July 15th, 2025
Waialea Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii is one of the most beautiful tree-lined beaches in the world. Yesterday was unusually misty and cool, but we’re not fair-weather beachgoers. When the weather shifts, we dig our chairs and feet in and stay put. We trust the sun to find us again.
Because of this, we enjoy the many moods of the beach. How the soft, easy surf sings a constant lullaby. How an overcast sky with a tiny bit of drizzle encourages us to throw towels over our bodies and close our eyes for a bit. How a little shift in wind caresses us into a deep beach nap. At one point yesterday, everyone was conked out until Zoe’s phone dinged. A ding she had been waiting for. She perked up, “They’re engaged!”
Jack rolled over, Zoe took out her phone. They leaned in and peered into a portal that teleported them to a scene of their friends 2,551 miles away, to another beach in San Diego. There, a surprised girl slipped a beautiful ring onto her finger, promising to wear it forever. A young man beamed.
Zoe and Jack have plans. They have been together for six years and will move in together next month. They are both young and not ready for marriage, but they are laying the groundwork for something fantastic, and no one is in a rush.
Zoe’s tears are joyful, not envious. She is generous by nature. Jack is laughing at her. He wraps his arms around her, inching another step closer to taking her in his arms forever. This is enough for now.
I take out my phone and snap a few pictures of them without them knowing. They are beautiful and vulnerable and truly happy for their friends who are “well matched”, “very kind”, “good for each other.”
I think back to my own engagement and how Hawaii put us on a fast track to it. After Scott and I had only been dating for 7 months, my lease was up on my studio apartment on 83 and York in NYC. A neighborhood away, his lease was also up on the apartment he shared with his roommate Jay. Fourth-year medical school provided him the chance to live in his own studio. The prospect of living on his own was exciting for him, but there were some practical things to consider, like my cooking and logistics at 11 pm.
Though we both liked our space, when we would call to say goodnight, inevitably one of us would walk the ten blocks it took to climb back into each other’s arms. From the first night I fell asleep in Scott’s arms, something felt different. Looking back under the covers, despite all the big life choices ahead, our bodies had already decided our future.
The other force that guided us to fast-track living together was the match. In the fourth year of medical school, young doctors apply to specialize in a residency all across the country. Orthopedic residency is five years, often with an extra fellowship tacked on. On a specific day and time in March, your fate is sealed. In an instant, the phone would ring, and your life would be decided. Because of this, Scott and I had to speed up our timeline. We needed to know—were we right for each other? Would I pack up my life and go wherever the match took him?
Despite my girlfriend’s pleading me not to do it, I moved in. This space was tiny but worked. He paid an incredibly affordable NYC rent, I paid for the groceries and the car. He studied at a small table that doubled as our kitchen table, while I corrected my students’ high school English essays and finished my MFA in writing from a platform bed that packed our clothes in drawers beneath. He took out the garbage and killed roaches and mice. I cleaned the bathroom and grew herbs on the fire escape. We took long walks to clear his head while window shopping, imagining a life we might afford one day. Sometimes I read him my poetry and short stories. He nodded politely, never quite getting an ear for it.
Eight months flew by. Scott applied to programs that could land us in Nashville, New York City, California or Hawaii. On that fateful day of the match, I was teaching in Yonkers at a private catholic co-ed high school right outside the Bronx. My students were tough and real and very invested in my love life. As it was a small school, most of them had already rotated through my English class.
The students and faculty at Our Lady of Sorrows had met and approved of Scott when I brought him in to discuss the path of medicine with my seniors. The girls especially liked him when I took him as my date to their Prom.
Finally, the big day arrived. The whole school was waiting along with me for a call that would determine my destiny. You can imagine that not much teaching happened for my students. Just after lunch, Jo, the school secretary with the raspy smoker’s voice, announced over the intercom, “Ms. Guerin, there’s a call for you. Please come to the office.”
Back then, we had no cell phones. If you were called to the office during class for a phone call it usually meant someone died. Not in this instance. My classroom went nuts! “Go!” they yelled. My friend and teacher across the hall heard the overhead bidding, came out into the hallway, gave me an excited hug and took her post to monitor both rooms.
I ran down the corridor and flight of stairs to the main office and grabbed the phone. Scott’s voice on the other end bursts through, “HSS!” Scott had just landed one of eight spots out of 500 applicants to the most coveted residency in the country. “We are going to Hawaii for a year and then back to NY! ” I paused to take it in, then yelled “Hawaii” out loud.
Standing next to me, was this kid Vinny. Vinny was always in the principal’s office, drove a lowrider with fuzzy dice, but was always good in my class (partly because he truly believed he had a chance with me. He grabbed the intercom from Jo, who had a soft spot for him, flipped a switch and announced to the whole school. “Ms. G is going to Hawaii with the doctor folks! The rest of us are losers!” The whole school erupted with cheers. You could hear it in the corridors.
Hawaii was very far from Yonkers, not a place this crowd thought much about. I could barely get them to consider college, but I had them thinking of all sorts of things they had never thought about. As I ran back to my classroom, kids were pouring out of the rooms to clap and give me high-fives. This really happened. Truly, it could be a little movie.
However, the nuns and priests in this colorful co-ed school had their eyebrows up. Where was the ring? How long would I go on living in sin? Although it never felt like I was a harlot, I knew that quitting my job and moving to Hawaii for a year was a big commitment on my part. Scott and I had already discussed getting married, but he was a bit vague about the timing. What I didn’t know was that he was working on it. Despite how he tells the tale, I was not too anxious about it; I had already decided that living in Hawaii for a year was a no-brainer, ring or not.
Winter dissolved into a rainy spring. One day while wrapping up his finals early in May, Scott said he wanted to ride out to Robert Moses and take a long walk to clear his head. We climbed into my banged-up Toyota Celica that required gas, oil, and love to go anywhere, took off over the Queensborough Bridge, and headed out to Long Island.
I grew up going to Robert Moses with my family. Jones Beach/ Robert Moses State Park is 12-mile stretch of island beach that is completely undeveloped and protected as a gift to all New Yorkers. In the off-season, it is abandoned, misty, mystical, and healing. We parked in the empty parking lot at the furthest point possible and began our walk out to the far tip to sit on the rocks. It was gray and cool, just cold enough for a big sweatshirt, but warm enough to leave our shoes and socks behind.
We balanced our sensitive winter feet on the big rocks that jutted out, a foreshadowing of the miles of lava we would one day explore. We found this one rock just dry and soft enough to fit on. Scott sat down and guided me between his legs. When he pulled me in, our bodies faced the surf.
Out of nowhere, the sun came out. A break in the clouds suddenly made the whole grey day brilliant. He shuffled a bit and slid a box in front of me. He snapped open the lid to a perfect solitaire glittering diamond. His lips near my ears said, “So will you marry me?” Through soft tears, I nodded. He wasn’t on his knees; it was better like this, our bodies knitted together had already decided and were waiting since that first night for our minds to catch up. He pulled me in closer as I said, “Yes, yes.”
I am sensitive to all sorts of supernatural experiences, and I tell you this: at that moment, something in those sunbeams wove itself around us, and an oath was made. It was decided. I was his and he was mine. It would be the two of us from here on out. Although it took a year of planning from Hawaii, in that moment, we were married.
When we climbed off the rocks, there was no one taking our picture from a distance, no way to call anyone, no champagne party buzzing for us to sip. There were seagulls and surf and shells and little pieces of crab smashed by a hard winter. Our footprints stayed only moments in interested sand. The sea quickly moved on.
When we returned to the city, Scott had arranged a dinner for us at a small, happening restaurant. Before sitting down, we called our families from a phone booth on the corner. Without my knowledge, Scott made a quick call to queue up a few friends. By the time we hung up, some of them had started to arrive. We sat at an outdoor table with a yellow umbrella, ordered strawberries and champagne, plantain chips with good hummus, and crispy calamari. Between bites, we kept jumping up and going back to the phone booth to spread the news. One phone call at a time, our lives merged.
Looking back, I admit, I wish someone had been hiding in the dunes with a good camera. I would have loved a picture of us at the very beginning, out on the rocks, at the edge of the sea, with a vast love that would endlessly lap up at our feet. Without a picture or post out to the world, I can only hold the image in my mind of that moment, the sun opened and blessed our marriage. I can only return to tell or write it down, and perhaps each time I tell it, it will read a little differently.
