He texts me while he’s away. He misses me. He’s thinking of me. I reply, I miss you too. And, only half jokingly, I’m eating my feelings. He says he can’t eat, he has no appetite. It’s hard to be apart.
Johnny Cash called it a ring of fire. But for me, it’s a lantern that lights up the whole world. Without it, everything grows dim.
A week or so back I saw these small, cast-iron torches in an online catalog. In the photos depicting them they were driven into trees, into the side of a log cabin. All very rustic and outdoorsy. Of course we needed them – or, rather, he needed them.
And when they arrived on my doorstep, he took them from their boxes and vanished outside. An hour later he returned with this in his hands:
It was a silly, sweet gesture. He’s someone who is so in tune with the outdoors, with nature. He knows how to hunt, how to fish and tie his own flies, how to start a campfire without matches. Me? Hopeless. I need the outdoors brought indoors. And so here we are. This is our middle ground.
We could just as well have driven them into the door moulding, of course. But it wouldn’t have been nearly as romantic.
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Maybe a little candlelight for the one who illuminates *your* world would be just the thing? If so, I’m giving away two of these $40 torches here, right now. Leave a comment to enter. (I’ll close comments next Tuesday, 12/27, and randomly pick a winner.)
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Alright, we have a winner…. Sunday Stiwell, c’mon down! (Well, not literally, but you know what I mean.) You’re our big winner! Woot! Big congrats, and thanks to everyone for playing!
