love thursday: quiet spaces
Our new swing. Photographed with Nikon D300, 35mm lens.
Remember not so long ago, we ended up painting our family room on one of my whims?
Well, I'm in the middle of another one.
This time, as the warm weather heats up, I've become obsessed with my back garden. "We must plant our own vegetables!" I demand. "The furniture is looking old and tired -- there must be repainting!" I cry. "WEEDS! DEATH to the WEEDS!" I bellow. And Marcus, bless him, quietly obliges. We now have tomatoes growing in containers behind our house. Our old outdoor furniture is now a bright, fire-engine red. And the weeds that were growing between the pavers of our patio have gone to meet their maker. And while I do offer to help, I'm generally useless at these sorts of things, and so Marcus lets me off the hook, preferring instead the efficiency of doing it himself. Bless him.
The most random thing that I decided I needed, however, was a swing. There's a little hidden area behind our house, over in the south end of our garden, which has become really overgrown and lush (the previous owners would die, if they saw it. They used to keep this area very trim and manicured). I decided that it would be the perfect place for a big swing -- one that we could let the trees grow over, and it could become a quiet contemplative place for us to sit and read, or nap, when the weather cooled off again. I immediately got online and found one, and told Marcus that really, life would not be complete unless we could actually have this swing in our back yard. The swing wasn't particularly expensive, but to be honest, we really don't have the disposable income to go spending on swings -- but we scraped together some money, and Marcus bought it anyway.
It arrived this week, and Marcus made quick work of putting it together. And while I certainly like how it looks, I didn't realize how much I'd truly love it, until 2 nights ago, when Marcus and I went outside to sit on it at dusk. Alex was already in bed (Rufus keeping her company), and Marcus and I each took a glass of wine outside. The crickets were chirping, night was falling, and we sat and ... talked. It felt like such a long time since we sat and talked, just the two of us, and it reminded me of when we lived in Trinidad, and we'd sit outside of our apartment at dusk, and stare at the view and talk. And I realized how much I missed that. And how much fun it is to just sit and talk with Marcus in a quiet space at dusk.
And how glad I am that Marcus and I have a new quiet space. Even though he had to put up with my whims to make it happen.
Bless him.
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Happy Love Thursday, everyone. As always, please leave the links to your images and words of love in the comments section, below.
And may you spend some time in a quiet space with someone you love today.
(Update: because I've received several inquiries, this is the porch swing we bought.)