Here recently, I’ve been crying. I’d say more than anything, crying over the ridiculous. The small and the everyday and the mundane. The things that have no business bringing me to tears. Why do I say the ridiculous? On a late night drive home (after already having seen a snowy owl and several deer) I saw a tiny lil frog, no bigger than a flea, really. A microscopic little thing that hopped across the road. The way his teeny legs and booty jumped with all of their itty-bitty might absolutely overwhelmed me. Every bounce was a bound for this lil guy, and he was sure working so hard to make it across the damp and endless pavement. His legs “boing”-ed. Boing boing boing. It was too much for me, so I wept. I wept at how beautiful and cute and adorable he was. And because I got to see it. And it was so cute. So cute. It was ridiculously cute. So I wept.
Most recently, I wept at Farm and Fleet. Standing next to the ratchet straps, pretty carsick from the ride there, I got a little distracted from the task at hand and let my eyes wander down the aisle as I took some steadying breaths. They found a couple with greying hair and aging bones walking side by side, hand in hand. As the man noticed an oncoming cart, he silently guided the woman with his hands. Ever so gently, he pressed her hip and stepped behind her to make space for the other shopper. He softly released her hand and they walked several paces apart from one another, and I couldn’t help but follow them with my eyes. After just a few moments, the woman slowed slightly. She outstretched her arm and hand behind her. And the man reached for it, slipping his hand into hers. With so much love and tenderness and familiarity. Without turning her head, the woman knew the man would be there to meet her, to grasp her hand, to join her again. The man matched her pace, and they continued to walk hand in hand.
I swear to you, it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve eve seen. The simplicity of it. The predictability. The tenderness and the love. The years and years and lifetime of habit and knowing another. The reassurance of being reunited, even after a moment of separation. It’s mundane, and it’s ridiculous. But out of all the things that make existence nearly unbearable. This moment. This act. This sliver of beauty is what makes the human experience so lovely. So divine. So breathtakingly beautiful. And it made me weep. Grateful to be alive and loved and here to experience it all.