thank*full

for the past couple weeks, i've worried considerably about my family's health.

surprisingly, i suppose, my pregnancy has been so great that it hasn't factor a whole lot (knock on wood!) into this worrying.

when you find out scary news, or you jump to the worst conclusions, it feels like the world is totally different, like it's completely scary and uncontrollable, not to mention unfair.  it becomes hard to imagine how you ever thought about other things, like facebook, clothes and what to eat, before your world changed.  you worry that your perspective is forever changed.

but then, you find out incredibly relieving news and after the storm, you feel liberated and the world is suddenly better than it's ever been.  color, taste, weather.  you feel completely fortunate to have the opportunity to waste time, without fear or worry, and euphoric that you have what you have.  suddenly, you feel thankful for the world you're in and the things and people that comprise it; you wonder how you ever lost sight of how much good and fortune there is out there, how much of it has been given to you.

today i'm incredibly thankful.  i'm content in the right now and very excited for what's to come.  who really knows how truly amazing "normal" is until it's tested?

this poem was read at our wedding.

just one mary oliver treasure:

the sun 

have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone--
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance--
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love--
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed--
or have you too
turned from this world--

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?