I think it's important to do one thing that makes you feel alive once a day. For me, running, or writing. Sex sometimes. I think it's important to do one thing that makes you feel like you accomplished something, or created something that shows something else. Maybe that's what it is: all three of those things show something else: running shows accomplishment, writing shows life, sex shows love, intimacy even. And heck, all of them feel really good. They remind me I am alive. Breathing the air in Graeagle has the same effect. We will be there in two and a half weeks. I am giddy with excitement. I want to be with my boys, enjoy the long relaxed evenings with no dread of the alarm beeping (or now a days "harping" on the iphone-I hate that f-ing harp) my ear off. We are so blessed with Graeagle. It's only forty five minutes away-forty five minutes to quiet, to trees that point to heaven, to air sweet in my nostrils. My favorite thing to do there is walk, and listen to the quiet. It's a quiet you don't get in the city because it's a quiet without background noise. The "caw caw" of the bluejays is distinct and crisp against the silence and when the wind blows, gently, it sounds like running water way way off in the distance. It's a quiet that seeps in your bones, slows your heart rate without you knowing it. A quiet that allows you to recognize your own breath, reminding you that you are alive.

There are beautiful thoughts in me sometimes, thoughts that propel me through the everydayness of getting up, putting the make-up on, staightening the hair-while Noah whines for a sippy and Ethan's mouth won't stop about this Power Ranger or which is closer, Enland or Paris? And are they in the United States? Beautiful thoughts, thoughts that there is something bigger going on, a plan, a purpose, a happy ending. I am finishing my first full day of being twenty-nine. What a sexy age! I hardly believe I am still in my twenties, those restless years. This is just how I see it: I don't care how pulled together you may look, when you are in your twenties you are still a baby, still maturing. Somewhere I read the mind doesn't fully mature until the mid thirties and we are at our most potential to what we can offer the world in our sixties. I really like that. It gives me time back the magazines want you to believe is gone by the time you're twenty three and find the first dip of cellulite in your ass. (Or in my case, when you find it at fourteen). It's a beautiful thought to think we are at our very best at sixty years of age, a bit wrinkly but full of knowledge..."Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord, His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain..." Hosea 6:3. If my twenties have felt like a violent, dark tornado, I hope my sixties will be a decade of refreshing, reviving, nourishing rain. That I will know and feel and believe so purely in the faithfulness of God who loves me that all I will see are His blessings, His protection, His hand guiding my every move. His presence inflating my lungs with each breath I take in. Tornado or not, I am coming out of my twenties quite strong. Last weekend I got to spend so much time with the man I love, and who loves me. I had the most amazing birthday weekend with him. My oldest son made me two "love" posters for my birthday, and Noah spilled the beans when he told me early, "We got you a birthday present! I got you a toy and a sandwich!" Despite still having major patient issues at bedtime when I am with them alone, they fill my heart. They are beautiful thoughts.