scenes from a country weekend

this weekend was a breath and release. a sigh in the country. a remembrance that the thing that most stirs this heart is the sight of cows behind a split-rail fence. that and good pintos.

hope yours was beautiful, too!

i and love and you

life is a day-by-day thing. and i like going day-by-day with you.

these words were spoken to me around midnight on monday. in a living room lit only by a lamp with handles shaped like elephant noses. and i swear, they were more beautiful and comforting than the string of noun-verb-noun that has become i-love-you. that overused little phrase. those tiny words that at the beginning of our courtship held such overwhelming weight. he first spoke them to me on my parent's driveway under the florescent flood light.

now, we whisper this sacred sentiment across the bed before falling asleep. it's the conclusion of every text, phone call and lunch date. and it still holds as much meaning and truth as it did when we said it that steaming august afternoon at the alter.

but sometimes, hearing it in a different way is just as special. i like spending time with you. i actually like you. for every long, silent car ride home after a misspeak, every grocery store tiff, misunderstanding and spat, there are actually things i truly, deeply enjoy about being in your presence.

and i like living out this joyous, terrible, hard and perfect life with you. day in, and day out. let's do this forever, shall we?

while i was out

wow. it's been a while, huh? i don't know what caused this funk. this little hiatus that ballooned into a downright break. from blogging. from facebooking. from looking at any screen that was not required by work or school. two beasts, busy season at work and my last semester of grad school, decided to burrow their little faces into my life at once, and in this case, the concept of "the more, the merrier" was lost.

so i gave it up for a bit. and in the mornings i sat on the kitchen counter in the dark and thought about the day. and in the evenings, i took long walks to mom and dad's and didn't think about that blue light beckoning me from my little red desk.

but as it always does, the need to write was uncompromising. the need to put words to this heart stirring. so hi! as much as i truly want to, i can't promise my posts won't be sporadic until december. until i can finally slay one of those beasts by donning an oversized black cape and square hat with tassle. i'll stomp on him in my heels as i walk across the creaky old stage in the church where graduation is held.

what i've noticed on my time away is this: there is a sacredness to free time. there is a deliberate holiness to how we choose to spend those minutes, hours or entire, blessed days that are ours for the filling. and somewhere between the supper dishes in the sink, the tennis ball thrown down the short corridor between the bathroom and the bedroom for the hundredth time to a pup who never seems to tire, the refilling of the coffee cup, the wine glass, and the water bottle, the opening of a new book just to fall asleep against the cool cotton, and the conversation that starts small between family around an antique supper table then mushrooms into guffaws and shouts of hilarity and smiles that say i know you and love you all the same, we find God.

because it's not just in the opening of the Bible or the fellowship between believers or the late-night prayers whispered up from the depths of the covers that we engage in this way. it is entered into, often unintentionally, by the simple act of living. when we reveal our truest self in that split second we aren't trying to pretend to be someone else. when, for even the briefest of glimpses, we let that shell crack. when the lipstick is off and the bangs are pushed back and the old t-shirt emerges.

it is there that we remember, oh yes. this is who i was. this is who i am. and Lord help me, this is who i want to always be.