Because A Wish Can Be A Sign Too

Everybody has had at least one storybook kiss.

So in honor of Valentine’s Day, here is a sign and my kiss.

It was an evening wedding in October. It was the first time I ever saw my then-boyfriend in a tux. He thought he looked hot. I rolled my eyes at him every time he looked at me. But I thought he looked good too.

The night wind rolled up the vineyard and through the open doors of the reception. We held hands and wandered onto the patio. Just to talk. Just to hold hands. Just to be so enamored with love and each other and the night and the air and the wine…

Then came that moment when all went suddenly still. He leaned in and kissed me, and I swear he kissed me straight to my heart.

Are you ready for the magical moment?

When I opened my eyes, I saw a shooting star.

Right there across the velvet sky.

I gasped and he pulled me closer.

“Did you see it?”

“Can you believe it?”

And two more stars shot across the October sky.

“It is a sign,” I whispered.

“Make a wish,” he insisted as he kissed me.  It was poetry.

As W. H. Auden wrote:

How would we like it were the stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?
If unequal affections must be,
Let the more loving one be me.

While my wish from that night hasn’t come true yet, I did learn a few things. I learned I have the capacity to be the more loving one and to love a more loving one. I learned I am worthy of storybook kisses. I learned to look to the stars for signs. Because they are always there.

And one day I will make them fall again.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sign of Love

After a couple of long nights up with my mom, who is newly recovering from her knee replacement surgery, my dog Mayzie and I are tired. Pooped.  But both of us know that staying up with her late at night is exactly where we need to be and we are happy to do it. 

Mayzie's unfailing call to duty and unconditional love is more than that of a dog. 

She displays the simplest and purest of loves. And that love forces me to realize something.

When we first got her as a little puppy, I was an excited grade schooler, ready to have the perfect golden retriever puppy. Because then she would turn into the perfect dog.  She would never get sick or misbehave or make me mad. She would be perfect.

But here she is, nine years later.

And she is far from perfect.  She has calluses on her rear.  She has bad breath.  She is very lumpy.  She sometimes smells funny. She likes to chew apart stuffed toys.  She has a very short attention span.

And because of all of that, because of the countless late nights and imperfect moments, she has become the perfect dog.  And she has inspired the best of loves within me.

I love her, lumps bumps burps and all.

So while my mom is recovering from her knee surgery, Mayzie and I are going to be patient.  We are going to be helpful. And we are going to remind her that we love her, swollen lumps late nights and many ice packs later.

It is more than a sign of family. It is a sign of love.

Sign You Need to Sleep.

Today was incredible, purely on possibilities alone.  Adding in the rest, it was astronomical.  And as I write that, shooting stars go by in my mind.

Wishes, signs, wishes for signs.

I wanted to write something really profound about how life and love is a marathon.  Or that I was enchanted. Depth, gravity, fortune cookies. They were all there.

But the best I could come up:

You are greater than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fried or quesadilla form.

That is pretty big in my book.  And you stole my words. 

That's a sign I need sleep right, an absence of adequate words?  Maybe, just maybe this is a continued sign of love. 



www.dreamstime.com/stars-and-hearts-image4052631



Signs It Could Be Love (prelude)

There are many signs out there that point to whether what you are feeling is truly love or not.

This particular one comes from a conversation I had with someone I care deeply about.

I could really fall for you I said frankly.

You mean you haven't already?! Because it seems to me that you already have fallen, down a cliff, off of another smaller cliff, down a canyon into a chasm!

he said as he smiled (and kissed me)

...when you know you are falling, but only feel like you are flying...you know it is love.     

picture courtesy of: http://www.adrianabasques.com/html/galleries/121/latest/canyons/28