Growing Edges
alexa lopezArchive for marriage
Happy Anniversary-Eve
Our 14-year old daughter ‘Saja asks me at least twice a year if she can see my wedding dress, and my response is always, “Nah, it’s in one of the boxes in the garage; I don’t feel like digging it out.” I know…I’m such a party pooper. 
Well, she and I were trying to organize the garage yesterday and she asked every so often, “Is that the box with your wedding dress?”
“Seriously?” I thought to myself, “We’re in the middle of a huge project, and she is asking about my wedding dress!” I desperately wanted to stay on-task since I finally felt motivated to move beyond the “thinking phase” of garage organization.
Maybe she didn’t believe I really kept it since she had only seen it in pictures.
Or maybe she really wanted to see it “up close and personal.”
We happened upon the storage box that contained my wedding dress; I was kind of worried what it might look like now, after being packed away nearly 18 years.
It was beautiful. Badly wrinkled and musty-smelling, but beautiful: still white and poofy with all its beads.
“You should put it on!” She said excitedly.
“No, I…,” I began, until I remembered that it was the eve of our 18th anniversary; this would be our first — and hopefully last — anniversary apart. ”Okay! And we can email a picture to your Papa so he can see his bride on our anniversary tomorrow.”
“Mom’s going to put on her wedding dress!” she called to her siblings.
The kids were SOOO excited about this! They waited anxiously while ‘Saja buttoned and zipped me up.
Acia took pictures, our sons just had to hug their mom in her wedding dress (Awww! —it was so special), and our cats wanted to play in the layers of tulle inside the dress as I stood for pictures. It became an unexpected family event! All that was missing was Richard in his tuxedo tails with his emerald green tie and cummerbund.
Yeah, this minor change in plans became the highlight of my anniversary eve. The garage gets to wait another day or two.
© Alexa Lopez, 2008
Sing Me To Sleep
Last night I was up way later than I should have been. But I was on a roll, getting things done around the house that I had been unable to accomplish all week.
I reluctantly climbed into bed around 3:15 AM with the second-story window slightly open. Then……singing?
Singing birds.
It kept me up for awhile, not because it annoyed me but because I had to wonder what kind of birds sing like that two full hours before the sun rises.
Was it the way the nearly-full moon lit the cloudless sky that caused this song of the night? Did they perceive the well-lit sky as that of the pre-dawn?
I slipped into a sleep comtemplating this and the previous night’s “serenade”: coyotes.
Our second-story window had been slightly open and within minutes of closing my eyes, a pack of coyotes began howling, jolting my girly-cat, Istas, from her sound sleep. Once the maniacal howling stopped, she lay back down at my feet and settled once again into that serious sleep zone, only to be jolted awake by the howling coyotes a few minutes later. I closed the window. I was too tired to hear that all night, too disturbed by wondering why they were howling…
Had this happened other nights? Had I been deaf to these serenades before?
How limited-scope of me to suppose that God’s creation sings only during the daylight hours!
Coyotes, birds…and likely others I’ve failed to notice. Different languages, different songs, but one Creator.
Choruses of praises or cries for help, wafting through the air to any listening ears — or to no ears at all — using the voice given them to speak, sing, what they must.
They sang me to sleep. 
© Alexa lopez 2008
