Real Love – He Gets Me

Susan Muldur knows a good thing when she sees it – whether it’s a seemingly ordinary tree or a husband who’s really Prince Charming. Read more from Susan on her blog.

I will admit two things:

1. I am a cheap date.
2. I am a hopeless romantic.

Neither of these facts makes me immune to the allure of the grand gesture.  Should Prince Charming show up with a glass slipper (size 9 Blahniks please) and a silver steed (as in silver, 6 cylinder minimum) I wouldn’t yawn and send him away. But, let’s be real here…this ain’t gonna happen (just in case though the above requirements apply).

What IS real around here is that my hubs gets me.

Excuse the bad photo but I really wanted to capture this one moment.  What looks like an ordinary tree-one we don’t own but that resides in a yard with a vacancy sign just like we do-is really a glass slipper.  See that bird feeder?  That’s mine. It’s from our old house and it hung outside my kitchen window where I could (and would sometimes) watch the birds endlessly.  I loved watching the activity and marveling at these little aeronautical magic tricks. It brings me joy and beats any kind of stress relief tricks I know about.

About a week after we moved into our temporary place I looked out the window and saw my hubby hanging the feeder in the tree.  I hadn’t asked him to and in the flurry of moving hadn’t even thought to bring it along. I was touched. No, really-I was touched because this small gesture was really a glass slipper sort of thing to do. At least for me.  I watched and watched and watched but never saw any birds out there and it made me a little sad and kind of mirrored how I felt.  Laying it out there, making it available but no one was taking advantage of what I had to offer-birdseed/lifework, yeah-can’t even give it away!  Anyway-

Fast forward to this morning and I am looking out the little window I have coffee by every morning and there they were! You can’t see them in the picture but there are birds all over! In the tall grass, around the bottom of the tree, flying in from other trees-they were alllllll over! So there it is.  This little un-fancy, unassuming, ordinary little gift of knowing what would touch my heart is-right this minute-making me cry.

And I’ll add that once in a while he brings me a chocolate bar. Yup-he’s a keeper. This simple gift from the hubs brought into clear perspective the gifts I overlook on a daily basis and challenges me to look deeper, look more clearly at what is laid out all around me.

I would love to add something wise here-something to challenge your day but instead I’ll ask a question. What are the small gifts that move you?  When you stop to look are there things that stop you in your tracks? The unexpected or the overlooked? We live in such a busy world driven by media messages telling us we need more, different, better than what we have. What if what we have is really all we need what we already have in its shabby, unassuming and timeworn self?

Hey, not that I would turn down that magical pair of Blahniks-especially if they were blush colored-but maybe it’s OK to don my shabby favorite slippers and share a cup of coffee with someone who knows that I don’t really need those (simply amazing) shoes.