Eli Brown in Deep Thought

Unhappy Face by Baby Wes

Back to School

We have now been back in Ann Arbor for a couple of weeks and are just now starting to settle down. I have been working lots and lots. I am enjoying the work but miss the quality time that I was able to spend with Ben. It is great to see each other and feel fortunate to spend time together when we can (which is still lots). However, Ben starts his second year of Dental School tomorrow. It will be another busy semester, but as all things go, it to has an end so we are trying to be thankful for every opportunity that comes our way.

We love and enjoy Ann Arbor. We think that this is a perfect place for us at this time and are grateful for the wonderful friends and family in which we have been able to meet. We have met such great people at church, school, and work and feel fortunate to live here. If anyone needs a place to stay, just let us know and you are welcome here anytime.

Today has been an amazing day of rain. The grass is green and everything is so clean. We are so happy for the rain.

We love you all and hope to hear from each of you as your beautiful lives progress.

The Andersons

Telia

Sometime after midnight, the bedroom light still burns down. She fades by degrees, occasionally pausing to fold her body in a position more conducive to what we should both be doing. She's not quite there, and I know because she keeps flinging prolonged, sultry, eyes-mostly-closed looks as if to say, "You're missing the best thing here..."

I continue to crick my neck and flex my wrists and strain my eyes, bent over the pulsing life of our lap top. You can't force good art, right? But she's not alone. My vitality also wanes until I am a new moon. Not fresh, not full, but empty and dark. Not even new.

Incandescent orange filters the room in strange colors like an old photograph. Like I'm not me and she's not her. Like maybe we're people from a long time ago living in this room doing what we're doing. Steadily the rhythm of her body slows to long ins and outs casting a small circus of shadows in the bedsheets. And its crazy because I realize that in spite of her complete unconsciousness, she is still more alive than I am straining, awake and red eyed over this humming computer trying to eek out my last semblance of cohesive thought. It would be better to cast off the moorings of wake, drifting into dream where i can cast living shadows with my wife and renew.

The Garden where it all started

One of the exciting things we were able to do was take pictures of the garden that Ben and I build while we were dating. Ben says that that was one of the reasons he knew that I was a keeper. Good thing I helped build the fence and sported the tool belt!!

We had an excellent time on our trip to California.