It is easier to survive than to be made larger.

There is a quiet comfort in the ceremony of life.

Wake.
Coffee.
Work.
Bills paid on time.
The floor swept.
The bed made.

I do the needful things because they are needful.
I order the day.
I herd what would otherwise scatter.

There is solace in repetition.
A practical liturgy.
Safe. Predictable. Contained.

The spirit does not have to wander far here.
But it does not bleed.

Loving her is not like that.

Loving her is wind in a mist-filled hollow —
where the air shows itself.
It pushes past the fence line.
The room grows larger than its walls.
We are made larger than we were alone —
answerable to something we cannot command.

That is its beauty.
That is its risk.

It is easier to keep the counters clean than to kneel in the cathedral.
Easier to tend the fire than to stand inside it.

I feel the pull toward the smaller field.
Toward what can be measured.
Toward what can be finished before nightfall.

The ordinary asks nothing of my soul.
It only asks that I show up and tend what’s mine.

The sacred does not disappear when it hurts.

It waits —
not with promises,
not with what we once were,
but with the willingness to be made vast again.

So I step back into the cathedral.
Not for absolution.
Not for spectacle.

To meet her without shrinking.