Dear Boy

That stretch of lake down there at Lodi Point is one of my favorite places I've ever been or even seen in a picture.  I feel grounded, brought back to earth and the present moment when I am there.  It inspires me to live more deeply and dream more wildly.

Today we walked down to see the cows.  It's something we do to bide our time, to entertain the girl, and to provide some small form of exercise to my lethargic muscles.  Well, today where we usually find cows, we encountered two empty fields, the grass having just been cut and still drying in long rows.  In the third field, under a small oasis of trees close to the road were the herd of longhorn cattle.  They are absolutely breathtaking up close.  Except for when they look like they want to charge through the electric fence, because the dog who you so graciously allowed to tag along, is barking and howling at the top of his lungs.  We left in in a harried manner, dragging said barking pup by the leash behind us, cows creeping near, heartbeat pounding.

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That was Friday.  Greetings now from Monday.

I am trying to keep the excitement from bubbling up because I'm only slightly possibly pregnant, but truly I am excited for the prospect of having one more baby.  So I'll say it here in letter form where the energy doesn't drip from my vocal chords.  I'm pretty excited.

And I was regretting today that we haven't been consistent about taking video footage of our family as it grows.  Maybe we can try to change that somehow?

I'll keep it to I LOVE YOU.  But let it mean this: I have no fear about you or us.  I trust you with my everything.  I see you and I see good in you.  I hope for all the best life has to offer for you.  I believe in you and what you are capable of.  I dream of you when I sleep and when I wake.  I treasure my memories made with you.  Every plan I have for my future has you in it.  I see you as my teammate, my compliment, my equal, my dearest friend.

I love you.

L

Dear Lady,

i do not believe i can recall a more peaceable evening by the water. It was incredible wasn't it? After such a summer as we had—days at the lake, crowds all around and those waves crashing into shore—it was a breathless experience to be surrounded by such stillness. Such a softness.
When Gerret and i first found ourselves beside the shore the water was like glass—not a wave, not a ripple. It was entirely surreal. Even trying to recall that moment now (as i lay next to you, sleeping still and silent) is impossible. Experience has given me nothing with which to justify such an evening as we had.
It would seem that not just the park, but the lake—the entire evening—belonged to us and us alone. And to each of us as individuals. In the midst of our children there was still this feeling that i can't convey: this sense that i was aware of the moment and it was, somehow, aware of me—of each of us—and there was an unforgettable intimacy about it.
Thank you for taking us down. Thank you for the ambition to go to the lake. Thank you for an evening we will all treasure in a way that transcends the park itself (and the sundaes :)
i supercallifragilisticexpealidocious you.

.a boy

Dear Lady,

i want to be a more gracious individual. As President Uchtdorf has encouraged, i want to find myself grateful in things—not just because of things.
i read something last night that said it helps to change your mood and attitude to begin and end each day with a brief inspirational passage—something that makes you smile and feel a little different way. Walt Whitman has always done that for me. i like to imagine that he was truly as open and grateful as his poetry would convey. This morning i read his opening to "Song of Myself" which reads:

i celebrate myself, and sing myself
and what i assume you shall assume
for every atom belonging to me as good belongeth to you.

It honestly helped. As simple and obvious as it may sound to do something like this, it is often the easiest and most obvious solutions that go unheeded the longest. Why is that?
i also recited a line to myself from a book (i think it's called The Greatest Salesman in the World—but i recently threw away the paper i had this passage on), and it goes:

i will greet this day with love in my heart, and i will succeed.

i supercallifragilisticexpealidocious you forever!
You are a part of the great debt of gratitude i feel today. Oh how i love you! Oh how incredible is this family I've been blessed with! You are the four most amazing people i have the pleasure of ever knowing! There has never been a day in our lives when i didn't feel my gratitude for you and our children filling my small heart to overflowing—though i apologize that there have been days when i, perhaps, did not show such gratitude.
i seek improvement. i seek a track record, henceforth, unsullied by ingratitude. i seek gratitude in great measure. i seek gratitude overflowing.

.a boy

Dear Lady

i sometimes wonder why we do it . . .
Why spend our entire lives working apart to earn money to afford being together? That doesn't make sense does it?
i love you.
Like really love you.
Love is a stupid word really.
Because what i am for you is certainly more than a word could encapsulate. Certainly more than a four letter word should be able to encapsulate (aren't four letter words usually held as conotating bad things? not loving things?). If anything love should be changed to a much longer word like supercallifragilisticexpealidocious (sp?)—which isn't to say that would be sufficient . . . but it would be a far cry closer than love.
So let's be in supercallifragilisticexpealidocious together. What do you say?
In any case, i supercallifragilisticexpealidocious you.

.a boy

Dear Boy,

It's been a full year overflowing since I last wrote to you on here and that I do regret.  I treasure every communication with you and have recognized in the past what a beautiful opportunity the internet has lent in keeping this little blog for us.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I mostly forgot about it and when I remembered today, I returned to write and found that you have been the faithful pen-pal for a while now.  And I always the lag-behind, near-failure.  I'm never quite sure how you put up with me.  Like when you came with tea this morning and drank next to me, my back turned, eyes shut, mind completely absorbed in the subconscious realm.  If I were married to me for ten years, I wouldn't be.

Actually, I didn't come on here to say any of that, so let me start anew.  (Just like that Dear John I once wrote, ha ha.)

Dear Boy,

I'm here today with this message:  I'm in love.  I love my life.  I love this earth.  I love our little green house.  I love the sound of crickets at night.  I revel in the call of the coyotes.  In the day I listen to the air mingle with the leaves outside the upstairs windows and I think, "Hoo boy, I am IN LOVE!"  I love quiet moments, and I love the times given to laugh.  That girl we call our daughter, and I call joy, she truly is and I am deeply in love with her.  I'm still figuring out how to be a mom to those boys of ours, but I sure am in love with the opportunity no matter how many mornings I desperately need the fresh start offered.  I love people.  I love God.  I love the message of transformation whispered through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the hope I find daily in that.  I love vegetables of every color, the feel of dirt at my fingertips.  And flowers, you know it.  The ocean, I saw it last month that first time from the balcony of our third floor condo and I knew for sure that what I felt was true love.  I love things that sparkle.  I love colors, every color by itself and all of them together.  I love simplicity and wide open, uncluttered space, but I also love every piece of clutter that brings back a delicious memory and I enjoy that my mind is a complicated web.  I love running and swimming and the feeling of my body moving and breathing.  I am in love with singing.  I love that some people are tone deaf.  I am in love with every hard thing that has taught me an important lesson.  I love the creativity that flows through this whole earth and every person, there is so much beauty everywhere.  I am in love with these virtues: kindness, forgiveness, patience,  cleanliness, honesty, gratitude, fidelity, and purity of heart.  I am in love with every soul who has ever modeled these for me.  I bow to the darkness and I love the light.  I love the darkness because only through it do I recognize light.  I am in love with these past ten years spent journeying next to you.  I am in love with you, my dear traveling companion.  I am in love with the prospect of an infinite amount of traveling in your company.  I am in love with friendship generally and I am in love with your friendship specifically.  Sometimes, love is all I can feel in a funny kind of a way.

Love informs my daily living so much that I think I will eventually become love and that is my greatest desire.

Yours truly, completely, and eternally,

Lady