

"Uhh...no...like I said, I hadn't really planned that far."

"Right, of course. I was just wondering because...my roommate and I have this sort of guest bedroom, and, well, I haven't asked her, but maybe if she's okay with having a houseguest...you could probably stay with us."

"Hey, thanks for the offer. I really hope I can get everything finished up in time."

"Sure, absolutely. However it works out will be great."

We wrapped up the conversation and said goodbye.  Then I told Amy that judging from that phone call, I didn't really feel like I wanted him to come anyway and spent all night trying to figure out why the hell his voice was so high on the phone when it was obviously a full baritone or bass in his Facebook videos.

Many thanks to Tim for allowing me to include this. A ridiculous college roommate video shenanigan made me cry laughing. Our first phone call may have been terrible, but I still wanted to be friends with the guy in the videos.  We just needed to get passed our nerves...and he needed to get through an ungodly amount of editing before we could start having fun together.

Chapter 2 of the Tim and Bethany love story.

I'd like to take a pause before I get into this and spell out why I'm doing this.
For starters, my parents' story of connection is very precious to me. It's my history and it informs my values. I love it. It tells me who I want to be. Ergo, I expect my love story to be important to my children, so I need to write it down. Secondly, I put my faith in a God who is mighty and loving and very, very detailed. I believe that He is on my side and He fights for me and my dreams. I believe that He orchestrated impossible circumstances to give me the wonderful husband that I'd been dreaming about since I was young and I think He can make your unlikely if not impossible dreams come true too.

Now, after that first initial email contact with Tim, I took a deep breath and gave myself a pep-talk. How many other people in this world look great by their web profiles? It's the easiest thing in the world to create: pick a flattering photo, write something witty, add some credentials, and that's it. I decided to not get my hopes up.
 However, the more we talked, the more we realized that we had everything in common. The similarities between our stories just kept piling up, right down to having horrible teachers in second grade who made us afraid of and hate school. We both had short furlough experiences in the USA that led us to believe living in America was a utopian experience. We were both middle children.

Emails begot g-chatting, which begot Facebook friendship, which begot Twitter following, which begot texting. I was studying him, and finding all good things. Specifically this video he created of his family at Christmastime
 
Behind my computer screen, I swooned. I would've married him just for his sweet family at that point.

These little bits and pieces of his life experience that I was able to catch through social media were integral in our early friendship. I knew all the words to the songs his family sang because I sang them when I was a kid. His mild yet spicy family dynamic, with swirls of French and American culture was not only incredibly attractive to me, it showed me that because of my own history, we could relate on a very basic familial level, and that was huge.

In one month we had covered all this ground, and on the Sunday that I returned home from celebrating Thanksgiving with family, Tim texted me this: "Are you busy next weekend?"

Since someone who is in Chicago should have no concern about my weekend plans in Kansas City, this was out of the ordinary. I remember being in my room, and staring at my phone wondering if I was ready to meet this guy and risk a potentially very awkward experience to move the friendship passed the 500 mile hiccup we had going on.

"I don't think so. What's up?" And I waited for his response. For forty-five minutes I waited. I checked that it sent, and it had. I waited longer. I agonized that he had changed his mind. I agonized that his phone wasn't working. Oh, those forty five minutes.

And then finally: "Sorry, I'm in the middle of a photo-shoot. I was thinking maybe I might come down to KC."
Gosh, that feeling was weird. He was so bold I wasn't sure what to do. Why would he travel all this way to meet me? He was probably one of those socially special types. Or was he perfect? I couldn't know yet, I'd never even talked to him on the phone. The possibility was exciting, but also frightening.

"That could be cool."
"How about I call you tonight and we talk it over?"
"Sounds good."

Then I walked into the hallway and told my roommate, and we screamed like little girls.