For inspiration to notice surrounding beauty, to feel gratitude, to face challenges and fears while sipping your favorite coffee roast or a beverage of your choice, check out my latest book:More than Coffee.
This post is darker than most of mine, but life isn’t always rosy, so writing about those difficult times when we question our feelings can be therapeutic. Have you found yourself in a similar situation?
**************************************************************** For inspiration to notice surrounding beauty, to feel gratitude, to face challenges and fears while sipping your favorite coffee roast or another beverage of your choice, check out my latest book: More than Coffee.
Since the beginning of you and I, we have bought thirty-three calendars. I know you like your coffee beige and that cereal is your feast on weekday mornings, but on weekends, you’ll skillfully whip up an omelet. I’ve never mastered the egg flip. I know which of your shirts have hung around for the long haul and if you could backpack every day, you would. If you had a choice: flip flops or hiking boots, the boots would win by a broad margin. I know our children have the best dad. You think you’re lucky finding me, but I am the lucky one… to wake up each morning with your pillow beside mine, to witness the sun’s first peek through the window, to vie for blankets on a January night. We are ears and rocks for each other, having mastered the flavors and textures, while learning each other’s landscape. But the depth of our devotion has not reached its full potential. There is more closeness to discover in spaces yet to be revealed. I feel like a grand prize winner in this thing called life where do-overs aren’t magically offered. You and I became an Us, and as more lines come into light, as more grays persist, even if feet shuffle and bones ache, there will be more calendars to hang.
This poem is one of four that I contributed to the anthology, Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships. A beautiful collection of poetry where twelve poets reveal their most personal moments, compiled by Kaye Lynne Booth and Robbie Cheadle.
Remember in our younger years how you’d touch your lips to mine while standing on the step when we cold-shouldered time? No letting-go desire of the embrace that held us near No care in the world was matched in that moment that we shared Who knew those doorstep kisses would carry us this distance? (floating in a state-of-mind of tender reminiscence)
Lauren Scott (c) ❤️ Do you have memories of doorstep kisses?
During the visit, there’s something about the clothes strewn on the floor soon to be dumped in the washer, wallet lying on the dresser, cell plugged in, bed comforter in shambles
because the messiness means he’s home.
Now with air miles accumulated back in the familiar time zone, his room shines, neatness grating on my nerves, silence like receiving the cold shoulder.
My hand pulls back the comforter, tousling, creating wrinkles and lumps in the navy fabric as though rumpled from a restful night’s sleep, then I pull some old shirts from the closet, tossing them on the floor just so I can pretend the good-byes hadn’t found freedom.
If we listed in longhand the number of sweet things in life, our lists would be never-ending. We’d write constantly, the pen would never get a rest, the amount of paper we’d need would be extensive, and our hand would begin to scream from exhaustion. Well, I haven’t been writing forever, and you know I’m typing this post, but here are a few sweet things that come to mind, and I hope we never take our lists for granted… Swimming in a sparkling lake that soothes the body from scorching heat and sweat of the day, reading a book you can’t put down – a real page-turner that interrupts chores, walking beneath a cerulean sky, hiking on a mountain top hearing birds practicing their choral selection sitting high in the tall trees and those sky-scraping trees shading your path, listening to the joyful giggles of children, observing in awe a star-filled night, touching soft, tiny feet of a baby who smiles back at you, witnessing your children’s triumphs, knowing someone gets you, that first fall into love, whispers of a warm, summer breeze, viewing graceful butterflies in flight, new vivid blooms in springtime, unexpected acts of kindness, answered prayers, writing down those thoughts, a hummingbird flitting about, melodies that comfort the heart and mind, and melodies that get you on your feet and make you wanna dance, a creamy chocolate indulgence, and a tender, slow kiss on the lips…truly the icing on the cake.
Lauren Scott (c) ❤️ My son made this carrot cake, my favorite dessert of all, and believe me, it was divine! Carrot cake is also the topic of a fun and sentimental story in my book, More than Coffee.
A time so long ago, yet the memory in technicolor… I want to rip the page from my mind’s photo album, because my heart was foolish to fall for that man, our skies different our dreams astray, but the heart’s pulse beats to a tune of its own choosing, never inspired by logic, nor will it ever be shatterproof. But this man wasn’t a cockroach. I never wished to stomp on him, like others who preceded. And so, I’m grateful, for without that page I wouldn’t have stumbled upon the path that led me to my love at last.
Baydreamer Writes ~ Lauren Scott, Author & Poet 