…on a thin crust.  Croatian pizza – with no cheese.  Surprisingly you don’t miss it. (I do realize, of course, that there are many people who detest anchovies – but I love them.  I love how they melt into things when you put them in sauces and salad dressings – how they lend their signature umami piquancy to anything, without letting on what you’re tasting, exactly.  And I also love them on pizza, cooked up crusty and hot, with the salt brought to Center Stage by their roasting.)

The first half of this pizza I ate early this afternoon at a waterside cafe, watching the sailboats in the harbor and thinking about the great hike I had just finished up the side of one of the rugged foothills that surround us here in Split.  I wanted to reach two mountainside chapels that were built into the rock-face.  John and I had spent some time in one of those while he was deployed to Lebanon, and it was an amazing sight.  These two were locked, but the hike was good, the view from the top, looking out over the sea and the islands just off the mainland, was amazing.  Besides – these days?  I’ll take all the exercise I can get.

The second half of the pizza was cold tonight when I picked at it – but I did eat the arugula, the garlic slices that had the unfortunate consistency of potato chips that have been sitting in the juice from your hamburger too long , and of course, a few of the anchovies in between pieces of dry crust.  And yes, there’s the water again.  I’m determined to drink it, even though I hate drinking water.  So many people tell me that if you drink enough, you’ll end up craving it.  Nope, not for me.  All I ever crave is Coca-Cola.    But I sure keep on trying.

At any rate, it was a decent afternoon after a working morning, and in three more days, I’ll be seeing her:

and doing more of this:

But I’ll be posting what I’ve archived.

At least, if my settings work, I’ll be doing that.

Have a good week, everyone!

For so long, my work was my life.

Soon, I’ll have to go back to it – and I find myself, in these days of moving and prepping – and anticipation of being a family again, asking myself over and over…“What is ‘work’, again?”

I’ve had the following poem written in my journals over the years (a classmate shared it with me when we were cadets) – and it’s never far from my thoughts in these years of war.

We wear two bracelets – KIA bracelets – one is for a colleague and friend of John’s and one is for a colleague and friend of mine.

Their names and lives and lost hopes and dreams are part of our routine, every morning when we wear our uniforms (and often, even when we do not.)

Besides the clank of the stark metal bracelets on our wrists, there are more reminders:  every time we see a chess board, we think of Cody.  And everytime somebody asks us, when handing us a beverage in a bottle – “Do you want a glass?” We inevitably answer the way Kip always did: “It’s already in a glass!”

These two patriots are our heroes on this Patriot Day, and today I thought it was high time I posted their pictures and stories here, as well as the Requiem” (of sorts) written by a veteran of yet another war – the one that has been in my journals since I became a lieutenant.

“If you are able, save for them a place inside of you

and save one backward glance when you are leaving

for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them,

though you may or may not have always.

Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane,

take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind.”*

*Major Michael Davis O’Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978

More pictures from John of the house we’ll be living in in Germany.

Love this “hidden” fireplace off the “party room” (as John calls the next picture).

Ready for visitors by October!

I’m over in the Desert again; John is at home.

He is wandering around the house “looking for things I can help you with, Hol.”

This behavior makes me nervous.

Case in point: He found the stash of wedding pictures that I Still. Haven’t. Made. Into. An. Album.

We got married nearly eight years ago, People. (I know.  Please don’t judge me.)

You know, we had a great wedding. It was a small wedding, but I cannot think of a single person up until that time who was alive and who was an important part of our lives who wasn’t there to share our day.  It was the kind of wedding you wait for a long time, but know you waited for the right person…all of us were relaxed, full of laughter, and nobody got too crazy.

Here’s a pic John sent me for the album. “Me-n-my girls” were vamping for the camera, when we spotted this clown (I kid you not) walking up the main street. I got married in Manitou Springs, which has that delightful crunchy vibe that I absolutely love. So, we looked at each other and figured we ought to wave our Freak Flags right along with him.

Because we had the world’s most easygoing photographers, when I asked the clown to join us, Becky just took it in stride…and snapped what is one of my favorite pictures of the day:

But the man who really brought the house down?

Had to be my dear “Godfather,” Rusty Sachs…an irreverent, brilliant, hilarious Marine who speaks fluent French, has impeccable taste and bearing, and who has been a fixture in my life since I’ve been alive. He and his entire family are…well, Family.

Rusty agreed to marry us, and my request was for him to use free license when he wrote our vows. I have a copy of them somewhere – but one of my favorite lines, which Rusty delivered in the most serious tone after warning John that he was not marrying some “piece of common chattel,” was

“Do you, Holly, take John, to your wedded husband –

- in Flowers and in Weeds…in Freezing and in Swelter?”

Yeah, I couldn’t keep a straight face, either.

I just love that guy. And I love Rusty, too.

Chances are, when said and done
Who’ll be the lucky ones…who make it all the way?

Don’t get me wrong, I never say never -
‘Cause though Love can’t change the weather, no act of God could pull me away from you.

I’m just a realistic man – a bottle filled with shells and sand -
Afraid to love beyond what I could lose when it comes to you.

Eight-to-five, or two-to-one -lay your money on the sun – until you crash, what have you done?

Is there a better bet than Love?

What you are is what you bring…you gotta cry before you sing.

Chances are…we’ll be the combination.

Chances are waiting to be taken.

Chances are only what we make them……and all I need.

* “Chances” – Five for Fighting

…and, yes, he is also a gentleman.

I love how I can see his patience on display with this wild animal – the calm waiting is palpable.

16 Days!

Listening to a favorite artist this morning as I worked out – Chris Tomlin. Absolutely inspiring music…and I was so pumped – we are at Day 19.

Listening to the words of “Our God” by Tomlin, I was struck yet again by how blessed we are, how good God has been to us as a couple. Running hard, looking around at this awful desert where I’m deployed right now…and thinking of the last time I saw John – at a sight of epic proportions – Roman ruins in a deceptively “calm” place in the Middle East. How ancient and powerful this region is.

I started thinking about how in less than three weeks, John will be home, safe and sound, body and mind intact, right where he should be – and that when I reach for him, I will do so without that constant ache in my chest, the one that insidiously and constantly reminded me that even as I hugged him, within 12 – 36 hours, he would be gone again (or I would).

It’s been a long year, a tough year – a year where I made decisions that I live with and struggle with every day – a year that caused me to question myself – and grow and lean on friends more than I ever have before – what would I have done without them?

It was a year that sent me on three different personal journeys – with unexpected, hard-won benefits and moments of incredible clarity that made me face memories and past experiences that I’m ready to shed forever.

But soon.  Very soon, now, we will come back together again, in the age-old rhythm of a military family – and I am So. Incredibly. Grateful.

“And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?

And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?”

Sing it, Brother.

Less than a month…