Blessed

Joy comes in the morning, sometimes. I felt real twinges of joy, this morning, as Rachel, Zach, the girls, and I rode down the sunlit road to the zoo.

We love the zoo. We could go to the zoo once a week, and, sometimes (with our annual passes), we do. I would've never purchased annual zoo passes when Cade was little like the girls are, now. I had a completely different mindset, back then: a been-there-done-that mindset. I didn't understand: a person can visit the zoo regularly and have a different experience, every time.

Today, my zoo experience involved a great deal of animal friskiness. I grew up on small farms, so it's not like I'd never seen animals getting it on. But I'm telling you: I'd never seen so many different species of animals getting busy in one day. I saw birds getting it on...tigers, and giraffes. And--honest engine--even the penguins were looking ready to go.

For the first time, today, I saw mice eating tortoise poop.

Zach caught him a chicken. He tried to catch him a baby goat, too, but it scrambled back into the lot with its mother.

Bottom line: Rachel and I laughed our fool heads off, even though--I'm not going to lie--we both did it looking a little like we'd just endured some darkness and weeping. Because we had. But we'd made our way into the sunlight and warm air to observe animals being all twitterpated and kids feeding giraffes and chasing peacocks.

Photo by Rachel Huff

Photo by Rachel Huff

And I thought: I'm going to be ok. I looked at Rachel and marveled at her choosing to do life with me, to participate in some sort of spiritual, three-legged race with me. We're awkward, sometimes; we trip, sometimes; but we're in it, together.

Also, I think we're winning.

Later, I discovered this, in my mailbox:

Beautiful, right? Made by my friend Terye's hands, out of her heart. Check out more of her lovely pieces here.

I am blessed.