November 18, 2006
We've Done It Our Way- An Anniversary Card
Our Bench Descanso Gardens, La Canada, Californai. Woody and I spent many many hours sitting on this bench, that overlooks the "fern grotto" and is near a tiny stream that runs when it has rained some, mostly it is dry...We would sit and talk, in the heat of summer and the chill of winter... amid the Black Oaks and Camellias in this beautiful garden, one of the great unknown treasures of Southern California. From the time I could drive well enough to navagate the tricky interchanges and horrendous traffic of downtown Los Angeles this place had been a part of my home (and my heart) just slightly detached (by about 40 miles) from the rest... I loved comming back here this past September, we sat on the bench together. it creaked and groaned in protest of expanded waistlines and we were more grateful for it being right there on the path where we needed to stop and rest...It began to mist on us as the gardens are on the cloud line altitudewise. It was refreshing and we remenised about our lives, the times we came there alone and the times we would load my Mom up and bring her here, with her camera... I accepted Woody's marriage proposal near by under a shower of golden ginko leaves on a autumn day not unlike the day we visited...
We've done it our way
We've trusted in
the reason of our hearts
insted of following
the well worn path
and relying on
the "tried and true"
We've followed our instints,
knowing that
what's right for
everyone else
may not be right for us
We've believed
in each other
and in the
Power of God
to take us
in the direction
of Our dreams...
from a card given to me by Woody in 2001, We were living in Waikoloa waiting to get into our home in Pahoa on the other side of the island. It was after 9-11 and we were comming to grips with our Hawaiian Dream becomming a gritty reality that you, my longtime readers, are well aware of...Like the masthead of my blog which shows a tiny Ironwood tree growing out of "
a'a'"lava rock pounded daily by the surf of Laupahoehoe, the card shows an iris growing and blooming out of crack in a cobblestone street. I loved the card so much that I have it framed and hanging in our home. It reminds me of a truth, that God must be in it (where it says "power of God, it once said "Power of Love" but Woody scratched that out saying that God was more in this than him...telling isnt it....)
And so I salute that today on this our 11th anniversary. No it may not be love, at least the love that I find myself longing for on a dreary afternoon at the office... but it is something. We have survived a pounding that would have killed most marriages, illness, financial crisis, relocation (twice... once will do it to you....) death of parents and heartaches caused by them while still living. Childlessness, loss and renewal even change of faith.
Here we are still standing... I think because we havent, as the card says, listened to everyone else and just gave it another day, another shot. Both Woody and I
So a toast...to giving it one more day... God Bless you, Woodster...
