“Years ago, I could not have imagined a someday like this,” I said to Keith. We were sitting at an outside table on the terrace at the Byers Street Bistro. Later, we would read at the SWAG (Staunton, Waynesboro, Augusta Group) open mic located at SolArt Center nearby.
“We’ve come a long way, Sweetheart.” Keith winked as we touched drink glasses. “Who woulda thunk it?”
I smiled back. “Just think of the somedays we’ve experienced together.”
Someday we’ll find love
Keith and I met under circumstances that could only be described as God having a hand in it every step of the way. My move from Texas to Baltimore, the Presidents’ Day blizzard of 2003, finding his profile letter online after he’d withdrawn it from a different site, his prayer, my email to him that he almost deleted, our first meeting, our first kiss.
Oh. My. Goodness!!
We became engaged on our fourth date and married three years later. Next month, we’ll celebrate our eighteenth wedding anniversary. After years of struggling on our own, “someday” things got easier, things got brighter.
Together.
Someday we’ll live in the mountains
In his book 11: Indispensable Relationships You Can’t Be Without, Leonard Sweet wrote: “If you had told me when I was starting out that someday ‘living a landscape’ would be one of my greatest dreams, I would have responded, ‘It’s one thing to be honest together, but let’s not be stupid together.’” His point? Everyone needs a place; everyone needs to live in a landscape. ‘Withness’ in nature is central to who we are. So, it is with Keith and me, living in Vanaprastha, bowered this spring day with mountain laurel in bloom.
Sweet: “…there are two kinds of stories to tell: moving-in stories and moving-on stories. Moving-in stories are stories with roots: home-sweet-home books about sanctuary, security, and solitude. Moving-on stories are stories with wings: blue-highways books about pilgrimages, on-the-road again restlessness, and homesickness.”
Who we are is shaped by where we are, and both who and where influence the stories we tell.
Someday we’ll be published authors
One of the items in Keith’s profile letter was his plan to write. I had no idea what I would do in the third stage of life until guided to writing. Then Keith and I became each other’s first readers and editors. A year ago, I wrote about both of us seeing our books in print soon. And it has happened. Keith’s science fiction novel The Starflower, a winged moving-on story about a world far in the future, was published last August. My faith memoir Wisdom Builds Her House, a rooted moving-in story about building a literal and metaphorical house, releases on August 20th, now available for pre-order.
An easier and brighter someday: loving, living, and writing all because of the Spirit’s guidance.
Linkup with Five Minute Friday: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2024/05/09/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-someday/
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What a beautiful story, Carole! Isn’t it wonderful to look back in the amazing way God brings about His plans in our lives? Thanks for sharing your memories and accomplishments. 👍🏅🏆💕
Ah, thank you, dear Ann! Yes, indeed, the Spirit guides us – if we listen.
Carole, I appreciate your story about the journey you and Keith have enjoyed over the past 18 years. Colleen and I met through similar circumstances (between Montana and Ohio), and we’ve been blessed with 17 years together. Best wishes to both of you.
Happy anniversaries – every day is a blessing.