welcome readers & writers... it's photog friday! every other day of the week the photos you see on this blog are mine, though periodically i'll use one taken by my husband or my eleven year old. but each friday we'll celebrate a photo contribution by a photographer* better than me (and that's not hard!). see last week's photog friday celebration here. this week our guest photographer is kelli west. kelli is a fellow blogger (you can see more of her wonderful photography there). many thanks, kelli, for your gorgeous photo!
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what written response (story, poem or creative non-fiction) does kelli's photo inspire in you? 250(ish) words or less. i'd love to read it - just click on comments below. here's my take on the photo:
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I stand at the kitchen window, elbow deep in sudsy water. I suppose I could stack the dishes in the dishwasher, but this way I get to watch him longer. Out there on his tractor he's a happy man, and how I love to see him happy. It took me years, you know, to understand that it was right for him to be happiest at his work. That work has quite literally put food on our table for fifty odd years. But when I married him (at seventeen years old, mind you) I thought that he should find his happiness in me. That first year especially. Land, I don't know how we got through. I dreamed he'd be so taken with me that he wouldn't want to leave the house. I'd imagined that he might linger in bed those first early mornings before starting his daily round of chores. But not Gardner. Gard set his alarm clock on our first night back from Niagara Falls, where we took two nights for our honeymoon, and the next morning he was out of bed like a shot feeding the chickens. I cried all through breakfast and, bless him, he couldn't muster two words to comfort me. Just devoured his scrambled eggs and toast, dropped an awkward kiss on the top of my head and went back out. But somewhere in our journey together, somewhere along about fifteen years, I'd say, I finally got it through my thick skull that Gardner loves by doing. He woos by providing. He adores me by being a man of character and a strong work ethic, the man I fell in love with. That's what makes him happy.
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come write with me!
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*readers & writers, if you know any photographers who might like to contribute photog friday, just have them email me: writeawayeveryday [at] gmail [dot] com.
