I feel like Adam and I are taking these great little steps. My writing is inching along in quite beautiful ways*, and Adam is moving in the direction of Industrial/Product Design school. Yup! I am proud and excited. Financing all this will be an adventure, so send your prayers our way, friends. It’s an adventure I’m looking forward to.

Until then, we’ll go on learning to recognize
what we love, and what it takes
to tend what isn’t for our having.
-Li-Young Lee

Amen.

*Let me know if you’d like to help me edit the first 37 pages of my next book. I need all the help I can get.

Adam and I are back from our little camping trip in Michigan!

It was nice to spend time in little towns where everyone waves to each other, hang out by the lake, take long walks through the woods, cook over a fire, and smell like smoke all the time. I think the best part was just spending heaps of time with my best friend without phone calls or computers or television shows. We talked, a lot, and he taught me how to start a good fire.

Three cheers for vacations.

Today is a very important day. If I had a calender, today would have five circles and three hearts around it. That’s how important it is. It is also quite possibly my very favourite holiday. And not just because I get to bake cake. No, that’s just a perk, really. The important part of today is that 24 years ago, Adam was born, and I am so glad he was!

I hope all your birthday wishes come true, dear.

Three cheers for my wonderful husband!

I discovered something unexpected, today. I love Valentine’s Day. Really! I do. The holiday gets such bad a rep these days, like its some commercial thing we have to rise above rather than enjoy. But it’s a very old holiday, actually. And what’s so commercial about love and showing affection?

It was interesting to work at a coffee shop on Valentine’s Day. People react to it in such different ways. Most people are pretty apathetic. One man who daily bikes through all this winter snow bought us all a box of incredible chocolates to thank us for brightening his days. One woman, who was long frusterated with romance, had a love/hate relationship with the holiday. Another lady (who is now one of my favourite customers) told me it was her favourite. She handed me a print-out of the holiday’s history and pulled a handful of fallen rose petals she gathered at work from her pocket. She kept them there so she could smell them all day.

And me? I couldn’t stop smiling and wondering about the love stories of people on the street. I loved how the snow began to fall so sweetly in the afternoon. I loved walking through the sparkley, snowy city after work to meet up with Adam. I loved thinking about how God romances us. I looked up at the dark trees on State Street and thought of a small story that went something like this:

Once upon a time, long, long ago, God created the first human. God looked down on him and loved him so much, that right where the man had stood, the first tree twisted its way through the soil and up into the sky. A year later, a wind blew the tree’s seeds, and another tree grew, and then another. And from that one tree, the world soon was covered with leaves and winding branches.

Adam and I went to a poetry reading by my favourite living poet. It was wonderful, not just because it was Li-Young Lee standing there in front of me, but because Adam came along, even though he didn’t feel well and doesn’t care much for poetry. He’s such an incredible husband.  We rode the bus home together and spent the rest of our Valentine’s Day snuggled together on the couch watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and eating salami from the deli bag.

I can hardly think of a more perfect day.

When Adam first suggested it, I was strongly opposed. I feel like it takes away a books individuality or something. It seemed unloving to the books. Or disrespectful. If I published a book, I wouldn’t want to see it on a colour coordinated shelf. I’d want to see it coffee-stained and jostled around in a purse or sitting by a bedside. But I figured, why not? I can always disorganize them again.

I have to say, it looks pretty neat (way neater than the picture suggests). And reorganizing the books was rather satisfying. It was like a puzzle. It got me better aquainted with my husband’s half of the books and made me see my own books in a different way.

It was a nice project. I should reorganize bookshelves more often. Any suggestions on how to arrange them the next time around?

I’m fighting off some bit of sickness these days.  And when I wake up and waddle over to stove to heat up some water for tea, I find the vitamins out of the cupboard and on the counter.  I suspect my husband, who is by then at work, does this for me.

And this small thing makes me feel well cared for.

I enjoyed today. I enjoyed waking up early to skip class, make muffins, do yoga, and kiss Adam. Kissing Adam was the best part. I enjoyed the mist and rain and watching people walk by the big windows at work in giant umbrellas. I like working at a coffee shop on cold drizzly days when people wear soft scarves and linger a while longer.

I enjoyed the people I work with. I enjoyed a long break with poems by the fireplace. I enjoyed knowing that beginning tomorrow afternoon, I have a long, lovely weekend to look forward to.

Today at work, Bill and I talked about marraige and what it means to us and why. I spoke, but it was difficult for me. It usually is when I am talking about something very dear to me. It’s hard to explain why I think it’s nice to promise to devote myself to someone forever and put their life above mine. But I do think it’s nice. I think it is rich and good and forges character through the difficult bits.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a naive or foolish for thinking that there is more for us in this world than complacency. Sometimes I think I might be. But it doesn’t matter much either way, because it’s worth a shot. And so far, I have found so much more than complacency.

French pressed coffee. Hours and hours of writing. Coming home to a sweet husband with a pile of Charleston Chews. Walks through Tenney Park. Fantastic delivery pizza and Japanese movies. Poems on the couch with Hannah. Tea at the teahouse. Rumi. The next story beginning to take shape. Buying a new book.

kind days.

Norwegian class was cancelled today, so Adam and I spent the first hour and a half of our day lying in bed together enjoying the luxury of having nowhere to go.  We just made out and cuddled and laughed under the blankets until Adam came up with the wonderful idea of going out for breakfast.

We bundled up and caught the bus downtown to the Sunprint Cafe, which Adam ate at earlier in the week and deemed “A Lindsey Place.”  We ate, and I talked too much about coffee.  Sun fell happily through the windows.  There was a gorgeous girl reading books and eating pancakes near us who was so pleasant to look at, I couldn’t stop glancing up and smiling towards her.  Two young professors were talking about Catholic thought a couple tables down that I enjoyed eavesdropping on while I spread jelly on my toast.

A morning off with Adam during a busy time of life is a sweet thing indeed.

I should make longer mornings for myself.

Happy morning, everyone.

Dear friends and family,

I know you haven’t gotten you your thank you notes yet. Trust me when I say that it is not out of lack of gratitude; Adam and I were totally blown away by your generosity and so pleased by your presence. It is just that I have always detested writing thank you notes and procrastinate them as long as I can. And I am sorry, not so much about the thank you notes, but that I haven’t really expressed my gratitude to you very well at all. Because I am very, very thankful. Thank you.

I’m going to try to get those notes out to you, but it will probably be a while longer. I’ve been swamped lately, and for my health and sanity need to chill a bit. But you guys are friends. You guys are family. So, I’m pretty sure you’ll have grace with me. We all know I need it.

Love,

Lindsey