I have been walking around for the past few days smiling at nothing, smiling at everything. Our kitchen now has a sink and running water, and nearly finished floors, and as of this evening walls that are smooth enough for me to paint. And I love the look of how it’s coming together, and better than that, the love I see in the project.

This kitchen is coming together through the efforts of people that I love – William, who is back in our family, really here, glad to be here and discovering yes we want him, he belongs, steadily mapping out the diamond-shaped tiles across the floor, and the tiny black strips that separate them, and the carefully measured and crafted edge pieces.

Mark, who has done all our plumbing — he flew Hueys in Vietnam, and remembers landing helicopters in blueberry fields in Alaska. He is a peaceful soul, who has been getting treatments for cancer for several years, and never brings up what’s wrong — I gave him a big hug today and said “I love you”.   

Kenny, who was the person I first entrusted the idea of renovating to  – he’s the orchestrator of the design, master woodworker, cabinet maker, raising design questions to give us the benefit of his experience but never pushing his ideas – his work is beautiful and his intuitive understanding of how to deal with out-of-kilter old houses is amazing.

Kathleen has a hand in this too, her vision will show up in the tiles that have gone through their bisque firings — we compared the test tile colors to the countertop and they’re a go.

John gets credit for saying yes to my longing for beauty and order, even when things seem good enough. I am blessed to have him in my life.

Every time I think about this renovation, I feel immersed in love.