Tag Archives: love

If Love was a House

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If love was a house,
where would it live?

Would it settle in the kitchen?
Listening and bowing…
food washed tender and chopped with time, nourishment brought from afar…
board games and laughter and milk spilled and cookies baked…
round the table and a family at each meal?

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Would it stake claim in the living room?
Cozy and warm…
snuggles on the couches and stories in forts…
foot rubs and late night movies and popcorn…
lips to hot foreheads and hands bringing ginger ale?

Would it dwell in the playroom?
Loud and giggling…
other worlds being built and workshops noisy…
messes and kingdoms and broken pieces…
creativity and growing in action?

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Or maybe it would choose the big bedroom?
Quiet hush…
stately with moonlight and quilts warm and soft…
romance and laughter, breast milk, jambly stacks of books, throw up and icy little feet…
beauty and refreshment, life and rest?

Or would it pick the front porch?
Sunny spot…
collection site for trash out and loved ones in…
where home meets the world, the going to love those outside…
the coming to gather up the air of here?

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Would love settle in the learning rooms?
Pencil places…
where reports get written and bills get paid…
the mundane details that are done by heart…
that keep the train on its tracks?

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Or maybe the bathroom?
Clean and refreshing…
bodies scrubbed and toes counted and teeth tidied…
and parents hide for small vacations and isn’t a toilet scrubbed…
all in a day’s work?

Or would love forsake the rooms and instead choose the walls?
Fingerprints rub…
photos hang, and calendar pages stand sentry waiting to be flipped while masterpieces are scrawled with glee in crayon. Food sticks and holes happen and memories ooze…
…and clinging to the foundation they breathe out and seem to whisper

right here.

Love lives right here.

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Space 22

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Children yelling joyfully

as mothers prepare packs for a hike.

Sausage sizzling on our campfire,

sweet aroma twisted

with the musty scent of camp smoke.

Wild roses filling the neck of our beer bottle,

her barbs still lodged in my thumbs.

Quiet, you’ll come back soon

and we’ll have breakfast…

…together.

Song of Silence

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We didn’t talk for almost two days. And in the silence…

…we found each other.

Of course it was my idea, to go the weekend without speaking.

“What?!” I was crazy for suggesting it he thought.

Not in a silent treatment sort of way. I assured him. Our life is just so loud. Kids, animals, phones, dishes, diapers, music, school. The sounds are just too many sometimes.

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk!”

But we only get one weekend right?

And if we only get this one weekend, just these two little days each year, how do we make sure our ears won’t hear those noises while we’re gone?

“Hm. Well I guess. If you really want to. If it’s time to go get a cheeseburger though I’m gonna tell you.”

So we drove in the quiet. Kids happy with the sitter. The noises falling on the ears of another for 48 sweet hours. And we just held hands.

And what he thought was going to be weird was the happiest weekend of all.

It was so quiet in the car that our love was the only thing we heard and it filled our ears with a song we’d not known before.

The problems of the week went away and the mountains on the horizon looked beautiful.

The discussions that begged our attention weren’t an option and the sunset was like no other.

The food tasted better.

The time seemed slower.

He was so handsome when I wasn’t worrying over the stain on his shirt.

He became more deliberate when he didn’t have a constant stream of woman words in his ear.

There was peace in my soul.

And we were one.

We’ve not done that since that weekend. But that one weekend of not talking,- of deciding to set down the things that screamed to be picked up – that became a place, a rest. When the foxes come and tease and threaten to destroy…to take our peace…to lesson our bond, I have the memory of that weekend and I have the skills to quiet my soul, to hush my priorities and just.get.quiet.with.him.

Our life is louder now. But that one weekend of quiet showed me where to go when it gets too noisy. It was my teaching time, a short lesson in what it means to be hushed with my love, to be still in my spirit. It showed me how to turn down the noise, mute the loudness of this life and quiet my heart to catch a moment with him so that all I hear is our song….

…of sweet silence.

Be still, and know that I am God. ~Psalm 46:10

© Cassandra Rankin