Lovely Letters: #1

...from husband to wife and back again.

My Dearest Shayebie,

I’m kicking off our new little correspondence series on Substack. Like our conversations in the early morning garden, I suspect our letters will ramble quite a bit. I’m sure you will put your thoughts into music analogies for my sake, and I will try to find a way to sneak a Lord of the Rings reference into everything I write… or a Seinfeld reference. 

Today you were a little melancholy. Yesterday you were kinda melancholy too. But the day before that you weren’t. But the day before that you also were kinda melancholy. It happens. You asked me if I ever felt that way. I do, I’m sure… but I also don’t have the best memory. I think we should chalk it up to the summer doldrums. But we both know the truth. We had to be adults and cancel our plans for a long-anticipated Italy trip. I know, first-world problems. But it still stings a little. Just bein honest. 

It’s hot and the sun tends to bleach the color from life in these dog days. But, we have always said that we want to be sturdy people. I suspect sturdy people find the color in life even in the blinding summer sun. Even, perhaps especially, in meaningful labor in that bleaching sun which requires the discipline of our bodies and our minds. I think this was something of what you were saying in our latest gardening video. You asked where we would be if we quit participating in hard tasks? “Stroking our pleasures and idols, mindlessly watching with ease as decades of our life pass by?” You said, “Thanks, I'll pass.” It’s a simple response, and I love it. It’s all you really need to say. “I’ll pass”. You know how we like to adopt mottos for different parts of our life? This just may become one of them. Think of all the things we could say that about. Let’s laugh about all of them later together.

Here’s a thing. You know I’ve been reading A River Run’s through it by Norman Maclean. You know the one… Sure you do. The one they made the movie of… Yes, you do. That’s right. Brad Pitt. Anyway, I think he put it really well. He said, “… but to all those who work come moments of beauty unseen by the rest of the world.” That’s good, right?

Over the years we have encountered not just a few furrowed brows as we tell people what we do. At some point we have to respond to the question “But why?” I think Maclean captured the answer quite nicely. What we have gained by taking on life a certain way I think may not be gained any other way. This is true I think at a fundamental level. If it is true fundamentally then it can be applied in a variety of ways. So, you don’t have to have a life that looks identical to someone else’s in order to apply it. But it raises the question, does the work that generally characterizes our lives bring us “moments of beauty unseen?” 

Correct me if I’m wrong (though I’m not), but I think this is what you have spent the last 15 years inspiring people to see. If you doubt it, go back and read that nice letter you received the other day. Who would have thought?

Now that I’ve made you blush, I’ll eagerly await your reply and anticipate blush-inducing comments about me. You’ll have to dig deep though.

That’s all for now…. my perrecioussss. 

Love,

Stubaby 

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