Celebrating right now

For DH’s birthday: I woke up to make pancakes and pick fresh flowers before heading out the door for work. In the evening we went out for dinner at an lovely little Italian place. Good wine. Excellent food: smoked/grilled fresh mozzarella with eggplant; pumpkin ravioli with duck; veal saltimbocca. Bean was a delight. A perfect example of manners and peaceable dining. He noshed on the pumpkin ravioli and daintily pretended the breadsticks were chopsticks. A perfect evening.

DH's birthday comes two days after our anniversary—not our wedding anniversary, but our first-got-together one. Eight years. Pretty cool to know someone for nearly a decade, and to feel like time has flown.

Is this what it feels like forever? Time speeding up exponentially with each rotation of earth around sun? Until decades tumble down upon each other, and thus is a life? Is this really how it goes? Each moment so full, so poignant, so messy and rich and joyous, that it all seems like yesterday. I look at Bean, our shiny-eyed rascal of a boy, and I can’t see a baby in him any more. He’s all little boy. Rough and tumble and sweet. It makes me catch my breath.

We spend so much time looking forward to things, and then, so much time looking back. The moments in between, before the fruit is picked, before the seeds are spit. Sheer present; so hard to hold.