guesswork: 1 - 5

1.
I can't: just be with you forever
Not practical: to be always hugging you 
I'm not "in the zone:" you make me think differently
I'm at home: you're working full time 
FaceTime: the best we can do for now.

2.
I guess: this is a season of hard work and it'll pass
I guess: there are seasons of pain when hurting is part of life
I guess: I have to focus on other things
I guess: I can learn to be happy even when I'm not with you all the time
I guess: I never thought I would have to

3.
I'm naive? and learning I have to suck it up
I want things? and sometimes I can't have them
Life? lots of hard work and things we don't want to do but need to do
Throwing a tantrum? I have been and it won't get me what I want
What I want? I won't want long-term

4.
If we could be together all the time
If you weren't always selling
If you weren't going to flight School
If you would never be deployed
If I never had to worry that you'd never come home

5.
We'd have other chains, ones that do less good for us and others.
The tree in front of me is green and real and tall and still,
I have enough food and water and air and kind people for now,
When I go outside the breeze will tell me that God is thinking about me.
Cut our teeth, pay our dues, commit to the season, breathe in. 

I'll try to smile, slowly, until I feel it become real. 

i collect feet

froze my toes

painting the nursery

halloween

two man band

wandering the Jewish quarter

green valley gap 

May 16th

little brother's shoes

first night in Jordan

Galilee

5:43 AM

Gardeners

How am I the one sitting inside? 

Tall ceilings, large windows, swimming pool. 

I eat an apple, read for my college class, at a wooden desk in a vaulted and air conditioned room. 

How are you the one outside? 

Big hands, under the sun, clothes well worn, dirt-stained, sweaty. 

You are focused on the lawn mower, the edging, outside the window you stride and watch the grass grow shorter. 

Flowers hang like clusters of jellybeans on vines, color climbs roses up the wall,

and you snip things in the flowerbed below.

You are more valuable than what you are gardening

to me

do you know?

how did it come to be this way,

that I type away at 3:00 and snack on fruit,

and

you look in my window and smile.