Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label farm. Show all posts

Sunday 28 September 2008

Barn none.

Turn me inside out and upside down
And try to see things my way
Turn a new page, tear the old one out
And I'll try to see things your way

Please come here
Please come on over
There is no line that you can't step right over
Without you well I'm left hollow
So can we decide to try a little joy tomorrow
Because baby tonight I'll follow
Yesterday Ben endured no small amount of loving ribbing from the guys, everything from welcoming him into the kitchen for breakfast from congratulating him on his clear and precise enunciation. He got hugs and slaps on the back that would have knocked me down. He got smiles from the guys, they're happy to have him back and relaxed and no angry and defensive anymore. Encouragement, in boy-form.

it was nice, you know? He says it will hold. He got the mother of all scares Thursday night when he said something to me that was something Cole had said, word for word, and I pointed that out and he hasn't touched a drink since that moment.

So maybe it will hold.

It's another beautiful sunny day here on the farm and we're going for another ride. An early one, only Nolan is up so far, he's already done the chores with Ben's help and he's going to field breakfast for the kids while Ben and I take our favorite horses to picnic rock for a picnic breakfast. With jackets on and thermoses of hot coffee. And two big blankets, one to sit on, one to snuggle in.

For some more...encouragement. Yeah, we'll call it that. Have a great day.

Saturday 27 September 2008

Stealing one last breath of summer.

Maybe it isn't quite summer anymore, since it's fall already and last night saw us arrive at Nolan's farm in a caravan of trucks and smiles in the 0-degree midnight sky.

But it sure feels like it, being here.

Ben and I brought the kids and August brought the lobster, Chris brought Erin, Daniel and Schuyler brought each other, and John came too because eventually August will run out of lobster and John would like to have a hand in that event. And something about even numbers, too. I've never seen Nolan so thrilled to come out on his veranda and see us all piling out with our weekend gear, Ben and John with sleeping children in their arms, since we got the kids ready for bed and drove out at bedtime.

Ben and I crashed hard in our room, the one with all the antlers and the Mexican blankets that I love so much, so tired, such a long week behind us. Ben has stopped again, and whether it's for the moment or for the rest of his life, I like him without the liquid courage, I like him without the liquid mean and out here at the farm I don't hold my breath, he will attend meetings all weekend and soak up the strength of men who are stronger than he is and we'll just plain bask in this place where we fell in love, where he proposed and where we got married.

But isn't life always easier on a farm? Maybe we should move here.

When I woke up this morning I slid out from under Ben's arms and pulled on my jeans and Ben's sweater and went out to make coffee. There were dishes everywhere, and the fire was already made. Nolan gets up very early and the note on the table said he had gone for an early ride to get the last of the apples, if maybe I would make a pie for dessert tonight, to help ourselves, to enjoy the time, and he would be back in time to see to the kids' breakfast, since the kids have a tendency to sleep in here as well. Everyone does, and that's why I'm sitting alone here by the fire with my laptop at the breakfast bar enjoying some serious quiet of my own.

Maybe we should move here.

It's a far cry from yesterday morning, standing in luxury warehouse lofts with Caleb, lamenting wearing my black wool gabardine coat and my five-inch spiked-heel boots because I was hot and uncomfortable and worried and tired and Caleb did wind up buying the last loft we looked at before he tried to pull a trick on me, needing to stop at his hotel, and I wasn't buying it and came home early to be with Ben and was so glad I did because he had his head on so straight yesterday you could have used it as a level.

No, today is like being on a different planet. A planet where the object of my heart's desire has black-tinged circles under his eyes and shaking hands, but those eyes look at me with love and those hands are cool and gentle and his own heart beats for me so loud most of the time I don't hear anything else anymore anyway, even though I know that out here the leaves are louder in their easy rustle from the wind, and the horses neigh gently in their paddock and the creek threads itself between the stones and under the little bridge and that one breath I've been holding for a week straight comes out in a rush, air filling my lungs, clearing my head and slowing my own heartbeat down enough so I can be calm, and still, and...

...happy.

Happy.

I like that.