It's Still Life

I. Faith in all its universal varied forms, and for friends who hold one not higher than another. 

There is something deeply civilised in making room for reverence without turning it into a contest.

II. Thankful for gargoyles — gloriously grotesque, beautifully expressive, and still managing to communicate across the centuries.

Some faces simply refuse to stop talking.

III. The man with whom I’ve spent more years with than without. 

There is a quiet astonishment in realising that someone has become part of the measure of your life.

IV. A place that for a few hours, between two sycamore trees and the stillness of the Saône River, was mine. 

Not owned. Simply given.

V. The strength and persistence of water lilies on a river. Anchored like thoughts one cannot shake. 

And still they flower.

VI. A week of sea breezes and a soft spoken language: Port de la Grande-Motte in Provence. 

La Grande-Motte has a way of making even supper feel like part of the weather.

VII. Thankful for a husband who walks at roughly twice my speed, but eventually remembers that his wife is somewhere behind him …usually laughing and taking a photograph to prove what he will later deny.

Some marriages are measured in years; ours can also be measured in metres.

VIII. Thankful for children playing games outdoors (in this case bocce ball) with fresh air, sunshine, movement, and the serious business of getting the next throw exactly right.

Some entertainments still fit perfectly into two hands and a patch of ground.

IX. Thankful for wild horses at La Grande-Motte — grazing without bridle, fence, or instruction, as though freedom were the most ordinary thing in the world.

At this particular moment, I can think of little more beautiful than a life answering only to its own rhythm.

X. Thankful for Denise’s Six Sentence Story challenge, where talented writers build whole worlds in the briefest possible space. This week’s word to include is “foil”. I have two running this week: The Alcove and Dead Men Don’t Drown