DOUG'S UNAPPRAISED MASTERPIECE

For various reasons, including that we left our second vehicle overnight in the parking lot at my husband's work, I dropped him off at his office this morning on my way to work.  I drove, which is out of the ordinary for us as he drives almost always.  I kind of like that he drives me around to most places we go together.  I am still getting used to this as my previous marriage dynamics were not such.  None-the-less, as I am driving the 7-8 minute drive downtown to his office I see him looking at me.  He is gazing intently.  I know what he is thinking as it is plastered all over his face.  I ask him why he is looking at me.  He just smiles at first - this smile of satiation, of contentment, of joy.  I keep driving.  He keeps looking.  We keep this up for a bit - me letting him have his extreme moment of pleasure and him not ready to let loose of what he is seeing, what he is feeling.  I smile clear to my very soul with a sense of completeness, humbleness, a measure of disbelief, and amazement over what this soul love has done for me.  I let it soak in.  His words that match the look in his eyes and on his face come out brushed with a sort of amazement.  They come out in the way you might feel if you stumbled across a sunset that painted the sky magnificent, or a walk through the woods that secretly opened to a meadow greener than anything you'd ever seen, or when all your children/grandchildren are snuggled in your house.  He speaks words of beauty, affirmation, longing, solidness, joy, awe to me.  They are not only present in that moment, but are framed in a solidness, a depth, a fullness that I have not experienced up to this age of 45.  He continues to look at me with wonder.  Several days ago I shared with him that never before have I found anything with that magical ability like the Bible has.  The Bible has this amazing ability (it would since it is divine in origin) that even though its words can be read and reread and read and reread, it takes on newness every time it is read.  I marvel that a book has that ability to be new and fresh even when you read it time and time again.  I am finding true love has something similar to that - a divineness that creates newness yet brings a completeness as if it has always been.  I take a picture of myself every day and text it to my husband.  My phone is filled with pictures of myself, which would be strange if I am ever in an accident and they retrieve it to identify me:)   Today, after dropping Doug off at work - After he looked and took me in all the way there - After he spoke words of beauty and love to me, I sent him a picture of myself.  It wasn't a glamor shot or a posed picture.  Just me in the car, in my work clothes, driving.  His response was, "I just made this pic my desktop pic.  You are so beautiful and I am the luckiest man on earth."   I know what it is to live in need of those words.  I know now what it is to have them in abundance - for them to be plentiful.  One is like a warm bath, a fireplace on a cold damp day, a well lit room, a glass of iced tea on a scorching day.   The other, like a cold shower, a furnace that is broken, and being caught in a downpour without an umbrella.