diving into now

 

i was awakened this morning by phone calls from my sweet family. a chorus of the voices i love to hear the most serenading me from right down the road, then from miles and states away. robert made me my favorite egg, cheese and mustard sandwich and i curled my hair. for today is my birthday, and as such, celebrations both little and big must ensue.

i started thinking as i got dressed about all the things i hope this year holds. materialistic and maternal dreams alike started popping into my head. but then i kissed my husband and pup goodbye and promised i'd see them tonight. and the sunrise hit the pavement and cut through the crab apple tree and i was reminded that now, yes right now. now is good.

things i've learned since this time last year

 

 

this weekend was a lazy, hazy delicious dream of a break. the only weekend we have free for the next few weeks. there are weddings coming up, the ever anticipated trip to the middle of nowhere for the mount olive pickle festival, and concerts on grass lawns.

but this weekend offered a reprieve from responsibility, and fairly seasonable weather. warm during the days and what i like to call "light sweater weather" in the evenings. it was the commencement of my birthday week, which is always one of the best, best weeks of the year!

this time last year, i was practicing, panting and shaking nervously in anticipation of my master's thesis defense. i was driving an hour away during my lunch break for last-minute speech therapy visits and driving my friends and co-workers crazy by rehearsing my speech aloud every free moment available.

but this year is different, a bit more relaxed. and i've learned some things in the interim.

great things move slow. they take patience and perseverance in measures typically beyond what we consider humanly possible. but bend with it. fall into the wait and find that it, too, has a very specific sort of beauty. what is God saying during this time? we can't add a single second to our life by worrying, and fretting about an event will not spur it to occur any faster.

we all need a phone drawer. a place to drop that beautiful burden of an instrument the second we get home. because the life span of people and puppy dogs is infinitely less than the life span of technology, which will only grow and develop and become more youthful as we benjamin button-it into a more refined state. on the other hand, you've got living, breathing, speaking and barking, flesh and blood dependents who are, for a lack of a prettier phase, dying every day. and as much as i adore instagram for its ability to make me feel like a photographer, and as much as i care about e-mails and even this little blog of mine, i've got to find a balance to counteract the oppression of the screen, and the mindlessness it forces me into. for me, this means allotting one evening a week as screen-free. with the pretty weather and longer days, this is completely do-able.

where your treasure is, there your heart is. and you deem something your treasure by the time you assign to it and the passion with which you approach it. i've learned to choose my treasures better this year, weeding out faux riches for the real gems. but it's a journey, and one i can only wish to travel my whole life through.

so 26, huh? too late for that quarter-life crisis john mayer sung about. or is it? every day is a bit of a crisis, to some degree. a time of danger. but i'm learning how to pack my armor. that counts for something, i suppose.

10,000 new pets

 

 

 

 

this was a love affair that started two years ago, at the davidson county fair. armed with boiled peanuts and the notion that there was nowhere more magical to be on a friday night than with dirt on our shoes and a country song wafting through the denim short-clad crowd.

the local honeybee association had an exhibit. set up between the homemade pot holders and the wedding cake decorating contest, the latter of which was behind a glass cabinet, fruit flies trapped behind the pane.

we saw the queen bee, proudly marked with a crimson dot. a scarlet letter of a different sort, i suppose. we saw the not-so-ironically named female worker bees, and the drones. and the delicate, back-and-forth dance of intelligence they all did, working together more harmoniously than most adults with fully developed brains and college degrees tend to do.

and we stewed about it for years. thought about the possibility of setting up a hive of our own behind the little cottage, beside the blueberry bush where they could forage all day for nectar, traveling to the bespeckled shrub the same way we did every time we grilled out. we let two summers go by. we tended a garden. nanno passed away. we moved into his home and tore up the carpet to reveal the glorious hardwoods. i graduated and we put down pine needles.

then last friday, we finally installed a hive of our own. ten thousand new pets buzz about in the yard. and we're learning. robert situated the queen between the frames, pressing her between the wood for support, failing to create a platform made of nails as we learned in the documentary we watched one night as the snow fell. we fretted about her for a week until it was finally time to check on the hive yesterday and she was safe and sound, released from her candy cage and fluttering about near the honeycomb.

last night, at an hour more attuned to morning, we were beginning to drag ourselves to bed, when we remembered the storm about to barrel through. robert wanted to go strap down the hive to make sure it didn't fall down from the promised winds.

i sat on my knees in my nightgown, pressed against our headboard as i peered out our back bedroom window, watching as he finagled a flashlight with one hand and a tie with another, safeguarding the girls against mama nature.

we protect the things we love, and the people too. no matter how long it takes us to find and realize each other.

golden hour

there is a sliver of time before sunset known as the golden hour. when the sun pours across windows and through tree branches. when i walk to the mailbox in my flip flops and feel the small gravel stones against my feet. there is a breath at this hour unlike any other. a release of the day, a sending off of upsets and stresses and disappointments. at the old cottage, my favorite place to soak in this special half hour was sitting on the countertop, my calves resting against the cupboards. but here in this new place, its on the driveway. watching as robert and pablo pull up in the truck and both come falling into my arms.

the day can wear. oh, it can wear a girl down. but all it takes are moments like this, pieced together through a lifetime, to build us back again.

the thing is.

the thing is you deserve to be out west. where the juniper bushes die in the winter and shed their hardened branches across the road. where you can open the brewery. or the honeybee farm. or the bread bakery. where the highway stretches out like a welcome mat across state lines and mountains jut up and out into the ocean, where they crumble to jagged black. that little restaurant on the coast where we ate that oyster stew on the park bench while the november wind ripped through our jackets? yes, right there. i can see you there. or maybe up in oregon, haystack rock dwarfing you by the pacific. or down in california, short-order cooking in that rooftop restaurant where we watched, behind sunglasses, as that odd man behind us rubbed his biscuit butter on his arms. places like those, wide open as the sunset sky, are the only places big enough for this soaring, beautiful spirit of yours. but i am heart-deep happy that you chose our bed instead. wrapped up in tightly pulled flannel sheets with my sleeping legs sprawled over onto your side and pablo's paw in your face. this crowded, tiny space in the back bedroom of my grandfather's house with light glaring in through the cracked wooden door from the hallway lamp that my mama can't turn off. thank you, thank you, thank you.for all the things you know and i can't say. we'll take this town that moves real slow and turn it on its head. we'll make big dreams out of the small things, you and i.

a weekend in carolina: the cold and the warmth

 

there was an afternoon this weekend when i tried my best to pull weeds from the flowerbeds in front of the house. i dug my nails into the earth only to find tiny slivers of ice and a frozen ground. it reminded me that we are still very much in the middle of this carolina winter. when days can turn from pleasant to blustery in the instant that wind picks up your hair and cuts into your chest.

but there was another afternoon when sunshine cut through the pasture near our house and spilled into the brick floor of the sunroom and reminded me, soon. soon there will be dirt to churn for the garden and honeybees in the backyard. there will be lights strung from the shed and suppers on old picnic benches. there will be sundresses and bare legs and feet, and entire evenings spent listening to music on a blanket by the clothesline.

mama taught me never to rush things. to not wish away days and write too many things on my calendar in anticipation. so i'm trying to appreciate these last few weeks of cold. the early mornings by the coffee pot and the nights spent wrapped in blankets by the fire with heavy socks on. soon enough, summer will raise her heavy head and coat our little corner of the world with thick heat and i'll wish for these mornings where my little honda creaks under the shock of heat running through its veins after a night spent in a cold garage.

oh, the foreshadow of hindsight. such a delicate little oxymoron she is. 

marriage and partnership: or grab your own towel

welcome to week 2 in our marriage series! this week's topic is "marriage and partnership." be sure to check out gina and morgan's blogs today for their thoughts, and do share yours!

when i first started my blog, i went away for a long weekend and asked my sweet friend dacia to guest post for me. she wrote about five things she's learned about living together with  your loved one. one thing she said stuck with me for its simple, honest truth: grab your own towel. she wrote:

How many of us have jumped in the shower only to realize we’re out of soap, shampoo, or have no clean towel waiting for us on the hook next to the shower curtain? How many of us then shout out across the house (still in the shower) to our significant other for these things we forgot? 

i thought about that sentiment this morning when preparing for my post about marriage and partnerships. because i find myself falling into that rut so incredibly often. for me, it takes the form of socks. i'll be in bed, toasty and warm, and robert will be right beside me under the covers, and i will innocently ask him to get out of the cocoon, place his own feet on the cold hardwoods and walk to the dresser to get me socks. or when i'm on the sofa, watching nasvhille, and i ask him to bring me some chestnuts (my new obsession). and bless his heart, the boy never complains. and i can probably count on one hand the number of times he's asked the same request of me.

but being partners means doing these things for our spouse. rising before the sun because the dog is pawing at the covers in that way that you both know means he needs to go out. making supper over the stove even though the day has been long and you need the night to be short and quick so the whole thing can be done with. bringing him a glass of water in bed. running my bathwater.

but it's when these things are expected and sought after without consideration that the partnership begins to weaken, and when the surprise of a sweet deed begins to carry less of its beautiful weight. because yes, being partners means carrying the person, sometimes. picking them up and physically, spiritually and emotionally trudging through the murk and gorgeousness of life together. but it also means knowing when, for the health of the relationship, to let him down to walk by himself. not in front of you or behind you, but right smack-dab next to you, for as long as you both shall live.