What Endures

sunsetdaisy

pears1

I want to remember us this way—
late September sun streaming through
the window, bread loaves and golden
bunches of grapes on the table,
spoonfuls of hot soup rising
to our lips, filling us
with what endures.
~Peter Pereira from “A Pot of Red Lentils”

grapes2

saturdaylight

I cherish the moments that are most basic, plain, and simple and have the best chance of happening again.  I’m not talking about exotic travels, nor the extravagant meal out, nor the once in a lifetime experience. My most cherished moments are everyday, and I store them up to fill the decades full.

Most cherished of all is “that look” that says “I want to look into your eyes forever and get lost there.”

I am lucky enough to know what that feels like.  I get that butterfly in the stomach feeling anytime it happens.  My husband held my eyes with his from across a room early in our relationship, and over thirty five years later, he still holds them when he looks at me, even over bowls of soup at the kitchen table.

And I look at him just that way as well.  The eyes say what words cannot.  The eyes don’t lie.  The eyes never change even though the years bring gray hair and crow’s feet.

It is what endures. I want to look at you forever, just like this, just as you are, wherever you are because of who you are.

wedding002

 

 

A Continual State of Surprise

maplebuds16

springdandelion

lichen12316

mushrooms1031152

So strange, life is. 
Why people do not go around
in a continual state of surprise
is beyond me.
~William Maxwell

wwupinks3

shaggymanerain1

grapehyacinth316

If I stop and really look at something I usually pass by with only a cursory glance, I am astonished at what I didn’t notice before.

Inside and up close is an unfamiliar richness and strangeness, as if of a foreign world.  I might miss seeing it altogether if I didn’t find the time to be surprised by life.

It is beyond me how much is beyond me.
It is all beyond me.

mosswalk

pansyface5

willow4

walnutowl2