This blog is shared in honor of Honey’s recent Birthday.  How is it that you entered this world on a windy day in March of 1947 in the hometown of Elvis Presley, followed a number of years later by a girl born in the pine-needled, sandy flatlands of North Carolina, thus beginning a circuitous trajectory that mysteriously began to proceed through crossroads, stop signs, people who unwittingly connected us one with one another, unexpected career turns, several years of platonic and professional acquaintance and finally delivered us here together for the past 12 years?  The very best of my life.

Although life is never easy, with you it has never once failed to be awash with deep, spiritual growth; unfailing love; surprises – both wonderful and challenging and a deep and abiding trust.

The Adventures of Trey and Crissy could fill a number of books.  Consider the annals that Carl Sandburg wrote on Abraham Lincoln. (Okay, so maybe I am stretching it just a tad).  But there was Carl, whose home we love so much in Flat Rock, NC, and his incredible love  for his “Paula” and he wrote her poem after poem to let her know so – as you have done for me – even as you have adapted his quote, “I don’t know where I am going – but I am on my way,” for your very own life.  So ain’t that the truth, Dear One?

We’ve been places and we have seen things we never dreamed of – Budapest dancing off the Danube River on both sides on a cold but glorious Christmas night.  (So that is what Christmas is supposed to be like – Nothing like those delusional  Norman Rockwell holiday paintings that have screwed up so many unsuspecting folks and, subsequently, sent us all flocking to shrinks by the handfuls.)

Kindred Spirit on the beach of North Carolina and the mailbox full of letters on Bird Island where we have spent hours drafting notes to the Divine, thanking Her for our good fortune.

A restaurant and bar that we found in San Francisco by accident one night and spent hours listening to music and wondering how we found the place.  Watching the holiday bonfires in New Orleans. (Another great example of Christmas as it should be – but, alas, I drift again), along with our wonderful dinners with our dear friends from Greenville whom we seem to see only in the bayou.

Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving with adopted “orphans” like us needing somewhere to go and who fill our home with love and cherish on this most favorite holiday which is all about gratitude. Finding Roberto’s Tavern in Montisi, Italy.  Saying hello to scary surgeries and diagnoses that give us only a whiff now and then of what may or may not come.  Dinners at home alone and out with friends.  Transcendental meditation.  Leaving the church proper in order to find the Spirit Proper.  For Real. Adopting Finlay, our Westie, who needed a home when his Mom was gravely ill.  Reading incessantly.  Exploring and remaining open and curious to the Great Unknown.  And now working together again.  Oh!  A wild and curvy ride it has been.  Road trips.  Long ones.  Walks. Lots of them.  Yoga classes.  Coffee in the mornings.  A toast to another great week.

Once I thought there was a destination.  Marriage, perhaps?  Well, when we got there, it just turned out we are on a journey that keeps on delivering surprises.

Most every day.

And I am glad I don’t know. (Never thought I would say that).

Glad I don’t know about the things unexpected that will make me gasp, “Oh, no.”  Glad to not know about the gifts that will astound me with joy.  Happy for the true and special awakening of just – an ordinary day.  When nothing happens much at all – but time passing together. Happy Birthday, Honey.  You are my Anam Cara – my soul friend.  For ever.