The morning is thick, soft, quiet with woolen fog. We are parting the dove-gray smoke as we drive past rickety farmhouses nestled among sleeping fields. The island is tranquil, taking a breath before the next winter storm. And then suddenly the shroud dissipates into a luminous horizon before us, gold diffusing upward into a pale blue sky.
Often, the simplest things are what enrapture me. A peaceful morning, the perfect combination of colors, baking homemade bread. I rarely conjure profound thoughts in an ordinary day—or at least any that I can fully grasp and verbalize coherently—and when they are presented to me from the outside, I find myself slogging through the shallows to reach deeper water. Sometimes I wonder if I am too much the child, content with too little, with these puddles that reflect the sky. But I’ve discovered that deeper water is not always the purest water—for me anyway.
Simplicity is where I find clarity, joy, peace—in attending to my husband’s needs, to the care of our home, and to the writing of my books with all the brainpower that I could be funneling into a realm higher than this tangible world. I am content to be found waiting here with soup and grilled cheese when my husband descends from the height he is called to explore. And when he looks into my eyes with all the love he’s discovered up above, I find I always lose the few words I might have expressed. I can only embrace this man, kiss his mouth—and pour into him all the love I’ve discovered here below.