There is no remedy for love but to love more~Henri David Thoreau

This morning I was driving with Ginger after dropping Willow off at school, and as we crested a hill we were surrounded by brilliant sparkling light from the rising sun, reflecting off every surface which would allow itself to be reflective..
snow, fence, road, vinyl siding, frosted branch, passing car, metal roof..

And it was ALL made beautiful(in varying degrees, naturally..as far as I'm concerned there is only so much beauty that can be shared by vinyl siding, no matter what) by the prismatic beams of the January sun.

We knew we were seeing something divine on our ordinary commute, and Ginger seemed just as connected to the experience as I was.

For me, love has a similar effect on life's ordinary landscape. It bathes the ordinary with prismatic light, and makes things which were already beautiful all the more brilliant.
As for things that previously sucked the beauty right out of their surroundings like so much vinyl siding..well, they still suck, but have less ability to rob the beauty around them.

I'm learning to be more comfortable with the coexistence of light and darkness(joy and sadness, ease and pain), and as I do I'm becoming more grateful for life; especially the parts that matter most.

I haven't read much Rumi, but intend to change that this year. This thought helped me to take a very deep breath once when I really needed it:

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek & find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

More than ever in my life, I feel prepared to embrace the challenge of that introspective work.

I recently accepted Daniel's marriage proposal with great happiness, and we are in the process of preparing our home to be filled with the noise of four growing children and LOTS of music. The place is surrounded by trees and close to Lake Michigan..for these and countless other reasons, I'm looking forward to the rest of winter.