the art of doing nothing

I hope that you've had a few moments recently where you've stopped long enough to consciously thing about how marvelous an experience is. This weekend was full of those for me, tangible gifts of mercy from the giver that make me more aware of his realness.

Meagan invited me to spend a couple of days with her and her mom in Highlands, NC, before her mom left for Africa. In typical Gibson fashion, we didn't have a place to stay until the day before we left. When a place came through, we were told it was was "rustic...very rustic," and knew it would either be incredibly terrible or incredibly wonderful.

Turns out, it was incredibly wonderful. The cabin is owned by a sweet, old couple who let us pick vegetables and blueberries from their garden just up the drive.

We also saw this little produce stand right off a trail we hiked so we grabbed some squash, zucchini & herbs and left a few dollars in that little tin.

For dinner we had a small cornucopia of asian pear, goat cheese & pecan salad, succotash with corn, green pepper, squash, zucchini, onion, the best tomatos on the planet & dill, and tomato (again, the best tomatoes on the planet. I'm serious.), basil and mozzarella. I'm aware that these dishes don't go together, but you gotta eat what you gotta eat when you're livin' off the land.

I think it may have been the freshest and most colorful meal I've ever had.

And we are Holly Hereth and Meagan Gibson, so there was cobbler.

It was delicious and turned our mouths completely blue. After a bottle of wine we thought it was way funnier than it actually was.

And we had this great swing. I haven't swung on a swing since the day I moved out of 524, and it made me feel at home. Which I needed.

I even got to sit and eat breakfast, drink coffee and read on the porch in the morning wearing a sweatshirt. Tell me this isn't paradise.

There were braids.

And long hikes with views like this.

And sheer bliss, really.

I hate to make such blatant pop culture references all the time (who am I kidding... I'm listening to the Cast of Glee on Pandora as we speak), but after seeing Eat, Pray, Love the night before we left--I believe just as firmly as ever that it takes no grand, exotic travel to experience the magic of the world. Just some people who you really like, some food from the ground and a porch.