Echoes.

Today was a pretty solemn day. Not in the respectful, spiritual way - but more in the quiet, melancholy, oppressive way. It was a Saturday so I didn't set the alarm but got up at a pretty regular time anyway. After wasting an hour or so, I went to work out. After a Walmart and HEB run it was on to cleaning - dishes had to be done, downstairs had to be dusted and vacuumed, and the downstairs bathroom had to be cleaned.

This evening was very quiet. I started to watch the Mavs game, but soon lost interest (really abnormal!). I decided the best option was to take a book to Starbucks - drink non-spiffed up, normal decaf coffee and settle in.

But tonight was one of those nights... one of those nights when I wished I wished I was fixing two coffees instead of one - two sugars, not one as I like in mine - nonfat milk not half-and-half with just a hint of cinnamon. I wished it was just small talk, not deep pressing thoughts. Then we could sit and watch the game, and I could be charmingly patronizing about basketball and sports in general. Then, full from victory, we'd settle down leaning under lamps on opposite ends of the couch and I could dig into a book I've been dying to read. Then I could read aloud all the parts I liked, and my excited quotes would be matched with responses from some novel, or magazine - maybe the latest health news, or story from Hollywood, or movie review, or place to visit, or crafty project to try out.

I don't know why Me told I that it should be one of those nights, but I think it's because in my mind that scene is comfortable. There are no deep conversations because it's already been said. There are no illusions, or facades, no inhibitions. It is established, stable, yet free. There is no question of value or worth, no question of love. It just is. It just flows.

"And then I thought how very beautiful it was that God made Adam work for so long because there is no way, after a hundred years of being alone, looking for somebody whom you could connect with in your soul, that you would take advantage of a woman once you met one. She would be the most precious creation in all the world, and you would probably wake up every morning and look at her and wonder at her beauty, or the gentle, silent way she sleeps. It stands to reason if Byron, Keats, and Shelley made beauty from reflecting on their muses, having grown up around women all their lives, that even these sonnets could not capture the sensation Adam must have felt when he opened his eyes to find Eve."

- Donald Miller, from Searching for God Knows What