Miles

"I think she looked into it," I say. "I'm not really sure. I'm just guessing by other things she has said."

"Oh," Jane says. It's a damp lunch hour, the two of us slipped out for a run. Wet gray, high-hung clouds, still no sun, the air licking across our faces, we run.

"I didn't really want to ask," I say.

"Oh," she says.

"Just didn't seem my place."

"Deception," she says, "it's like the worst thing in the world."

"Yeah," I say, the quiet roll of our tennis shoes over wet blacktop an invisible heartbeat between us.

"It's like using the truth to tell a lie," she says.

"Yes," I say. "It. Is." I turn this over in my mind. The truth. Thinking you have the truth is the greatest barrier to you finding it. Or it can be.

This time, marking out miles together, we map the world, trace that red thread of truth, see it go subterraneous, and watch for it to reemerge.

Miles and minutes marked out, condensed and timeless, we suddenly reemerge at home. The route come full circle, there we are. Time, compressed down to a molecule of air, had floated between us, unseen and unspooling. Then without warning we are suddenly home.

"Time," she says, "it's the most expensive thing. It's like there's never enough to do everything you would like to do."

"Yup," I say. Never enough. And there behind us, whir-whir-whir, time unspooling, unwinding, looping around us. Like stationary pinpoints it cascades over us like a waterfall.

Gratitude:

6326. Thrifting yields a new quilt for our bed. Like a wing of faint blue it settles on our bed.

6327. We continue to treasure hunt books for the library. A visit to the bin store, the last stop for thrifted goods before they are burned, Mom and I treasure hunt. Whoopee!

6328. I continue to make friends at church. I marvel that this liturgy of friend making follows us our entire life.

6329. A friend with 11 children invites me, our 7 children, and another mom and kids over to play. So many children and yet such a peaceful time.

6330. Jack, now out of wrestling, splashes into Saturday with gusto. Cinnamon rolls, eggs, fresh jam, a pan of brownies, another pan of blondies, he's a baking bonanza, and he's still fresh to work in the yard and spend hours outside playing with cousins.

6331. "Basketball, for those that aren't very good, is really just a game of chance," Jane says.

6332. I try my hand at making a baby wrap. "Before we know it," Jane says, "you'll have a loom and some sort of spinning wheel."

6332. Craig continues to plan and build the greenhouse for flats of fast sprouting plants. We sit down together and plan the cornerstones of our spring schedule.

6333. And somewhere in there I squeeze in a few rows of knitting. It's not everyday, though I wish it were, but it's many days and enough.

6334. As we work to organize and care for what God's given us, we quiet ourselves to contentment. Somehow it's always there, just below the surface, if we only look.