tonight kirk and i walked outside and found ourselves greeted by a perfect night. the air, to breathe it deeply, filled our lungs with sweetness, the wind blew swiftly and rustle-y through the trees, and i felt the lightest touch of sprinkles on my cheek. a storm is coming, but it's not here yet.

off we clipped down the road in our car, windows rolled wide open and our weepies album floating out into the quiet night air. we rolled across one brick road after another, through neighborhoods favorite and familiar, and the wind flowed through the car and blew my hair wildly across my forehead, everywhere. i sighed deeply and contentedly as we puttered along those roads, my mind filled with so many good things coming our way, falling into place, filling our life with activity and crazy love and happiness.

we are coming up on our two-year anniversary next month, and let me tell you: it has been an amazing time. i love that we live a quirky story, that i've never encountered a story like ours, that we make choices other people sometimes deem crazy but that bring us so much joy and freedom.

even though some of our choices, like choosing the sojourners path and grad studies and the freelance life, have necessitated humility in other areas, like how and when we fully furnish our house and how frequently we gift ourselves with new clothes, it feels like we are entering into a season where some of that waiting and holding out is ending. i expect that we will continue to be watchful and careful with the direction some of our resources go, but i also see how some of the things we've been watching and waiting for are here, finally coming to birth.

that's why tonight it felt like we'd looked up and found ourselves surrounded by burgeoning life, like a spring of colorful blossoms had exploded all around us. and that is why this song by the weepies was the first i chose to blare on out our open car windows . . .

painting by chagall

thunder rumbles
in the distance:
a quiet intensity.
i am willful,
your insistence
is tugging at the best of me.
you're the moon,
i'm the water.
you're mars,
calling up neptune's daughter.

sometimes rain that's needed falls
we float like two lovers in a painting by chagall.
all around is sky and blue town,
holding these flowers for a wedding gown.
we live so high above the ground,
satellites surround us.

i am humbled
in this city,
there seems to be an endless sea
of people like us:
wakeful dreamers,
i pass them on the sunlit streets.
in our rooms,
filled with laughter,
we make hope
from every small disaster.

everybody says,
"you can't, you can't, you can't,
don't try."
still, everybody says that
if they had a chance, they'd fly
like we do.