Prairie Lily Arts

When You Say "I Love You"... Stop

 
I love you. The words tumble easily to those who hold our hearts.  As the car door closes, as the phone call ends, as quilts draw up about shoulders and lights switch off...  "I love you" spills naturally.

When spoken through years of days and moments, crests and valleys, "I love you" flows without hesitation.  No break in stride. No lingering of eyes. No pause between sentences, nor change of inflection. We speak the treasured into the ordinary.

Yet these gems of words are so worthy of  intention.  Softened tone, warm cupping of the face, smiling eyes, fingers interlaced... and the world stops.  For a split moment... nothing else exists, but the exchange of one heart for another... held fast in safekeeping.

Cherished are the hearts... so shall be the words.  I love you.

Suz

Double Malt... Double Straws

 
I had to laugh.  I had to laugh out loud... breaking the still of a quiet house, dim with sleep.  I laughed at myself... simple girl... in a big world.  Sometimes that world seems much smaller when the Facebook exchanges come from those in countries of unrest... not knowing whether the day would mean violence too foreboding for children to join together in play and song, when the morning's conference call brings together colleagues around the world... sunrise for some... sunset for others, when dear ones I haven't seen or heard in years feel like they are but a step away.  In those moments, indeed the world seems smaller... closer.

Words of Love

Tenderly I open pages aged delicate.  More than words, more than poems, songs of two hearts overflowing... the love of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning spilling out in ink. She wanted so wholly to please that for so very long she could not even bear to show him those of these that were hers, lest they not fully express the soul music she longed to sing into his as if a bow across heartstrings.

Among the leaves of print I find a note card... adorned with roses stained by time.  Flowing script speaks of the sale of an estate.  Between the lines I read love.  Time is but air.  We must breathe it in, drink it in, feed it to our hearts, drawing it into our deepest core...  or it is gone.  It does not come again.  It doesn't linger by the path as we hesitate.  It is simply for that moment.  Followed by another... and another.  Until a river of months and years and lifetimes have been swept in its current.

 

Now is now.  Now is the moment to listen rather than hear, to hold rather than loose, to gaze rather than glance, to love rather than feign... neither deflect.

When I Grow Up...

 
I love listening to little boy dreams.  I need to stop more often... for more moments... to hear them with my heart... these aspirations soaring above clouds, above obstacles, above limitations.  Eyes dance.  Words race fast. One thought building on the one before, as if constructing life bricks this second out of sheer breath and lamp light. 

 
"Mama when I grow up I want to...."

When does that stop?

When do we stop dreaming? Reaching? Building?

Window on the World

 Through a lens obscured,

Light streams.

Like an icy wall,

Shimmering crystal slips away

One drop at a time,

Wrapped in the warmth of the sun.

 

Skies clear,

Like sapphire pools washing.

Barriers melt.

The Still Moments

 
Frozen.

The world slows.

A breathtaking,

Reflective,

Stillness.

How often do we reach,

Struggling to unlock words...

When stillness speaks?

When eyes read each letter written upon your soul,

When fingers interlock,

When tears are cupped like unbroken crystals

Lest they splash upon the floor,

When a rosy cheek of slumber

Rests peacably upon your shoulder,

When laughter floats

As feet leave the ground...

Stillness speaks.

Now is Now, Happy New Year

 

"Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,

And the days of auld lang syne?

And the days of auld lang syne, my friend,

And the days of auld lang syne,

Shall auld acquaintance be forgot,

And the days of auld lang syne?"

 

When the fiddle had stopped singing Laura called out softly, "What are days of auld lang syne, Pa?"

Giving Thanks: A Life of Plenty

 

I could not begin to number the blessings in my life.

Thank you, truly, for visiting this quiet place...

for strolling along with me...

some for a moment...

some for a lifetime.

Won't you join hands with me

at The Homeschool Village

as I offer simple, heartfelt thanks

for a life of plenty?

Blessings to you this day and always.

From my family's table to yours,

Susan

A Fall Day on the Farm

 A breathtaking, easy, fall day on the farm...

Brothers being silly....

Fall Reflections

 

Fall called this afternoon from our back door. 

So my little guy and I headed down to the creek. 

We discovered the world along the way. 

Warm Fuzzies

 

Warm fuzzies... and it's not just the luxurious caress of a cashmere robe on summer skin, nor the piping hot bath with creamy, lavender bubbles.

Yesterday was a big deal to me.  Milestones. Chapters opening. I was able to share it with a best friend who knew me before I even built the home in which we now laugh.  And then I heard my Dad's voice... my rock.  My mom's voice... my soft place to land.  The voice of a heart friend who shares my penchant for peeking at the last page before the journey is barely underway.  The ding of a news-filled email arriving from a trusted long-time confidante.  The last chocolate cupcake on my grandma's serving dish, topped with a heaping swirl of butter cream.  A birth announcement from the delivery room as a childhood friend becomes a daddy, anew... first moments of a brand-new life.    The momentous, the everyday, the solitary and the shared.

A Brand New Day

I'm a morning person... and a night owl.  (How did that happen?)  The rising sun bathes the horizon with a daily gift of renewal.  I love to wake up quietly... a cozy quilt... diffused lights... the melody of the birds and the harmony of the creek... the aroma of sweet, cinnamon goodness drifting from the oven.  Bare toes step onto tender, dew-drenched grass, and I drink in the cool morning mist... releasing it slowly.  I ease into a chair on the porch and draw my knees up to my chest, resting my cheek.  I watch and listen.  These moments are fleeting... and beautiful.  A brand new day.

Accountability for the "Not-To-Be-Forgotten" List

 
Soft golden light bathes this retreat of a corner where I write.  I draw a plush blanket close and release long, slow breaths of contentment while I listen to the increasingly distant rumble of a magnificent summer storm.  The lightning and thunder punctuating the night displayed an intensity I've not witnessed in this house before. For split seconds, over and over again, these quiet, dim rooms were illuminated like a stage accompanied by crashing crescendos.  I breathe in...long and deep, until my lungs can hold no more.  The world slows. The night grows still.

Last month I wrote a post about this intentional kind of slowing down.  I smiled when one of my blogging buddies was friend enough to come back later and ask me how I was progressing in accomplishing my list of things "not to be forgotten"... the things that really matter most.  True friends care enough to hold us accountable.

Summer? I Missed Your Smile!

 

There is something about summer that makes me smile.  I love all of the seasons.  Particularly, I simply marvel in watching them transition.  But summer?  Well, it has a unique allure.  Perhaps, it is because summer beckons us outdoors, out of routines, out of habit, out of the familiar, out of false ceilings.  Summer is a season of discovery... adventure... new heights.   I smile at the memories of summers before... but I positively beam with anticipation for those yet to come!  Summer...  I run to you with open arms, swept up in your embrace... spinning round, feet off the ground!   So glad you're here...

Let me count the ways!   I love....

Daddy's Girl

Too many miles span, rivers divide, prairies stretch and roads cross between there and here tonight.  Thoughts jumble too much to write the poetry intended... but he's never been much for fancy or refined anything.  So I pour my coffee black, the way he would, in a blue speckled mug...  from Mark Twain Dinette.  I remind myself of one thing he's always taught me.  Distance doesn't matter.  Period.

To My Airman, With Love

 
Last Saturday felt like the best hug from my beloved Airman.  As I walked beneath the wings and bellies of Air Force planes and shared time with our troops at Robins AFB, I missed my dad.  These machines and our cherished armed forces apparently course through the blood.  I felt like I was coming home.

Friday Favorites

Remember when Fridays were comfy nights of ease hanging out with your friends?  Saturdays seemed to be reserved for date night... sometimes exhilarating, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes quietly disappointing.  But no matter what was planned on Saturday, Friday nights were that sweet time when you could be you.

We all have those favorite places, things, and people who set us entirely at ease.  We've been around the block with them a host of times.  Their familiarity feels like a warm hug.

Here are a handful of my Friday favorites: