We spent the weekend in beautiful Breckenridge, CO.  Mingling with skiers, catching snowflakes on our faces, eating Thai food, browsing small eclectic shops and the over-crowded shelves of used bookstores. 

       

On Sunday Josh led a couple of Air Force guys up Mt. Quandary in the wind and snow to do some altitude testing on military equipment.   

     

They bravely risked white-out, avalanche and frostbite while I drank hot tea, did some work and watched re-runs of America’s Next Top Model (guilty) in the warmth and safety of coffee shops and hotel room.  I manned the rescue radio (bravely).  

I prefer to save my 14,000 ft. mountains for Spring, Summer and Fall.  Thank You.

 

 The extreme childishness within adulthood that brings us such laughter. We hope to never have it any other way.

“The true enjoyments must be spontaneous and compulsive and look to no remoter end.”-Lewis

Dear Tuesday, 

Thank you for your sunshine and warmth. 

Amber

  

…and this.

The weather lately has been stunning.  Until today I’ve been buried deep in the maternity ward.  Good thing today came.

     

Tomorrow holds promise and I’m holding my breath for running outside in the sun. 

**************************************

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your mirror,

and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

 

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

 

and your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

 

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

-DW

I’m coming out of the silence now beause of my slow realization that it can be deafening.  After a while.  I’ve been processing the overwhelming past 12 months of our lives and I fall short.  Of putting it into something I can reach around and say here it is.  Or there it was.  Maybe it’s more fluid, not a thing to be controlled, processed and packaged.  Because it keeps on going.

 

We’re settling into the job and joy of setting new ventures and shared dreams (as big as our often sore, full hearts).  So often I forget how big we have dreamed and lived in the past and tend toward thinking much smaller than my soul desires. (We are thirsty. But we are even more broken. )

 

Our life here in Colorado is incredibly more fulfilling and necessary than we had ever envisioned and yet it is different.  Completely.  From what we thought we needed.  Usually the best things are. 

 

This winter the cold has brought its usual set of challenges: cold, solitude and quiet.  I’ve been slow to embrace these after such a warm, lively and full year. But I know they are necessary. Deep down (I need them in order that I might discover, rediscover, the small voices, small urgings, small gifts from a Good God). 

 

I’ve found myself slow to write.  Slow to rest.  Slow to give affection.  Even slower to receive. I’m even more embarassed at my misgivings in acknowledging the beautiful things.  Small prayers of thankfullness for sunlight, a soft blanket, a kind word. 

 

My ideas of joy have been small. (I try so hard. I am so needy.)  But now I see.

 

That I need you. and I need to write. and I need to listen to music. and run outside. and see the stars. and take pictures. and open my eyes to love and joy and sweet kindness. (the ones that make you weep to even consider.) To see how messy this life can be and simply BE.

 

I am blessed beyond my measure to have a husband who knows me.  And loves me.  And has patience beyond all measure.  After three years we are still writing our book. Through our black pens and in each other’s moments. Each day another page hoping that when read, it will make you laugh, us blush, you cry, us imagine more than we see. We will show you ours (it is not always as we hope). Patching our torn clothes. Accepting gratitude. Living forgiveness. Asking without self-interest. (At the very least, learning.)

 

Every day I am graciously reminded of the beauty and phenomenal miracle of life as I am there for the first breaths.  The first real moment a woman becomes a mother and a man becomes a father.  It is raw. And it forces me to be present. I need to carry this into each moment because I am never beyond the humility of thankfulness.  For this.  And for that.  And for you.

 

So I am here.

hibernating.

“There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you…. In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.”  ~RS