home in this place

i came home from the grocery store last night exhausted with nothing to show for my work save a box of hamburger helper and a bag of ham-beens 15-bean soup. and i found robert by the computer, working on plumbing tickets, sipping what i'm sure was his fourth or fifth cup of coffee.

and in that moment, with pablo sitting on the green chair in the corner, it felt like home. felt like a few months ago, when i would return to the cottage to find him in the same position, pablo still patiently waiting.

because this is how you build a home. you stop the decorating for a second. the hanging of pictures and measuring of blinds. the arranging of china and selection of rug textures, colors and prices. i found, this time around, that taking time to step back from designing a home and actually learning to live in it, weekday by tedious weekday, makes the transition easier.

it's the hairbands on the bathroom counter. the shoes by the doorway. the laundry in the dryer. the way the comforter crumbles under the weight of tired arms. the reverb of the lawrence welk record in the den as eggs are scrambled in the kitchen. the late-night devotions and early morning prayers in the driveway.

and it's the lamp with the elephant-shaped handles in the corner. reminding you of another life, time and place. of all that has been and will be and is happening right at this very moment. that home really is the people in it, and all their sounds, messes, piles, smiles and smells are the symphony to which you dance by, day-in and day-out.

the weight of an empty kitchen

in a few short weeks, robert and i will be leaving our little cottage, following a little different path that will hopefully lead us sooner to our forever home. and i've put off writing this post. partially because of all the hustle and  bustle and throwing away that comes with any move. but more so because every time i sit down to write about it, i start to cry.

but last night around midnight, i slipped out of bed and went to the kitchen to get some water. and with the lights off and the moon spilling across the countertops, i could pretend for a second. pretend our plates were still hung on the wall, the way my uncle arranged them that one afternoon. that my yellow spice jars were still sitting on the shelf, the ones i was so happy to find at the dollar store. i could imagine we still had the chalkboard hanging over the microwave, with notes and quotes i couldn't bring myself to erase. that the oversized alarm clock wasn't in a cardboard box somewhere, along with the magnet from our honeymoon, and the vegetables from our garden were still hanging in the wire basket.

i holstered myself up and let my legs dangle by the cabinets. from that vantage point i've watched a million sunrises and seen my windowsill plants lean into the glass. i saw the oven where i burnt that apple cake this year, and the caramel glaze last december. the old wooden table where we sit on weekdays for supper. the meals i tried to make. the ones that succeeded and the tuna casserole that didn't. that little corner where every night i sit and wait with pablo while he eats. i stayed there for a second and breathed it in.

our first night here, i walked around the rooms in the dark. there are only five. i walked around and around them in a circle, learning their curve and shape. i laid on the linoleum and rested my cheek on its cold flower pattern. i leaned into the wood walls and breathed in their years. since then, i've made my mark on every crevice of this tiny place. i can't look outside without remembering the laundry that hung from the clothesline or that warm march night when i went and sat on a blanket alone and listened to ryan adams while the moon shone over the pin oaks. the little porch and swing reminds me of summer nights and white wine, of waving goodbye to parents and of robert in his white sleep shirt, propping the screen door open to wish me a good day at work as i honked in the driveway.

i cried when i took the first picture off the wall. that first moment of deconstruction, of removal. the transformation from home to house, the erasure of all i tried so hard to build. and i cried again last night, my pillow propped against the headboard, the shed light glowing in through the blinds, just as it has every windy night since 2009. 

places and people change, this much i know. and time marches on, but just this time, i wish it would crawl.

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.

this weekend...

 

 

...will be spent mugging on this sweet face.

who stayed up past midnight with his babysitter, waiting for me to return from night school.

who reminds me that this world can be simple. and beautiful. and good.

if we just let it.

what are your weekend plans? pablo and i hope they involve sleep:)

an anniversary

these are the lightning days. the flashes of busyness and hurry that accumulate into storm clouds so full that sometimes they burst, and sometimes they lay heavy across the atmosphere, their weight deep and real.

i apologize for my time away. it is busy season at work and my last semester of graduate school and a million other little things that seem so big in a day that's only a meager twenty-four hours long.

but today is a special day, and so blogging commences again. robert and i are celebrating nine years since our first date, and four since our wedding. though we were both tired to the bone and pablo was restless, we stayed up until midnight to ring in the big day. life's made in those midnight moments, i'm convinced. in those times you stay up even though it's illogical and force your eyes to see happy things even when sometimes they just want to shut the world out for a few hours.

i wrote a post for our anniversary last year. and  because words are failing me this morning and this post remains my favorite one i've ever written, i wanted to share it again. so here you go. happy anniversary, my love.
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i knew him before facebook.

before the north american blackout. bush's second term. the last season of friends. love actually.

before janet had a wardrobe malfunction, martha went to prison, and ken won millions on jeopardy.

we sang along to stacy's mom and watched mystic river on the couch with my parents.

eight years have passed since that summer. that late august romance. that last first date. eight years of up-all-nights, throw my phone against the wall because i-miss-you-and-high-school-is-hard-without-you -and-why-do-i-hear-girls-in-the-background-are-there-girls-in-your-dorm? eight years of dates in cafeterias, in dining halls, in our kitchen. of bible reading and home brewing. of early morning greetings and front porch goodbyes.

we've climbed a waterfall together in jamaica, and fallen into bed at nine on a wednesday night. i've seen this man cry and i've seen a laugh rise from his gut so deep it cut off his breath. i've seen him on one knee. in a tux and blue collar.

and eight years ago today, i saw him on my doorstep. with a borrowed car and pressed shirt. and three years ago, i saw him at the alter.

and i declare, for all its hardships and trials, being in love is something more than spectacular. worth saving. keeping. remembering.

and on those nights when it seems like the darkness has won, worth calling him back for.

happy anniversary to the boy who always picked up.

thankful today

i came home yesterday morning at an hour more atuned to morning than night. only two before i usually wake. from a night on the town with my best girlfriends and my new high heels. celebrating the end of her singlehood. there were pink feathered boas, a diamond-encrusted goblet, and a chocolate cake with fondant tassles.

you were asleep, as i imagined. the old blanket curled at your feet. pablo greeted me at the door and fell to his little knees with joy on the hardwoods, stretching out beneath my hands.

i pulled up the blanket around you and left you peaceful on the couch, your arm above your head as i've come to expect. i thought you'd sleep as late as i did, and we would ring in the morning together. it was with a little sink of disappointment that i awoke at ten and remembered your weekend work assignment.

but then i drug my sleepy self into the kitchen and found your surprise. a crock-pot full of fiesta chicken, with the recipe still pulled up on my ipad.

i am thankful for nights out. i am thankful for girlfriends that knew me when i still had the gap between my teeth and my stutter was invariably worse than it is now. for the beauty they bring to my life. the femininity.

and i am thankful, too, for you. for your trust and lack of interrogation. for the evidence that you tried to stay awake for me. and for the humble act of love you left me yesterday.

i'm just very thankful today, for all of it.

on blogging/ the things they don't show you.

some days, most days, i see the beauty in this pretty little world. i get home at just the right time to see the sun cut across the old oaks and the walk to the mailbox is my favorite two seconds of the day. there are times when my little town, the hay fields, and robert in his old blue collar are truly as magnificant and pastoral as i can write them out to  be.

but then there are days like sunday. when i set forth to make an apple cake in the cast iron skillet, recipe courtesy of the pioneer woman.

because i had a hankering for it. and we just got a skillet a while ago and it needs to be seasoned. and ok, because it would make for a pretty fun blog post the next day. watch me in my apron stir these apples with the sugar! see how pretty the crust rose! you can do this too, here's the steps!

but then i opened the oven door to check on the little pie's progress.

and i saw the flames.

you know what? you find out things about yourself during times of emergency. fight or flight?

i flighted. i grabbed the pie and placed it safely on the counter (priorities, people). then i ran.

right into the living room. frantically. calling robert. fanning my arms. feeling my chest grow tight and my face flushed. THE OVEN IS ON FIRE! i shouted. THE OVEN IS ON FIRE.

and robert, being the deep well of calm that he is, went to the laundry room, grabbed the fire extinguisher, opened the oven door and shot a blast of white powder directly on the flame.

and just like that, it was over. crisis averted.

later that night, robert saved my life again when we went walking and a fercoious dog started approaching us. he stomped his feet and clapped his hands and the dog ran away with his tail between his legs.

so yes, we all have those moments. when the stars align and the world tilts just right on its axis and blogging moments abound. but sometimes they don't. and that's OK too.

because maybe those moments aren't meant to be captured. maybe they're meant to be savored, wholly and personally, between you and the person you love. the person you can sit with, at the end of the day, and savor a slice of apple pie on the front porch swing. the secret trial just between you.

scenes from a country cottage: summer sheds its light

 

 

 

i'm getting spoiled by these late afternoons. where the sun shines dimly until past nine. i'm getting too used to it, stretching my days past their limit. staying up late on the couch with no lamplight, just the comfortable blue buzz of the television. to the late risings, just getting out the door in time. to the delving into covers soft from the wash. to lying on my side and giving belly rubs to a dog who turns nine this friday. to gazing out my window at work. the sunshine can make even a parking lot seem pretty.

to allowing myself to dream, and to move past just the dream. to really, truly believe it could happen. that's the powerful push of summer. it makes me just drowsy and delrious enough that i'm not scared to move into that unfamiliar, but achingly beautiful space called hope.

but such is summer, and such is a home. and such are these blessed dog days.

scenes from a country cottage: meet the cast

gray clouds have shrouded our corner of carolina this week. but yesterday afternoon was different. there's a sweet sip of time before dusk when the sun dances across the back field. when my prayer tree stretches to meet the setting sun and the blades of green lean and fall, only to rise back up and sigh into the ground with each whisper of a breeze. meet the cast of characters that inhabit this little place!

 

 

 

 

 

1. Miss Geranium has been exceptionally lovely this week. she spent a few days in the laundry room for fear of frost, but the return of warm winds means she can display her blooms for all roadside onlookers.

2. late afternoon sun splayed across the shed.

3. muscadine vines and a dirt path. two of my favorite things.

4. ivy twisting itself around the back of the shed like no one's watching.

5. tools of the trade.

6. poor Mr. Clothesline lost one of his lines after a downpour last autumn. one day we'll replace them. nothing smells better than laundry from the line, and nothing makes me feel sweeter than hanging it up there.

7. one of my favorite little apple trees. all bony and bare.

8. oh hi Mr. Strawberry Plant! too bad your berries are really small and odd looking. you're still fun though.

9. Miss Azalea fights for her last breath of spring.

10. Mr. and Mrs. Myers ham it up before a symphony concert.

it's not a huge cast, but we're a pretty tight bunch. living out our days and evenings on this little plot of land. between the church and my childhood home. building a life where the green grass grows.

this morning i realized

love,

at bible study last week, when we went around the room and listed each person's gifts, i teared up before i began to speak. all i could muster was, you are a miracle worker. you make all my phone calls. every single one. what i meant to say, now that the time and space and emotions of last week have cleared, was your gift is whatever it's called when a man wakes up at four in the morning because his wife has an early meeting at work and discovered a bug in the mixing bowl and simply can't go through with the remainder of her a.m. activities until it is squashed. 

when you drug your sleepy self into the bright-as-day kitchen, your soft white t-shirt twisted around your torso, it hit me that you are innately gifted in that sense. and that i love you all the more for it.

does he still feel the nails

if you were to walk up those carpeted steps, sliding your hands up the old oak banister, you would turn left and enter my old bedroom. if this were any year  before 2005, you would find my little twin bed pushed up against the wall, a few feet from my sister's. under the rectangular window that faced into the woods and overlooked the swing set.

you'd see a life-sized cardboard cutout of tom cruise from jerry maguire. an old mauve vase with twigs from that big pin oak on the shelf above my bed. five of my favorite books. short, poignant reads like the old man and the sea and of mice and men. the bible. a framed picture from the first family gathering i attended with robert.

if you sat on my bed, flattening the old white comforter lined with pink flowers, you could see our old desk. the one mama and dad lugged up the steps and assembled before i can remember. where i sat and played oregon trail with my very first grade school boyfriend. where my sister still stays up and completes her college assignments.

it's one of those good, solid office depot desks from the mid-nineties. with a million little compartments and drawers that tend to come off their hinges if you pull too hard. inside one of those crevices, i placed a little statue i received in high school.

it's no taller than a coffee mug. just two pieces of hardware intersecting themselves on a wooden platform.

with a caption: "does he still feel the nails, every time i fail?"

taken from an old ray boltz song, the statue reminded me, and still reminds me, of the importance of good friday. of what happened, and how indebted i am.

i love easter weekend, probably more than any other.

because yes, there were nails. but more than the piercing and the beating, there was also love. and i know He still feels that too. above all else.

life lately, according to my outdated flip phone

i always love those gorgeous instagram collages that bloggers post of their daily lives. the ones where the light's hitting the coffee cup swirl just right and the flowers are a vibrant shade of purple. but alas, i am still carrying around my old flip phone circa 2005. the one i've dropped in water too many times to count (i have a special cup of rice labeled "cell phone" just for this purpose.)

so these will have to do. i'm noticing a trend, are you? i'm like one of those mamas who carries around pictures of her babies on a long, dingy plastic wallet foldout.

don't laugh. i have one of those too.

looking down and thinking

love,

there was an evening when we were in the car driving back from somewhere--the memory escapes me--and we started discussing our lists. the ones we made for our future mates. mine was riddled with descriptors of a man with dark eyes and a crooked half smile and a thousand other things i never knew i didn't want.

but you had only one: your wife would have pretty hands.

and though i've loved you with my core, i feel i have failed you on this.

because my hands aren't pretty. they are marred by hangnails and big cracked knuckles. when i was younger and fell in love with writing, i gripped my pencil so tightly and at such an odd angle that it left me with a permanent callus on my right ring finger. i am nervous, and bite my nails to the quick. and in the wintertime, even cold lotion from the fridge cannot turn the mountains of my joints from their crimson wash.

but there's a tan line on my left hand. from a ring never removed. that's stayed in place while i pulled weeds, cleaned our bathroom, mixed meatloaf and a million other messy things. a symbol that though my hands aren't the ones of your dreams, they are yours nonetheless.

and that has to count for something, no?

i need a weekend

there's something beautiful about a sky with scattered shades of gray. the way the dark melts into the white and swirls into the tree branches, naked above the telephone poles. there's also something about it that makes me want to turn on an old country song and sit in my car for a second.

this week has been a rough one. there's a nagging cold sitting dormant on my chest, and a myriad of other troubles that when spoken, or typed, look measly, but that sit on my spirit like a heavy brick.

the thing is, i am a sunny person. i invite happiness into my living room when the evening is setting in, and dance with it until morning time when the moonlight gives way to a new start and the sheets on the bed are soft and warm and all is okay. in that brief moment of waking, all is okay.

so it's been hard to admit that i've been down for the past five days. sorting and sifting through an entire week's worth of troubles and heartaches, stomping them down into tiny bricks and believing they are gone, then like those tiny washcloths that expand in water, i awake to find them larger than life.

but i have to remind myself that it is okay. okay to not be happy all the time. to be sad on occasion. to sit on the top of my unmade bed and look out at the field and watch a bird scurry across the yard and let that one moment crush me for a second.

to live the full breadth of my emotions. let each of them push its way into me. to live out my life unafraid of the hurt. because it will come, but the gladness will too. and a healthy mix of both is needed. everything in moderation. everything in stride.

to look for the dust

i know this isn't a trick of gravity, but it's just fun. and somehow relates to my post. we may or may not have let this stand for three hours last night.

while i was in the thrones of my coughing and sneezing, robert slept on the couch for his own well-being. (and partially for his sanity, as i was up half the night.)

on sunday morning, i slid up next to him on the cushions and let the sunshine pour in and let pablo burrow his nose into the crook of my arm. there's something about sunshine. for all its golden beauty, when it hits a little house at just the right angle, it illuminates every single dust particle in every single nook and cranny.

i looked at the coffee table. how can you sit here and not be bothered by that dust? i asked him.

oh, i don't know, he replied. i guess i just don't look for the dust, that's all.

but i realized something. i do.

i look for the dust. the speck of mess. the splatter.

i seek out the things to change. to tidy up. to wash and put away. to vacuum and swiffer.

reasons to fall just a few steps behind as robert's walking out the front door and i'm straightening up piles, drying that last dish or arranging the magnets on the refrigerator.

some saturday mornings, robert sleeps late and i clean. i pull out the wash rags and put on my old cheerleading shorts and get on my hands and knees against the linoleum. and it feels good. and it should be done. but how many chances have i missed to catch pablo as he first wakes up? that sacred moment when his eyelids peel open and he yawns with his head thrown back. or that sweet sigh that escapes as robert rolls over and lays his arm on my side of the bed.

the thing i'm starting to realize, is that the work is hardly ever done. to seek it out is to only make our already stressed, busy, bodies go crazy.  

instead, i vow to look beyond the dust. at what's on the table. the roses sitting in the izze juice bottle. the literature books. the pretty baby fern taken from mama's big fern in the living room where i grew up.


to feast my eyes upon the beautiful, and let the rest slide beyond my view.

not lost, but not quite found

 pablo says: this is fun, but let's get out of the house soon, k?

my throat feels like a thousand tiny daggers are doing a rain dance on my tonsils.

it's gray out and i just want to curl into the nook of the tub and rest my head against the cool ceramic. with the window open above me and the march breeze pouring in through the old screen. the promise of rain this evening. the cool in the air of an approaching storm.

it's a simple cold (with the inevitable sinus drainage, hence the daggers) and i'm not contagious, so i dragged my sleepy body to work today. because there's only so many hours one can watch e! true hollywood story, wife swap, khloe and lamar and the nate berkus show without going crazy. sweet pablo has been a blessing, resting on the cushions above my nook on the couch, reaching his paw down to land on my head as he drifts off to sleep with me.

but mama brought me pink roses from the grocery store yesterday. and the front porch swing is excellent medicine. and there are two uninterrupted days of rest, relaxation and baths on the horizon. so all is not lost.

a reminder at midnight

the sight of my eyebrows in the bathroom mirror confirmed it.

the neat arches had given way to furry little blobs spawning renegade hairs, teetering dangerously on the verge of joining in the space above my nose.

the week after a vacation is always difficult. a delicate balance of catching up on sleep in one's own bed (one of life's greatest simple pleasures, i've determined), and fulfilling work and school duties that blissfully, momentarily fell by the wayside, replaced with sea salt, chicken tacos and late night movies.

it was midnight before i slipped into bed last night, and my eyes still held beneath them the glow of a computer screen. that little floating light that buries under the eyelids and sits stagnant, disrupting sleep like a full moon outside the window.

i shut the laptop, turned off every light in every nearby room, and showered in the dark. and as i breathed into the water and heat, my mind, muddled with terms and deadlines and obligations and dates, cleared for one second to allow me one conscious, concrete thought:

i am one person and this is one day.

it's just one. i won't solve anything alone and this day does not stand alone. there's only so much time and space one person can fill. it's the great ambition of our lives, to make the most of every day. to rise early and sink into the covers late, to get to the end of our days and say, i put everything i could into those hours. but perhaps a greater ambition is to let a few hours go by unattended. to sit on a porch swing. eat a frosty in the living room. listen to an entire CD. take a bath at two in the afternoon with the sun high above you like a spotlight.

together, we are incredible creatures, capable of wonderful things. but we're also one. sometimes that's enough. enough for today, enough for now.

love, actually

i blame the airport scene. the rush into arms. the rose bouquets.
i blame the hallmark store at my local mall, and every song john mayer wrote from 2003-2006.
i blame disney and laura ingalls wilder. and that scene in the field when zack and kelly finally married in the finale of saved by the bell.

i come from a romantic family. from a mom and dad who have date night every friday and still kiss across the kitchen table and behind the refrigerator. from a grandfather who kneels every night on her side of the bed, whispering and praying into the too-cold sheets, neatly made up to his left since that morning in april.

so i believe in the grandeur of it all. of valentines day. of kneeling before fountains and screaming her name into a crowd of pigeons in venice. in spelling out sentiments in rose petals and saving every prom corsage. in staying up late on the phone just to hear the breath of someone too far away.

but i also believe, i think we must believe, in the realism of love. in the day-in, day-out routine of it all. the ho-hum normalcy that starts in a little house and grows, plants itself in the walls, the kitchen countertops, the bed frames and the laundry basket. until one morning the sun hits the coffee pot just right and you realize you've made a home.

in going to bed at nine with just enough energy to meet in the middle for a quick kiss.

in grocery store spats and long car rides home in the dark.

in being okay with the fact that every meal is not going to be a candlelit course of free range chicken and organic field greens. most nights, it's probably going to be cereal on the porch.

in saturdays with no makeup, holding hands across the pew on sunday.

in bringing him the sports column in bed, and letting that be the most romantic thing you do.

in being okay with the idea that every day is not our wedding day. there will be days when i'm mad at you, and you at me. when i'm tired and your back hurts. when i can't see and you can't walk. when all there is to do is sit on the porch rocker and look onto the yard and we wonder where our youth ran off to.

no, we can't always be over the moon. our stars will fall back down to earth. and we'll breathe in the coppery dirt and plant ourselves in this ground. and we'll spend a lifetime and beyond building a beanstalk back up to heaven, reaching and sprouting in spurts along the way. but that's the glorious part of it, the growing and stretching.

i have a little challenge for you:

what's one word you'd use to describe real love? mine is: compromise.

leave it here in the comments or e-mail it {descriptions/pictures are welcome too: vintchdesigns@gmail.com.}

on valentines day, i'm going to do a little something special with the responses.

the front seat of the plumbing truck

 is this the more adult, less scandalous version of the backseat of the car?

either way, it's one of my favorite places to be. 

smashed to the edge of the seat among old  boxes of pipe fittings, wrenches and nails. the smell of rust. of robert's blue collar made real. 

and it's not steamy, or hot. and chick-fil-a at noon, with moms and children and men on their lunch break swarming around us, is not quite makeout mountain.

but the sunshine was beating down on the dashboard and robert's arm was around me and i had a gut full of combo #1. and i declare, it was quite romantic in its own little way.

to face unafraid

it has started.

the slow process of packing up the ornaments and folding up the tree. of storing the stockings and dusting off tabletops. leaving that one strand of lights by the windowsill because they are whimsical. the few days after christmas are sort of a haze. a slow crawl out of lethargy and coziness. i stretched in bed this morning, only to crumple back under the covers as my body sighed against the dark.

and it's black outside my window. a slow drizzle is blanketing the parking lot. my raincoat is still on and the coffee has cooled against my hands. december 27. not quite new year's. not quite christmas. not quite anything at all really. just a chilly tuesday.

but i've got plans to take robert out for a frosty tonight. to read in my car during my lunch break and maybe take a mini nap. to hold hands with my mama across the old round table and spend an hour on the kitchen floor playing with pablo's new squirrel toy. it's exciting. in its own, little ordinary way, it's riveting..

every day can't be christmas. because that would diminish the splendor of it. but every day can be joyous, and merry. it can be full of cheer and of heavenly love. there's a sweet, sweet world waiting to be decorated. to be garlanded and strung with lights. to be adored and feasted upon. oh come, all ye faithful, and devour it.