Once upon a time a girl met a boy...
Moments, memories…history. No matter how long or short, near or far; they are what matters.
and a farm, house and purposeful life were born.
Mike and I started a friendship separated by multiple states, we courted divided by my miles of freeways, and sometimes more than one ocean. Fast forward seven years through the deaths of our mothers, hundreds of flights, thousands of hotel points, a dilapidated house, deployments, an engagement, a life changing diagnosis, daily IV treatments, the start of Mikes dream career, the end of mine and the start of our life.
Our love grew as our lives drift on a wind we couldn’t control and intertwined in places and purposes we never expected. We lived the lessons I’m sure our mothers tried to teach us all of our lives.
Perfect and complete isn’t real and even if it is, life changes so fast it is only perfect and complete for a moment.
Everything worth having takes patience and effort, lots and lots of effort.
The quiet awe, as we stood in front of the Wallace D. Dickinson house with keys in hand, the first taste of our own figs, an the subsequent fight for them with beetles and birds, our dust covered lunches, the dirt under our nails, the realization of the importance of this place (to others and to us), the baby raccoons peeking out of the wall, the days, that turned into weeks, then years, that he slept next to me in a hospital chair after working all night, the day the garden became a farm, and the best days, the BEST days …when plans changed and we got a few more impromptu moments.
Our life is not where we planned it to be; our desire for uncompromising control and unduly preparation was futile. Our greatest plans never worked out exactly as we intended. But those exact moments, that we were completely grounded and present in, those moments created a life that is better than we could have ever imagined.
W.D. Dickinson House.
This is exactly where we are supposed to be.