day and night.

  More from this absolutely fantastic wedding, soon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent Christmas day on a farm in Georgia with friend's of my mom's. I wasn't sure what to expect as we drove the back country roads to their one-room, very rustic house. I'd heard stories in the days leading up to Christmas that I was in for a unique experience. Unique meant a wood stove, farm animals, fiddle playing, fresh goat's milk, baby lambs, an outdoor restroom, pies baked with tiny quail eggs, and a coziness that you usually only feel in the comfort of your own home, not with people you've just met. But within minutes of being there I was sitting on the kitchen floor feeding a bottle to a baby lamb. The warmth from the huge wood stove in that tiny room was nothing compared to the friendliness coming from the other ten people around me. There was a table covered in at least five pies, baked fresh that morning from blueberries and pecans picked on their land. After dinner I received a long tour from one of the daughters, showing me the goats, lambs, quail, ducks, and three tents of rabbits at all stages of life. It was cold, raining, and the sun was quickly going down, but I couldn't stop smiling. In my rain jacket and rubber boots I could of stayed outside all night, pretending for the evening to be a farm girl and hold baby rabbits that were just hours old. We ended the evening with hot coffee and pie, carols played by fiddle, conversation, pecan shelling, and one more bottle feeding to Lamby, the baby lamb. It didn't feel like Christmas. There were no presents to unwrap, and no tree to unwrap them under. There wasn't wassail simmering on the stove, or games. But there was warmth and there was music and, most of all, there was togetherness.

take a sip.

On a Sunday in early December I went for a sail. Also on that boat was a cute, blonde six-year-old girl full of gumption. (Don't you just love that word?) Between giggles and silly six-year-old questions, like "What if the ocean was made of chocolate?!?", she announced that we all stop and take a drink of the air. So we did. She said, "It taste so good!"

I've always, always wanted to go sailing. I guess if I had a bucket list, it would have been on it. And that Sunday in December met all of my hopeful ideals for sailing. And the dolphins we saw? They were just icing on the cake. But of ALL the things I took away from that day, I remembered what Hana, the six-year-old, said the most. To stop, and not only take a deep breath, but drink it in. Really, really taste it.

I've thought of this many times since then. If only Hana knew that such a simple statement would make such an impact on me. Often over the last couple of months I will randomly stop and take a few deep breaths. One to make me slow down, another to pay attention, and the last one, a drink. A big sip. A lungful of everything present in that moment.