Sometimes I feel empty, like a vessel waiting to be filled. What is it I long to be brimming with?

With goodness and light, with kindness and compassion, with strong coffee and dark chocolate.

With towering salads, edamame, merriment and supplication; with laughter and tomfoolery, gilled salmon and the brightness of the moon; with a hot fudge sundae, double the hot fudge and the shower of the Perseid’s overhead.

With the love of forever and Christmas trees ablaze with colored lights; with the shimmering cheer of friends and the humble birth of Christ; with the thundering hooves of horses and the gentle purr of kittens.

With dark chocolate caramels sprinkled with sea salt and mountain vistas; with gurgling streams and ripe wheat waving in the wind; with the sweet notes of  guitar strummed and crickets filling the dark outside my window.

With the crinkling of pages turning in a good book and the flow of ink on fresh paper; with the hubbub of passing period and the zwooooop of an arriving email; with Nikes pounding down the gravel road and swishing horse tails batting away flies.

With the prayers of all those who came before and all those yet to come; with peace and prosperity; with faith and daydreams; with endurance and the light at the end of the tunnel; with the rugged delicacy of creation and good conversation.

With sleepy babies and John Denver cranked up; with tractors pulling grain carts and bread baking warm and brown; with RC Cola on ice and campfire smoke rising; With slobbery dogs and little black dresses.

With winding trails and thunderstorms; with raging winter blizzards and the warmth of a hearth; and with all that I am and all that I am meant to be. Now, I’m stuffed!