The Story of Dylan and Linda
Once Upon a Time, in 2024 in a place called the internet…
…Dylan and Linda met on the Tinder dating app.
And they lived happily ever after. The end!
Flashback character development…
…Dylan and Linda both grew up in the 80’s and 90’s in the Bay Area. Dylan started in the suburbs (San Jose), and moved to the country in the Santa Cruz Mountains (attending Gilroy High). He spent summers with his dad in Hawaii, learning sea shanties and surfing. Linda grew up in the suburbs (Pinole, PVHS) and in the country in the Sierra Nevada Foothills. They were both taught how to stack wood. Dylan did the sports ball thing, mostly soccer. Linda did all the scouting and dance classes, especially classical ballet and modern.
…In high school, both Linda and Dylan were friends with, and were, the theater and garage band kids. They were both on the Lit Mag and still friends with their literary magazine advisors into adulthood. Let’s just say they were both “gifted and talented”—-whatever that meant in the 90s—-and Dylan was the flamboyant jester, Linda the sultry poetess.
…Dylan went to undergrad at University of the Pacific in Stockton, earning his degree in Sports Sciences. Picked up photography and unicycling, got very into the summer camp scene, and learned how to fold shirts insanely well at Calvin Klein. Linda graduated from UCLA in English, by way of Emerson College in Boston. Picked up waterskiing and more skills at medical endurance of cancer treatment than she cared to have. She learned more than she’ll ever need to know about ISBN numbers and outfacing books at Barnes and Noble.
…Linda wavered between teaching and the arts, joining community theater, and starting an MA at SFSU in Teaching Writing and Composition at the college level. She ended up going the arts AND teaching AND business route, eventually co-founding her own nonprofit dance studio, Joy in Motion. Dylan went on to grad school at UCSF, becoming an outpatient orthopedic physical therapist. Linda biked around her Lake Merritt home, and Dylan biked to all the hipster hangouts in San Francisco.
Linda and Dylan became first-time parents just 45 days apart in Fall of 2012. Many parenting parallels happened in their stories, from using the same baby carrier to choosing the co-op, play-based preschool for their children and all the while absolutely LOVING being parents. Dylan and his son’s mom separated in 2018—pre-pandemic—and Linda and her kids’ dad separated three years later—post-pandemic.
Though they took different roads to figuring out who they are and what they want, Dylan and Linda met each other knowing they wanted a marriage with a life partner. Dylan’s life had taken him through Burning Man, Bluegrass Festivals, rafting, camping and garage band/karaoke scenes. Linda’s life had taken her through study of Tantra, Shamanism, neo-Richian energetics, and ultramarathon trail-running. Somehow, they both found sweat lodges and enough therapy to know how to take ownership and make a real apology. Somehow, they both never forgot how to PLAY. Somehow, they finally found each other.
Well, I guess there is a little more to the love story that we could add here later…
…but for now, who doesn’t love an engagement story?!
Linda wanted to be engaged before uprooting her life and moving her crew 2 counties away. Dylan loves Linda and wants to make sure she knows it. Marriage was a topic on the table from before date #1 (we are in our 40’s here and knowing at least some of what you want is a good thing!). Dylan asked if the ring needed to be a surprise or should they do it together and get it right. The latter. Linda said the time and place didn’t matter so long as there was a bended knee and someone, professional or not, to be able to snap a few photos. With all these “knowns,” Dylan still managed to pull off a bit of a surprise!
The Ring
Dylan showed Linda three local jewelry designers, and Michelle Hoting’s pulled-wax designs were the ones she couldn’t stop thinking about. When we met Michelle at her beautiful home studio in Santa Rosa we knew….THIS! HER! The ring we want to look at every day will be created here. Dylan was able to work with Michelle to make it all happen sooner than Linda thought the ring could possibly be ready even though she had been to wax and metal fittings.
The Ask
Dylan worked with our jeweler and Linda’s cousin Jennell to have the ring—that was only finished the night before—delivered to Jennell’s house the morning of the annual family Christmas party. After a present game, he stood on a chair and announced there was one more present, if Linda could come up to the tree. In midlife marriage fashion, Linda’s children, and many children got to witness the moment. Dylan knows Linda loves to feel claimed, and he is not too shy to be “on stage.”
The Song
Dylan wrote a song, Green Tomatoes, that he recited before asking for Linda’s hand in marriage. “We’ve been taking our time…” Linda almost let him finish reading before she tired of being on the stage and wanted to get to the saying YES! part.
A few months before the proposal, Dylan did ask Linda’s dad for his blessing to marry his daughter…which Jerry gave with a subsequent tour around the police and fire department where he volunteers. Lots of boisterous, “this is the man who’s going to marry my daughter” and “congrats and we know where to find you’s” ensued.
