Today, sitting outside, sipping a beer with my lover was all the therapy I needed.

If you get lost in your head and forget to breathe like I do, here’s a little story for you.

Please enjoy. And breathe.

I finish work around 5:30, eyes crossing (my day job—graphic and web design—requires hours of laptop fixation), brain smoke leaking out the ears and such. I stand, grind the kinks from my hips, and venture out of my office/girl-cave. Mike came home about thirty minutes ago, but there is no sign of life in the house.

I check his office/man-cave…nope. I listen for snoring… nada. Not on the couch, not in our bed. One last place to look. Find the sun. At this hour: front lawn.

Under the plum tree laden with the promise of juicy sweetness, sits my man. His uber-long legs splayed out before him, my love is reclining in a camp chair, side table up, frosty Corona in the cup holder, shades on, eyes closed, earbuds in.

It is the magic hour; sun shedding her slanting glow through the trees, casting everything in gold and slowing time to allow for the faeries.

The time between times.

He opens his eyes because my shadow falls across his face. I lean down, put my hands on his knees and stamp his forehead with a kiss.

“You gonna join me?” He smiles that smile up at me; the one that has flipped my switch for thirty-some years now.

“Yep.” A little something wriggles around just under my solar plexus. Something like joy.

I grab my own bottle of Mexican sunshine from the fridge and the other camp chair from the back porch. Better hurry, time is fleeting.

I plant it next to my honey. He offers me an earbud. We clink our bottles,

“Salud!”

Boston’s Amanda fills my brain, rewires my dendrites, and blows away the last remnants of work:

“You, you and I girl
We can share the life together
It’s now or never
And tomorrow may be too late”

“And feelin’, feelin’ the way I do
I don’t wanna wait my whole life through
To say I’m in love with you”

Our feet keep time together; my left, his right. He reaches over and takes my hand. My right in his left.

Next come Paul and the lads:

“I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
speaking the words of wisdom…”

And then Idina:

“Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game…”

Now Mumford (and his sons):

“And I’ll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I’ll know my name as it’s called again…”

We sit and sip and let the music bring up the volume of the magic.

I am filled with a strange sense of peace. And something else…

I say, “Sitting here with you, waning sun, green grass, cold beer, great music…feels something like…hope.”

“Mm-hmm,” he says.

I breath in. I breath out.

And I remember the words that came to me yesterday from the ether:

Happy is Now.

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