But none of that happened.
As I cuddled up on the couch for this much anticipated "adventure," I first checked my email, and immediately saw an email from my sister, Tami. She had sent me a link to a blog entitled This Life I Live, written by Rory Feeks about his life with Joey Feeks, his wife of 13 years. They are a well-known country duo in the music world right outside of Nashville.
I was immediately entrenched and started at the very beginning: January 2014, and worked my way through to November, 2015. The blog is gut wrenching, fascinating, real. It's a testimony to a beautiful life filled with simple things, family, love. In case any of you choose to read it yourselves, I won't give anything away. Suffice it to say, it is a tender, heart wrenching testimony, embedded with videos and songs they sing together that bring meaning to the content of the particular blog.
I started around 7:00 and put my iPad away at about 9:30, utterly drenched in life with the Feeks. It stuck with me all night, and all morning on this Veterans Day.
This morning I listened to one of their songs: That's Important to Me. It shows their life on their Tennessee farm where they live simply with no tv, no smart phones, cows, chickens, and their dog. She makes home cooked foods in their kitchen and watches the fireflies in the evening on their swing. It's filled with reminders of what is truly important in this life we live.
And it got me thinking about what's important to me. Sometimes, life turns into such a rat race, each day blurring into the next, and it's easy to get caught up in pointless worries such as others' opinions, others' lives, finances, petty arguments, petty ideas.
Sometimes we all need reminders that life is about love, simplicity, family, meaningful relationships, butterflies, art, a warm home, our pets, bursting flowers, towering mountains, crashing waves.
Sometimes we need to remember that it's more important to give of ourselves to those who are less fortunate than we are, that we are all connected, we are all one, doing the best we can on this planet where life can throw curveballs that are brutal in unspeakable ways.
Recently I was at work early one morning on a dark, cold, rainy day. I went into our little kitchenette that has a window that looks directly out to a little park area, the main street, and the courthouse on the other side. I noticed a growing circle of people huddled around a little woman sitting on a park bench with her head in her hands. It was clear the people surrounding her--all strangers by the looks of things--were concerned. One covered her with his umbrella while another scrambled for her phone. Shortly after, the EMTs arrived and placed her on a gurney, and headed off, sirens wailing.
I noticed the woman had her purse, was dressed in a skirt and jacket, and was clearly out for a day of purpose.
And now? Well, now who knows. Maybe she's fine and home resting from a scare.
But maybe she's not. I'll never know.
But what I do know is that life holds no promises. Each day is a gift and when we focus on the stress and the unfairness of it all and the negative cycles that run rampant through our heads, we trade beauty for cheap living; we trade negativity for joy.
I want to live deliberately, to ease the pain for others, to create more smiles than frowns. I want to focus on laughter, mashed potatoes, the woven woods right outside my sliding glass door. I need more walks down Holcombe Cove Road where I can't help but look up.
I want to live what's important to me.
Rory's blog
This is just beautiful!!
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