a stolen moment

i apologize for the sporadic posting as of late. truth is, i'm surrounded by summer and am having a hard time sitting in front of my computer. there's an old dirt road near my house, and every evening, after a tomato sandwich supper on the front porch swing (we've seriously done this every night since the tomatoes arrived), we go walking. and get to talking. and get to dreaming. and get to scheming. and get to laughing. and  running. and telling stories and remembering.

so it's hard to pull myself away.

but i love this little blog here. and i love your blogs. so i write.

i wrote a little guest post for my sweet friend jackie on my wedding day. on a moment stolen on the front steps of my hometown church. you can read more about it here.

thank you for reading, and for hanging around and waiting on me, kind of like those june bugs that haven't quite realized it's july and still swarm our front yard every morning. except you're cute!

A REPEAT EXPERIENCE

there's this odd little thing about me. a quirky little catch in an otherwise normal, standard personality.

i really, really, for the life of me, can't read any book or watch any movie more than once without getting utterly, despicably bored. when i devour something for the first time, i do it headfirst and slowly. deliberately. it took me months to get through extremely loud and incredibly close. i paused and rewound "the last kiss" a million times before finishing it.

these experiences-these deep dives into culture and escape and hollywood and different worlds, they are all so much for me, that to do it again somehow diminishes the first time.
but i think i've found an experience i wouldn't mind repeating.

we're driving from our little town in north carolina all the way across this beautiful country to canon beach, oregon this october. to see it again. the second time in less than three years. the first time we saw it, we got there at sunset and ran down under a thicket, and emerged on the shore as the sky was in flames of amber and haystack rock was looming in the distance, touching the heavens. my breath literally escaped me.

it's too far. it's illogical and costly and time consuming to go there again. you people who live in the northwest are so, so blessed to call such a gorgeous place home.

but we're going. mostly because i want to see it again, and partly because i want to see mount rushmore, and this way we can do both.

what about you? what could you read, listen to, watch or see again?

forgive me sweet baby, but i always take the long way home

it took us six hours to take a two-hour route home last night. this was to robert's chagrin and my utter, utmost delight.

we did not take the highway. that was my one caveat. we took wandering back roads that meandered past neighborhoods and diners and little boys on bicycles after school. we stopped to take long winery tours and visit the mount olive pickle factory. we held hands across tables with checkered tablecloths and sipped warm coffee late into the afternoon.

it could have been a straight shot down interstate 40. just one right turn and hundreds of miles of straight.

but then we wouldn't have seen the four deer in the meadow. and we wouldn't have been reminded how pickles are made (i say reminded because we watch the same 10-minute video twice a year. you get a free jar of pickles each, people. need i say more?)

we wouldn't driven past my dad's old high school, and taken a picture in front of the sign (go southern wayne fighting saints!) or have met the tour guide at the winery, who wore flip flops in february and spoke in a define, practiced surfer boy accent. who suggested we try this type of wine, then this type, then just for good measure, this type. who snuck us extra crackers and showed us a picture of the oldest grape vine in the world.

yes, we would have made it home before sundown. and our weary, traveling faces would have hit the pillows of our own bed before midnight. but the day of traveling home is still a day of travel. and that means a day of experiences. of getting away from screens. of blasting the heat in an old sedan and cranking up some country jams from the early nineties (doug stone, anyone?)

because putting off tuesday and the workweek ahead is part of why we take these little getaways. to act for a second like vagabonds with no real responsibilities. and a true vagabond would never take the road most traveled.

the starring act

 

via

i went to the movie theater twice this weekend. twice! the theater on main street where i went on  my very first date. the one that used to have a line out the door every weekend. it's now been reduced to showing older, $1 movies. which makes it even better, though it's attracted quite a following of tweenage loiters, and you shouldn't go to any 9:35 p.m. screenings lest you fear for your life a little bit.

for me, one of the greatest feelings in life has to be those five minutes when leaving the movie theater. stepping into the dark parking lot after being in a room full of strangers for two hours. when you're still in that half-dream state and everything is glowing. where, for a little bit, it seems that anything at all is possible.

that you can run away from the love of your life and turn to find him standing in the rain where you left him. or walk away from the same man and turn back to find him walking away too,  but with his head turned back at you. that you can ride elephants in the circus and fall in love with the stable boy. or break up an ill-fated wedding just in time to rescue the groom from a life of splendid, unwanted riches, and flash forward a few months later, and you're picking up his dry cleaning.

but perhaps the second greatest feeling is snapping out of that haze. driving home on the highway, and it hits you. that you don't have to paint your lips or plan a covert mission to capture the man of your dreams. you don't have to wear chanel or louboutins to stand out. you can be yourself, in a little honda. in sweatpants and no makeup and a bun. and you're still the star. of your sweet, simple, beautifully undramatic, little life.