Wednesday's limes

Today I am grateful for time with my mama, to be able to sit on her clean floor and talk and laugh and  listen. I am grateful for the bag of limes and how daddy walks through and says, "Hey, Boog." If I were to brag, it'd be on the people who don't seem to have a choice but to love me.

affirmative

Today I am grateful for a rain, a request, a yes.

breaking news

is that I didn't finish all that. I can't be as fast as them so I have to work harder and longer. If life is about finding solutions to problems, it's good to know your pace. It just feels like mine has slowed up in a big way.



Today I am grateful to be asked to talk and to listen as they did.

song

She sends me an Alicia Keys song and says, "He showed me this song, and all I can do is think about him and this song."

Today I am grateful for a couple and a song.

effortless

A good basketball shot floats, hangs, is effortless and I can only get one in a zillion.


Today I am grateful for two zillion shots, an ICU waiting room, more ice cream than crazy, and a kid and a smile and a manicure and how deer did not get in our way of conducting a proper Saturday.

same

a little bit on the weekend

She will pick the Netflix binge. I'll approve it. Blankets, pillows, writing cards, and talking about life and school and there will be water falling from the sky. A rainy day of fish and music and getting that hardest project finally done. Please, please, thank you, thank you.

I will not text. I will not call. He deserves a weekend away from me.


But him, we owe each other about an hour of laughing till we cry.


And her, she'll be alright.

And yes, Kim.



Today I am grateful for a whole lot during the week and just a little bit on the weekend.

the other team's side

A banishment is a banishment is a banishment and one of them asked, "Where have you been?"

"I was videoing but here I am."




Today I am grateful for a few minutes on a field.

I'm sorry, I'm not sorry: Ageism

He's brilliant. It is my favorite thing about a man, his brain, and I'm glad he doesn't understand how much I love him. Or I hope he doesn't. Because then he already knows that physically he is a greek god which I shouldn't talk about stuff like that.

I hope I'm cool which means I'm probably not which I'm 50 and can be crazy like that. Work. Shame. Work. Shame. Work.



Today I am grateful for an office, t-shirts in the back of my car, a call to make and a video to do.

feels like a race when you get up this late

Today I am grateful for extra time and a little understanding.

office efficient

I am going to need a schedule on the wall. It will have to be down the left hand side, dry-erase, a red line separating days from one end to the other but no more than a foot in height and at eye level. Nothing on the floor underneath it but a path and good dry erase markers in black, red, blue, and green. A good canvas cloth will hang from a silver hook, be washed once a week, and everything has a place and every place has a purpose.

Maybe.

Today I am grateful for a woman who is picking the colors of my new/relatively new office.

problems lead to solutions, company memo no. 1

"Life is finding solutions. It's solving problems," he says in the most subtle but obvious of ways.

It's then I realize he's correct.

"People just want to feel smart," she says. Then adds, "I act dumb all the time because why not make people feel good about themselves. That seems like the smart thing to do."







Today I am grateful to understand that when we try to be something we're not, we end up bungling it up. So the solution has me giving something up and throwing my shoes into the tree at Neels Gap. It's got to be that need to be smart and trying to prove it but looking dumb is a thing I don't need to be. I have plenty of other things to do. I am grateful for solutions, more problems, more solutions to infinity and beyond. (AKA: it's Monday.)

proper

If you step off a mountain in Franklin, GA you could be looking for a proper place to get breakfast. And when you're thinking proper you're thinking Cracker Barrel's blueberry pancakes with a side of hashbrown casserole. That's proper. Until you walk into light and air, and if the Staves had a sweet little breakfast diner, Yonder would be it.


Today I am grateful to understand a proper breakfast.

dialogue without apology

He says, "Don't go overboard."

"But."

"No."


Today I am grateful for some semblance of self control, though it may not have seemed that way.

the first and last day

It's got to be that your first day back is the last one of the week. That it will last from the early, early until late, late. And you'll start from behind and finish that way. Because when you jump into the creek you do so by jumping in from the highest point. That water is shocking, but it's some of the best there is.



Today I am grateful for home, for my couch, my washer, my dryer, indoor plumbing, electricity, a garbage can, the refrigerator, internet, Netflix, a shower.

boy mom

2019 Appalachian Trail Southbounders
#7 Pascal Prevost-Aubin, Trail Name Celsius
#8 Slater Goff, Trail Name Ahab

There's this video that describes us perfectly, he and I. I have driven and shopped and dreamed and thought of how nice I could make this. You can't throw confetti, right? Picking him up is all I can imagine here. He's just trying to get past me and into the visitor's center to find out what place he's in.

But YooHoos and apple cider donuts. Yes.
Crowds cheering? I can pretend it.

It's just that boys play, and they're so much fun and music and stories about hail storms on mountains. "There was no way we could stay up there," he said.

They both looked dazed and couches and beds and baths and how long do you continuously sleep after that.

I am currently sitting in a creek of thank yous for his (their) safe return, for angels out there, for trail magic, for water, for stories, for music, for laughter when roads create switchbacks and Isaac knows every word to every song ever written. I didn't birth all three of those boys, but I did feel like they were all mine this past week.

If that was my last vacation, it was an Olympic one. I am grateful for that.

him he them

It's never going to get done, not all of it.
One more video.
Two emails, one with several people.
The other, only him.

Walk to the car.
Get in.
Drive.
Music.

Him.
Them.

Whoever sneezed a million years ago in whatever you sneezed in then and that bee that dropped that pollen during that spring, I am grateful for those moments because somehow those moments led us here. Things not getting done, maybe they were never supposed to be, maybe later but now matters to me.




I do wish he was going with us. They would love him, and he them.

accepting

One day you may find yourself not surprisingly sitting at a desk, typing away, editing video, making plans, and looking out a window into the best yet.


Today I am grateful for all of it, every last moment, every last drop of time we have together.

mourning

My left jaw is rebelling against me.
Small physical ailments I would sometimes ignore, now glare at me.
My body is attempting to say, "Don't go."
Always happens before a long trail. An incline of ohmyhell, and tears coming down my face.


Today I am grateful to be whooped by a mountain.

he who sends quotes and he who I will see

He tells me that I need to do it myself.
Look how skinny, I think.
Heartbreak but she's got her arms around him, and I know how that feels.

She is healing and he is as healthy as he's ever been.


Gratitude fills me.



"At a certain point, you say to the woods, the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself, and wait, listening."
Annie Dillard

work for a hopeful return

He texts a photo of a dachshund relaxing on a front porch, the light coming from the left, deepened contrast of a shadow in the form of the head of the President. It's weird. We like weird. It's why he's the President and we have twenty-four hour bright shiny lights coming from the T.V.

Pushing the majority though it's not. We're split down the middle with the middle going, "Just shut up and use that energy for the people around you. He'll come and go in a lot less time than the kids."





Today I am grateful for the cover of a book project.

weekends contain bonus video

weekend

Today I am grateful for lines and light and another perspective.

griping about the cold

This jacket is mine. Nobody can have it. Not even if it smells good or it's not worn out or there's nothing quite like getting warm in a one man tent with a coat you gotta give a name to. You can't have him.


Today I am grateful for a rain, for music, for dancing, for a concession stand.

suffering under his reign

He thinks of something to tell me, and when he says it, it is almost Buddhist in it's commitment to suffering. Yet it's highly paid college coach philosophy.

"There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment."
Nick Saban

Suffering nonetheless.



Today I am grateful that he thinks of things to tell me and grateful for the suffering of being without him.


(Though there are times I would like to suffer with him.)

nap

Today I am grateful for a thank you that roared, a steady hum of joy, pizza, wings, and a conversation with a brilliant man. Also, a nap. Naps are brilliant things.

us like this

It's not everything I would always want forever and ever amen.
It's more the best I can imagine us being now.


Today I am grateful for what we have.

shut up with the thank yous

The question is what if we did and I can only hope the answer will be a good one but sometimes (all the time) I want to be smarter. I don't always make the best decisions.



Today I am grateful to sit in their booth and listen to their stories, to sit on her couch and roll her coins. I am so grateful to witness her love, to meet someone new, and to be part of something.