sticky

The cicadas are deafening in their buzz this morning. The air is slow and thick. Summer has been here forever and there are no other seasons this year. The snow won't pile where I'm sitting, skirt hiked above my knees and my fingers sticky with plum. The leaves won't fall in drifts and showers covering the garden and the grass. The air won't crisp and cool and smell of apples. It has all drooped and oozed until it puddled in this moment of distilled August.

a slow simmer

Our anniversary was yesterday and I have been thinking a lot about us lately. We never set out to define ourselves as a couple - you know the adventure couples, or the cooking couples, or the thinking couples - and yet here we are with what seems to be a clear and consistent pattern to our relationship. We are a couple that journeys together.

Both of our anniversary cards to each other included the concept of our life as a journey and the other as the ideal companion on the way. And it is. And we are.

In the last eight years together we have traveled thousands of miles together, cooked great meals together, thought big thoughts together. We have felt joy, and panic, and loss, and exhaustion, and always more joy. We find ourselves on the verge of yet more journey - not yet at the place where we will see how it feels to settle as a couple - and together we are ready.

The years of traveling the earth together have given us the opportunity to merge and release who we are to each other that makes life full and sweet and tender no matter the obstacles and the unknowns.

"In the end, all the distinct...characteristics meld and emerge as something truly greater than the sum of their parts." Molly Stevens, All About Braising, The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking