Turning

This week, we celebrate a full year as owners of this awesome piece of land. The electric excitement (and impatience) we were going through last year is so clear. I can put myself back there in an instant-- I go back and read this post, and remember that hike we took and how sharp and edgy everything felt. I planned a little three-day excursion to commemorate the milestone, next weekend. We'll be away from home, and we'll eat lavishly and raise our glasses and watch tons of House Hunters in our motel room bed. I expect it will be the perfect way to celebrate.

And then a day at home-- a day of dogged, empowered, winter-preparedness progress-- turned into this. A campfire in the snow. I emerged from the garage where both of us had worked all morning, stacking and hauling and organizing and deciding the fate of the things we no longer want in our lives, and I saw Patrick tending the scrap pile fire I'd suggested he might build.

I walked over there and joined him, my shoulders scrunched up to my earlobes, and together we stood and froze and warmed our hands, for hours, watching the fire.

What a year. From the little rise in our backyard-- the fire pit-- I surveyed the yard. I thought about everything that was still ahead, this time last year. I remembered the interior of our house, neglected and hideous, and how far we've come. And I thought about us-- my husband, our marriage-- and the great thickets of uncertainty we've been tearing through together. I won't tell you it wasn't tough: the floor refinishing and the furniture shuffling and the rabid pressure to make house into home. But worth it, too. So worth standing scrunch-shouldered in the snow, just taking a minute to celebrate it all with Patrick.

Being away from home will be nice, for sure. But the perfect way to celebrate the year we've had is right here: feet planted on the ground we've chosen as our own.

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