strangers in the shadows

Where has nearly a month gone? We'll try not to be strangers on the blogfront anymore!

Looking back at my planner, I'm reminded of some reasons as to why we may have disappeared:

1. soaking up as much Amelia snuggle time as possible before she headed to her other home

2. two wonderful birthday celebrations: my dad and bryan

3. photo shoot with a beautiful new family

4. getting sick, sick, sick (and missing my first married Valentine's Day)

5. good friends visiting from out of town

I'd say most of these are excellent reasons rather than excuses:) As for #4, I'm getting the chance to re-celebrate a lovely evening with my Valentine...a week after the calendar says to, but just right for us (which seems more and more appropriate as we trek through our first year together:)

With that, I'd like to leave this post with a beautiful poem I heard Garrison Keillor read on NPR this morning (Sintos Valentine's Day):

The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3

by Mary Mackey

It's easy to love
through a cold spring
when the poles
of the willows
turn green
pollen falls like
a yellow curtain
and the scent of
Paper Whites
clots
the air

but to love for a lifetime
takes talent

you have to mix yourself
with the strange
beauty of someone
else
wake each morning
for 72,000
mornings in
a row so
breathed and
bound and
tangled
that you can hardly
sort out
your arms
and
legs

you have to
find forgiveness
in everything
even ink stains
and broken
cups

you have to be willing to move through
life
together
the way the long
grasses move
in a field
when you careen
blindly toward
the other
side

there's never going to be anything
straight or predictable
about your path
except the
flattening
and the springing
back

you just go on walking for years
hand in hand
waist deep in the weeds
bent slightly forward
like two question
marks
and all the while it

burns
my dear
it burns beautifully above
you
and goes on
burning
like a relentless
sun