This one time

This one time my love and I sat on our hand-me down couch and dreamed about the day when we would have our own little homestead. Chickens, because by now we were already egg snobs, pigs, cows, rabbits. The brainstorming continued, accompanied by giggles from me and miles of exaggerations from Jeff. The sky was really the limit for us when it came to talking about our dreams. It was so easy, and dreamy, really. And fun.

So we started with animals, all the ones we could think of. And bees, if those should be considered separate from animals. And then it progressed to the multiple children we would have, the parcels we would maybe divide for them and their children. The orchard we would design and all of the fruit we would grow and harvest, can and dry. The fruit pies I would hand make and sell at Our Diner which would sit in front of our house and serve everything farm fresh from our own yard.

We decided we would homeschool our kids because naturally we would need them around to help work on the farm. Not only that, but more importantly, because kids should have the chance to run around dirty and stay up until dusk without having schedules ruling their little worlds. We would do yoga in the backyard together and find frogs to dissect. We would write letters to our grandmothers in cursive and paint watercolors of the sunsets.

We would do summer kids' camps when the weather got warm and all the kids could come and feed chickens and collect eggs and then we would pick blueberries and make jam. Each kid could sleep in their tent or under the stars and go home the next day with their own little jar of blueberry jam and a developed appreciation for the outdoors.  After we all ate scrambled eggs for breakfast, of course.

We would plant a garden that outstretched as far as the eye could see and we would become one with the earth as we tended to it. We would cultivate our very souls together, in the backyard, planting seeds and discussing parables and requirements for seeds to grow strong plants and bare good fruit. We would grow exotic melons and lettuces and serve specialty salads at Our Diner with homemade dressings and kombucha.

And then this one time we sat on our new, gorgeous, white leather couch (now dirty from our barefoot, happy kids), and mentally checked off all the dream boxes that for so long were safe in our heads. They were happening. We were making them happen. And we wanted to cuddle, and laugh and dream out loud. But we were tired. And the sun would come early. And we were grateful, in an exhausted sort of way.

And in her own head the farmers wife gave thanks to God. Because He is so good. And then she kissed the farmer. And fell in love with him in a different sort of way. He looked a little older, up close, and she felt a little more close to him. Knowing where many of those lines on his face were born. So she grabbed him and she told him that he was her best. Best everything. And that it doesn't really matter if they are on an old couch or a new couch. It doesn't actually matter at all. As long as they are on the couch, together.