slow down Sunday

Today I am grateful for a cup of coffee, to sit in her living room, to listen and talk and enjoy her company.

everything you say

The drag force on the net speed is rather large in this case, and there is planning to be done.

"Motivated by breakfast, energized with a sunrise. How could I go wrong?" Night Crawler

There will be days that the sun does not rise and it'll be cold and rainy and we won't be able to get as far as we had planned but that's when we push past it. It's going to be fine, me.

Today I am grateful for the moment I see him. I am grateful for his good morning.

pep talk

Half the day is now gone and look at what all I haven't done. Today is the day to do it.


Today I am grateful for a day, cooler temperatures, a few things that must be done, friends who are doing some of them, and a pork loin in the fridge. It's sous vide Saturday. Hurray, the weekend! Go, everyone!

sport

Today I am grateful for that feeling Pavlov's dog got when the bell rang, for staying up late and going back to bed in the morning, for lights and helmets and a fellow photographer.

stop

Today I am grateful that she stopped, they stopped, that for just one moment the world stopped.

slack packing is for slackers

He's concerned. It is a feat never attempted before and I am a bit of a complainer. Even that one trip when I vowed to not complain for the duration of the two day hike and how, yes, remember, I started every noncompliant with I'm not complaining but.

"You could do a slack pack."

"Slack pack?"

"You and Isaac use your cars. One park at the beginning and one at the end every day. You just walk to the car, get your pack, walk into the woods, and camp at night."

"That's cheating."

"You've never done ten days before."

"I think I have to suffer. I know it'll look bad. It's not going to be pretty. But funny. Maybe? It'll make me appreciate what I have."


Today I am grateful for conversations.

the masterlist

There must be a list listing the lists. Right?


Today I am grateful for an office, one of those phone calls which make you stop and talk, three we'll call 'em two margaritas, a lead on a decent headlamp, and a job as a chauffeur.

wanderlust

When it's all packed in the hatchback and the hatchback is no longer dragging you will notice a can't turn around now smile overtake my face. Leaning into "how do I get myself into this mess?" is about the best I can feel alone. A fear with the resulting adrenaline rush. Some girls explore the woods when they are growing up. Some never stop growing.



Today I am grateful for a platypus filtering system, a first aid kit, and a battery charging station.

him telling it

"No," he says.

"Waitwhat?"

"No."

"But that's the story I'm telling myself."

"That's not how it is."



Today I am grateful to hear him tell it.

still

Today I am grateful to watch and witness and exist in a place or a time or a space or a moment of what we had last night.

his heart

Today I am grateful for his heart.

beef ribs sous vide

Thirteen more hours and twenty-nine more minutes at one hundred twenty-nine degrees. Then an ice bath, a dousing with the sauce, a quick push and pull in the broiler, and abracadabra, this is it.



Today I am grateful for a meal so I don't yet know, but I've been watching for fifty-eight hours and thirty-one minutes. Supposed to be good.

life of a Riley

Today I am grateful for time and sleep and running water and air-conditioning and that my garbage gets picked up and the mail delivered.

times like these I try to sound less needy

An October night in Georgia under the stars at the base of the Appalachians.
Just one night, that's all I ask for.


Today I am grateful for messages and notes and all the trails which lead to that one.

company

The living room is not the living room unless you live in it and the kitchen becomes a cantina and he attempts to score with his trash from across the room.


Today I am grateful for company and conversation and food and music.

dang responsibility

I was told once that we are all exactly where we want to be because we got ourselves there wherever that is. I wanted to fight her on it and I think some people could but yeah.


Today I am grateful to understand that I am responsible for all the choices I made and still make.

como confident

It is instant, that look, that knowing, that vulnerability and all that he had to do was recognize it in me. Men like him get that from all the women. Of course he recognized it. It is his state of being, and that's what I fall in love with.


Today I am grateful for a smile, a laugh, a guy who knows that he's Brad Pitt and I'm Brad Pitt's dog.
Every once in a while he feeds me, but we both have something bigger than us to do.

smile

It's disarming entire armies, his smile. It's waking early and reliving it. I should not feel this way. Way too old for such love but doesn't that stuff make you feel so much younger just by seeing it. I should just look him in the eyes and tell him it's forever and I'm never getting over him. Isn't that what old people do?

I mention him to my mom in the form of wherever he goes I'll follow. It's alright. She's been listening to me my whole life and she's good with the most recent plan of training for 200 miles in 10 days. She doesn't know if I can do it and that makes me smile because I've been trying to prove that woman wrong my whole life. This would be the first time, 20 miles per day.


He types, "I'm in. Sounds fun."


Today I am grateful for him and him and her and all of them. Plans are good.

the guy who sends quotes

He says, "Keep two small pieces of paper in your pocket. One reads, I am a speck of dust. The other, The world was created for me."

He whispers, "Pssssst. Neither is true and both are."



Today I am grateful for another opportunity to read a piece of paper, look through a camera, and share what I see.

good friends

I didn't do any of the things I was supposed to do today. Because I thought I deserved a day off because I had worked last week and though I did that whole deserving thing yesterday I obviously did it again today and a good friend would say, "Stop."

"Make the pie."
"Sweep the porch."
"Wash the bedsheets."
"Do the calendar."




Today I am grateful for a good friend and a weekend.

groceries

Today I am grateful for half a gallon of chocolate milk all of which the four of us almost drank, the realization that she can read, how she recognizes her name and smiles when she sees me, that they're home from college, how even with a delay I got to hear his voice, and for biscuits only mama can make us.

instructions

Today I am grateful for three words.

stretching the lost count

Relax. You will start early, and you will end late. You can't get ill at the end of the day. Do not be complaining by looking forward to Saturday. If you say one thing about a nap or how hot it is outside or there's so much great, a point is going to be deducted from the total score of everything.


Today I am grateful for the ability to complain and if ever there are some Olympic Games of how seemingly bad you can make it while understanding how absolutely fortunate you are, I want to compete. I think I got the team on this one.

sous vide and a side

The meeting is a dinner table with benches on opposite sides. These are many of the same conversations we had. Your uncle's art, your hike. In order to deal with you gone, I pretend like you never left.

You would have gotten seconds and maybe try for thirds of the fatty rib and those mashed potatoes, I watched her make them. Her at the bar throwing it together. It's fun to watch her cook.



Today I am grateful for a middle of the week with the end coming and so much awesomeness happening. Everybody calm down, please. You, keep walking.

continuous

In seventeen seconds the shutter opens and closes more than seventeen times. That's about as scientific as I get about the thing I love to hold. But in seventeen seconds she can bring more than seventeen poses. And picking a photo is nearly impossible.

Today I am grateful for a party.

want/need/want/need

There's a child having open heart surgery/restaurants in New Orleans/a phone may only allow you what you can handle. Sometimes you get too much world and you need to get alone and pray/meditate/stretch/clean/worry/talk to yourself/buy crap you don't need/wash your car to help with the guilt/make him a lemon pie for the same/charge your camera/two photo sessions/sleep.



Today I am grateful for time/groceries/plans/mountains.

twenty-four hours twenty-four years

Today I am grateful for a steak, twenty-four years of which I have witnessed the last, a game, a cooler earth, bad nachos, and an entire night of sleep.