Bilangue

It's fascinating when a two year old automatically knows to say "ByeBye" to anglophones and "Au Revoir" to francophones.

But it's heart-melting when he decides to randomly switch it up and say, still respectively, "See yaaa" and "Ciaooo."

You know what's not heart-melting? When your little punk 5-year-old proudly announces that he now knows more French than you do.

half life

The joke is often that we were engaged in kindergarden, or something along those lines. It was never that serious, but in celebrating our anniversary this year I realized that we've now been together for half of my lifetime.

There are not many others our age who could say that (although we did think of at least 4 other couple-friends that could...) and it's a sort of mind-blowing thought for which I am thankful beyond what words can express. Because despite all the other craziness that life has thrown our way, this is good, this is amazing.

Beauty

And of course beauty: the beauty that was for him the link between the ships and the woods and the poems. He remembered as though it were but a few days ago that winter night, himself too young even to know the meaning of beauty, when he had looked up at a delicate tracery of bare black branches against the icy glittering stars: suddenly something that was, all at once, pain and longing and adoring had welled up in him, almost choking him. He had wanted to tell someone, but he had no words, inarticulate in the pain and glory. That nameless something that had stopped his heart was Beauty. Even now, for him, 'bare branches against the stars' was a synonym for beauty.
-Vanauken, A Severe Mercy

-"Mlle A", Miroir, Fabienne Rivory