Stupendousness

"Yet how much we love one another.
It seems a miracle. Not mystical, nothing occult,
just the ordinary improbability that occurs 
over and over, the stupendousness
of life." -Hayden Carruth
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Like

"...and when the luck begins, it's like a wedding,
which is like love, which is like everything." -Alice Oswald
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The Life

"I loved, I was loved, my health was good...I was happy and I confessed it to myself." -Giacomo Casanova
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Now

"What is love? 'tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter:
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty:
Youth's a stuff will not endure."
-Shakespeare
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=

Also: good NPR story here.

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Early Mornings

"Awake the mind's hopeless so 
At a quarter to six I rise
And run 2 or 3 miles in
The pristine air of a dark
And windy winter morning
With light rain falling
And no sound but the pad
Of my sneakers on the asphalt
And the calls of the owls in
The cypress trees on Mesa Road
And when I get back you're
Still asleep under the warm covers
Because love is here to stay
It's another day and we're both still alive." -Tom Clark
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Dinner

"I know you're happy in the kitchen and the meal you're cooking is the best meal we ever ate together. I know  you would scald yourself and not complain. I feel the greatest peace and joy sitting in the dining room listening to you rustling about..." -Henry Miller
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Love

"First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second -- There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you -- of kindness and consideration and respect -- not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had." -John Steinbeck in a letter to his teenage son.
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Happy Place

Maybe this explains why we eloped in Napa?!

(Also, go Santa Fe -- No. 4 most happy city!). Read the full article from The Atlantic here.



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Distance

"I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is really just a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become." -Vita Sackville-West
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Valentine

"The day you say 'I love you less,' will mark the end of my love and the last day of my life. If my heart were base enough to love without being loved in return I would tear it to pieces." -Napoleon Bonaparte to his love Josephine
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Better Together

"To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good-night."
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Anniversary

"Sometimes, in the middle of a crowded store on a Saturday
afternoon, my husband will rest his hand
on my neck, or on the soft flesh belted at my waist,
and pull me to him. I understand

his question: Why are we so fortunate 
when all around us, friends are falling prey
to divorce and illness? It seems intemperate
to celebrate in a more conspicuous way

so we just stand there, leaning in
to one another, until that moment 
of sheer blessedness dissolves and our skin
which has been touching, cools and relents,

settling back into our separate skeletons
as we head toward Housewares to resume our errands"
-Ellen Sue Thompson

Three years today <3
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No. 1

"But once in a while, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You're the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much." -Johnny Cash to June Carter, 1994
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My Heart

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Happy Thanksgiving

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Amen

"I love a good wedding just as I love any part with an open bar and "The Electric Slide." But unless you are wealthy, come from a family that has never known strife, enjoy giving up an entire year of your life to planning, and can smile in the face of any possible wedding disaster (and mean it, not just for pictures), you should elope. That's because weddings -- even small-scale ones -- are more pageant than sincerity." -article on Slate.
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Love First

"I don't want to live -- I want to love first, and live incidentally." -Zelda Fitzgerald
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Happy

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Covenant

"If I am happy, will you give me an apple?
If I am anxious, you may twist my arm.
And if you would like to, I would like you to hole me
close to your heart forever and do me no harm." -Tennessee Williams
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