slowing down.

a lovely, lovely day.

i just love to sit awhile in one place, with one person, enjoying wonderful conversation. this evening steph and i sat at her favorite german restaurant for hours. lots of laughter. joy and peace. it was simply delightful.

i am thankful for my friends here. those that challenge me and those that cover me with an overwhelming sense of peace and security. i am safe here. im pretty sure i dont want to leave.

do you know when everything is pretty great anyway? we were sitting and drinking coffee. it was comfortable and easy. and THEN, on top of everything that is already right, the perfect music is playing. that happened today. there is nothing quite like a well timed "wilco" or "the cure." i slow down with certain people.

i am so thankful.

today i also rediscovered mewithoutYou. and so i shall share a part of one of my favorite songs:

"I've flown unnoticed just behind you like an insect
And I've watched you like a falcon from a distance as you passed.

then swooped down to be nearer, to the traces of the footsteps
to pick the fallen grain from the dirt beneath the crooked grass.

And I'm gonna take that grain and I'm gonna crush it all together
into the flour of a bread as small and simple and sincere.

as when the dryness and the rain finally drink from one another
the gentle cup of mutually surrendered tears!

A fish swims through the sea
while the sea is in a certain sense,
contained within the fish!
Oh, what am I to think
of what the writing of a thousand lifetimes
could not explain
if all the forest trees were pens
and all the oceans - ink?"

or something. goodnight.