is it wrong to love a cover as much as I do?

 Music Wednesday has a ring to it. Tiny Dancer is the song I'm coming with.

Today I am grateful for an afternoon and evening of playing with friends and listening to my favorite outdoor band play our shared music.

poetry

 

He sends the Dickinson. "The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."

She sends this.

He says, "Be where your feet are."

She leaves a candle and the kindest note on the desk.

Today I am so grateful for them.

I like to walk by cows

The pain starts in my left heel but lessens as it spreads with each spot screaming for more attention than the next to where I end up listening to the band of the body hurts. 15 miles later I walk into an air conditioned house and pace on those same feet until I slow enough to drink more water because water tastes so good when you need it.

Today I am grateful for trees and kind dogs and horses neighing in fields. And cows. Cows are possibly the best. No, that does not mean I want cows.

tadpole's bracelet is pink

 

It's the weekend before her birthday kind of thing and she's already the queen. Her dog, Bubblegum Pink, poses well with her and those puppies have now officially been on a hunt, hidden in caves, climbed on rocks and got their feet wet in the creek. We ate watermelon and peeled apple on the porch; drank chocolate milk - the good stuff. So good I'm using semi colons now.

Today I am grateful for the way she changed the house when I wasn't watching.

I take your Journey and place some Ben Howard on the table.

sweep, part duh - you amaze me

 It's the feeling of a cool, clean concrete on the bottom of our bare feet. 

She brings a six pack and leaves three.

We have two chairs, a coffee table, lights above our heads and we pick up where we left off by which I mean it's good to see that powerhouse of a woman and the smile she still radiates.

The Saturday morning music is the first on the playlist and the third song in the Alicia Keys Tiny Desk Concert. The one about rise up I tell her.

Today I am grateful for time with women.

nap

 Children are onto something. 

Today I am grateful for rain and my child leaders.

office party and five thank you notes

I decorate as if it's Christmas, open the windows and put our notes on the wall. I tell him it's as close as I'll get to Faulkner. He remembers the walls.

Today I am grateful for two present and one absent student, a colleague and an office.

driving music

 Red brick walls and seats and stairs and fresh air and kids running and the most perfect temperature in a night so right we end up winning.

Then Journey comes on the dang radio and I can't help but smile.

Now if I don't make daddy his pie.

Grateful for all of it and every one.

everything has it's time and place

I am so grateful for an old hoodie hanging on the closet door. I am grateful for sandals which lasted me everyday a whole season and they still hold up. I am grateful for a good pair of hiking shoes and perfectly weighted trekking poles. 

Today I am grateful for trail.

a great start to the week

 I'm grateful you're still here. 

you and your fire. me and my porch. wishing.

 You can't play Tyminski without playing this. 

dinner, groceries, sleep, repeat

 Venison sausage with bits of pineapple and cheese and salt and garlic and pepper and goodness on open flame in a pit. A cooking dance of which my brother is quite good. Our music is her high school playlist - songs we all know.

Today I am grateful for dinner and groceries and a nonstop night of sleep from eight p.m. till five a.m. Nine hours! Nine hours! I won! I won!

putting on a sweater to walk and your song

 He was both the most horrifying and most hilarious man in one moment at that away game sunken field. It was the first time that I saw him coach - then I told him, "We need some underground tapes of you at these games."

"Why do you say that?" he smiled while he asked. He knew.

"Because you are both the most horrifying and most hilarious man at the same time."

We laughed. This week we kind of made those tapes. It was incredibly self indulgent.

And there was that email when out of nowhere, had an inkling of nothing, I read, "I wrote something. I want you to see it."

And her. And him. And our walk together.

And those temperatures, and have you heard about Monday and Tuesday? It's going to be in the fifties those evenings. So much to be grateful for.

I am.

in response if you are you

 Back in the day I would have jumped into that truck and we would have gone riding and listening to music and talking and laughing and you are who taught me about love, and you still teach me about love. You know I am grateful for you.

music

 And thank you for that beauty.

I wish you could have seen it, the taking of the meeting.

Today I am grateful for music, a meeting, and 40, count 'em 40 hills. That's right.

only if you were you

 

insert our imagination and could we ever even be that great? our fantasy life, or mine with you, is probably not anything near what I could do but you are so incredibly dreamy that I let my mind imagine us probably about 15 minutes into a smile of that man distracts me before I have to get back to work.

Today I am grateful for a meeting.

kids and a book

At this point Melba Jane has just thrown rocks into the Pink Palace at Ruby and Dove and two of the eggs busted and this writer and this story - beautiful. 

I am grateful for kids and a book. 

two hour hike

"Never allow life make you forget why you started in the first place." Inky Johnson

It's good trail but unfamiliar and quiet enough to listen as I attempt to imagine his voice in my head telling me, "Short pine grove, white rock, past that hill, the old place."

Four wheeler trail to the right. Then left. How far was that? 

Today I am grateful to be able to honor a mother, a father, a brother, a family, a son.

will ever

 The perfect porch sitting involves her taking the table before she takes to the concrete to catch the monster dropping beetles and I have within my grand powers of food prepping done my duties for the week. I even shined up the fridge but don't have the energy to take a picture.

Tonight our music is a strong and steady stream of at least a zillion crickets and her little paws as she jumps after the beetles.

Today I am grateful for bright lights on a beautiful night.

story

 I am just moments away from an interview by a brilliant soul. Six questions to be answered thoughtfully.

Today I am grateful for an end to a week, lights on a field and numbers everywhere.

threads

The way some people can weave words into conversations - it makes me not want to interject anything for fear I could even disturb it for a minute.

Today I am grateful that they share.

coffee talk

We sit on the brick steps, and I don't say that I've often thought about you here but yeah,
mostly mornings.




Today I am grateful for dialogue.

what we share

Though weak and even more weakened by the virus and straight from the couch into a solid 26-mile hike, he is the most beautiful sight. They both are. And those breaks we took down into rock and cold water and pure get your buff wet and squeeze it over your face and neck and sink into the earth and rest for fifteen or thirty minutes - set a timer and take a snooze when it asks.

We perfected breaks this time.


Today I am grateful for a hike and a couple of guys and the Waffle House menu.


Life feels like an anthem sometimes.

trail time

It's the logistics from point A to point B to point time and place to meet, the scheduling, the organization, the packing and what we learned the last time we went.

Another lemon pie.
Another late start.



Today I am grateful for the two guys who climb and allow me four weekends a year to plan their time.

umm music

 Every week you bring it. Thank you.

Today. Again. I am grateful for your music.

(and yeah. the bassist's hair. nice.)

And hers. She sent us Wesley McCool singing Cover Me Up on Facebook.

and a mountain

Both sweet and salty popcorn, mandarin oranges of which I already threw away five rotten ones. There's light up, glow in the dark balloons perfect for parties. So perfect they have written on them, "Party time" with stars. We have beads and more beads and even more beads as well as string and clear plastic plates and bowls and grapes and cream cheese.


Today I am grateful for the perfect porch as it inches toward a perfect temperature and a mountain.

the young woman at four

She asked for photos, and it was an honor.


Today I am grateful for the young woman at four.

the can do

Today I am grateful for the ability to stretch, bend, stand, twist, push and pull. I am grateful for the last piece of chicken, the celery, the red, green and yellow peppers, the split pea mash and water from a glass.