It’s been a busy year for our This Ordinary Day writers. A marriage, a birth, a few trips around the globe and some major moves are just a few things our writers have been up to. Through it all, we’ve worked to see the wonder in the everyday. We hope you have as well.

This year we hope your holidays and your hearts are as full as ours.

My Sunday mornings begin with waffles and the New York Times. I read the Week in Review and Sunday Magazine while Jack warms real maple syrup on the stove and mixes the batter. He pours orange juice for both of us and sets out the whipped cream. Sometimes he stops cooking for a moment to read over my shoulder or to love on me a little.

This time is ours. It’s time to catch up after a week of contrasting schedules. (He has a real job; I deliver pizzas.) It’s time for us to go beyond the day-to-day, “We need more milk,” “I’ll do laundry tonight,” utilitarian conversations. We let the news and the waffles help us recharge.

After breakfast, we sometimes go to a local coffee shop. There, with the hum of other people’s conversations and soft music setting the mood, I take in a hazelnut mocha (blended, no whip) and more of the newspaper. While drinking an iced coffee, Jack strikes up easy conversations with other patrons. He talks about home owners’ associations and national news events. He shares stories from his life and commentaries on local events. He makes friends and, occasionally, humors me as I read something aloud. He endures my fact checking questions (How can there be an odd number of twins?) and lowers the window shade or hands me his sunglasses when I start to squint.

We sit like that, reading and chatting and making fun of each other and enjoying our coffee and each other’s company until it’s almost time for me to go to work. At about 10:30, we rush home so I can throw on a green polo and black pants and grab tennis shoes. Then we head off to another day of opposite schedules.

But first I get my Sunday morning, with good food, good news and a good man.

There’s a stack of letters sitting in my bookshelf. They’re alone — everything else in the room is packed for my return to the United States after several years of living abroad. I’m not ready to pack them just yet.

Having a pen pal in grade school is fun, but having one at age 24 is something totally different. Other students in my program have noted my regular flow of letters — real mail is like gold here — and looking forward to the next battered envelope keeps my sprits up during grueling schedules and study periods.

I’ve been writing M, a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps, for a year. Our parents, those usual agents of set-ups everywhere, arranged this during their ballroom dancing lessons on Monday and Tuesday nights. By the time I returned home for a month to visit, the trap was already laid. By the end of my month, I was good friends with M’s father, and so I quickly agreed to a favor: please write his son, who was far away in the Marine Corps, a letter just so he’d have some mail.

I couldn’t refuse. Besides, I love all the details of correspondence — the stationery, envelopes, stamps, address books — all of it. So I sent a short introductory missive before I left to return to grad school in Italy, expecting nothing in return. That started one of the best correspondences I’ve ever had.

We talk about our families, how much we love our home state Colorado. We talk about being teens, and our high school years, and things that could have gone better. We talk about trivial things: the latest TV shows, best books and our favorite movies. We talk about important things: the future, our lives right now and what will come next. We talk about the things that scare us and things that give us hope.

He asks great questions. Sometimes they are about my life abroad; sometimes, specific topics related to my previous letter. My favorites are the unconnected ones about whatever he was thinking at the moment, things like my least-liked color, most influential mentors and the most important thing in my life.

We share stories of our days, mishaps, interesting things and asides. He asks about Italian life; I ask about all kinds of military questions (I really and honestly know nothing about the armed services, I’ve discovered). It’s been an education for me, and I can only hope my letters have been an escape for him.

We talk about politics and religion, but never about why he’s in Iraq. I never tell him how scared for him I am, or that I spent the first minutes of every day anxiously scanning headlines, praying for no news from Iraq: no bombings, attacks, ambushes, explosions or fire fights. When I get a letter, I do a little mental math and send an e-mail to his dad “I got a letter — as of 21 days ago, all is well in Iraq …”

There’s an envelope waiting for an address on my desk. M is on the move, and he doesn’t have an address for me yet. I hope that means he’s coming back to the U.S. for good. He’s planning on starting college in Colorado in the fall, and I’m finishing my MBA and heading back to Colorado, too.

I have no idea what will happen when this time is over. Maybe there will still be letters flying between us. Maybe we’ll actually talk instead. Perhaps there will be more to our story. (The parents, though, they have hopes, as parents always do.)

No matter what, in a difficult time in our lives, we each had someone there to listen to our stories, give some advice, share a moment and laugh. We built a friendship out of paper, pen, some stamps and our lives, as best we could explain them on sheets of paper. The humble snail mail system delivered friendship in way rarely seen these days — something remarkable in an extraordinary time.

Tess Montano is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day. She was recently a program coordinator for an international graduate program in Asolo, Italy, about an hour north of Venice.

About a month ago I took a mini road trip to College Station (Home to Texas A&M) to visit one of my best friends from college. She had just moved there from Lubbock, Texas, with her fiancé, and I was looking forward to the much shorter drive. Ready to get out town as well I planned to leave right after work on Friday. As soon as it hit 4 p.m. I was out the door. As I merged onto the freeway I made a mental checklist of things I need for a successful road trip. Red Bull and Dr. Pepper? Check. An after work snack? Check. Patty Griffin’s whole CD collection? Check. The sun was shining, my windows were down, and I was ready to go. There are few things I love more than a good afternoon drive in the sun. After the stretch on 290 that seems to grow longer each time, I took the HWY 6 Exit and began the second half of my journey.

In that moment I saw them.

I had forgotten all about these. Instead of grass, a sea of blue now covered both sides of the highway. My heart leaped at the sight. As always, Patty delivered and provided me with the perfect song to this defining moment in life. I sang at the top of my lungs, “OH HEAVENLY DAY. ALL THE CLOUDS ROLLED AWAY. GOT NO TROUBLE TODAY. OH HEAVENLY DAY!” I had reached the stretch of Texas that is littered with our state flower during this time of year — The Texas Bluebonnet.

I have lived most of my life in Texas and have had many pictures taken in various bluebonnet fields. I have always known this spring activity to be a common tradition among families in this region. Thus, I eagerly came back home on Saturday afternoon to tell my roommate from Kansas about them. I thought I would be the good Texas tour guide and asked her if you wanted to take a drive to go look at them the following weekend. As she stared at me with a curious face, I was disappointed with her lack of enthusiasm. She looked at me like I was crazy and asked, “why?” I replied back, “Because it’s what you do in Texas!” In the end, I persuaded both my roommates to go for a Sunday drive along with three other girls. A local photographer had recommended to me a road that was off the beaten path, and failed to mention it was a VERY long road. While I felt the others were getting bored and antsy, I didn’t mind the length of the drive one bit. I was enamored with the sea of blue. Four hours later we were on our way home, and I could feel my heart fill with happiness. My spirits had been lifted, and I knew my soul had been satisfied for a few months.

This past summer I had the opportunity to work and live in Colorado as a river rafting guide. Not only did I fall in love with the scenery but with the lifestyle as well. For various reasons I had to make my way back to Houston, and I remember crying a good portion of the drive. I know I’ll make it back to the state in a few years, but as summer approaches I begin to long for the place my soul finds rest. I long for temperatures in the 80s, scenic mountain drives, and midnight floats down the river.

Those bluebonnets, though, were God’s little sign to me. They served as a reminder to enjoy where I am. They reminded me that I love Houston and have always loved Houston. When I’m away from this huge city I long for a burrito from Freebirds, or conversation and coffee at Angora’s. I miss floating down the Guadalupe with friends, and family dinners. When I’m far away from home I miss all the traditions I have grown to cherish. Traditions that can’t be duplicated in other states, such as driving to look at the bluebonnets. So for these next few years that I’m fortunate enough to live in The Lone Star State I will cherish all of these things. I will bloom where I am planted, and I will remember to take time to stop and smell the flowers — exactly where they are. After all, there are no bluebonnets in Colorado.

— — —

Amy Cesak was born and raised in Houston, and finds herself running away from the city only to run back.

Amy is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day’s Sunday Specials. If you would like to participate in Sunday Specials, please click here.

I live in a city of really quite extraordinary beauty. Cape Town, in South Africa, has to be one of the prettiest cities in the world – we have white beaches, blue seas, wide open skies, forests, zebras grazing along the side of the highway (really), and, of course, the mountain. Table Mountain. Little sister to which is Lion’s Head, one of the favourite hiking spots for Capetonians and visitors alike.

Since I moved here, a little over two years ago, I have heard people speak (in hushed tones) about the wonders of climbing Lion’s Head at full moon. “You can see the sun set and the moon rise… at the same time!” they said to me. “It’s extraordinary.”

But somehow each month’s full moon came and went. My man and I had other plans, or we were tired, or we were on holiday, and without really noticing, the months slid into each other and we never seemed to make the climb.

Until last Saturday.

Here was a night perfect for climbing a mountain by full moon. It was strangely warm for autumn, there was no wind, the night sky was poised for beauty. We kitted up and made sure we had supplies (tea in a flask, cookies for sustenance, water for hydration) and started climbing. Lion’s Head is a beautiful climb – steep, but rewarding, with indigenous flowers and plants all around, and the most amazing views out over the ocean. We saw the sun set in a blaze of red and orange, and shoot streaks across the sky. We chatted. We laughed. We panted. We took our time and soaked up the beauty.

What was so interesting, though, was that as my man and I were walking up the mountain, we kept being overtaken by people rushing to get to the top. They were so intent on reaching the top of the mountain in time to see the moon rise that they didn’t even glance out to their left or right at any of the surrounding beauty. They had to keep focused on the path ahead or they would trip and fall. There was no time for distractions.

Only, if a walk up a mountain on a Saturday evening doesn’t allow time for distractions, when does?

After about an hour of walking, we rounded a corner and there it was, in front of us. A giant full moon, rising over the city and casting its surreal glow over the mountain and all of us on it. On our left hand side the last of the colour was leaking out of the sunset, on our right the moon was pulling out all the stops. We weren’t at the top of the mountain, not anywhere near the top in fact, but we had a stunning view and we wanted to drink it in. So my man and I found a spot to sit, unpacked our goodies and had a little tea-and-cookies picnic while we watched the full moon continue to rise over the city. It was, as promised, extraordinary.

As we sat there, soaking in the extraordinary in an otherwise ordinary day, we saw all the people who had overtaken us on the way up the mountain rushing down it, again too intent on the path ahead to take note of the beauty all around them.

And it made me think about how often this happens in everyday life.

Our heads are so full of to-do lists, our minds so busy thinking about what needs to be done next, or what so-and-so said to us, or how much we wish we could be somewhere else, doing something else, that we don’t notice the beauty surrounding us. We are so intent on reaching the top of the mountain, by hook or by crook, that we don’t recognize the worth in taking life a little slower.

Yes, there are some mountains that need to be summited. But there are others that are placed in our lives merely for the challenge and adventure of it. Because we didn’t only come here to get things done. We came here for the living of some life… And if we happen to stumble across the extraordinary while we’re living it, so much the better.

— — —

Bridget McNulty is a passionate writer inspired by why people act the way they do. Her first novel, Strange Nervous Laughter, has just been published in the USA. Find out more, listen to podcasts from the book, or watch the book trailer at www.bridgetmcnulty.com. Or join in the International First Love Day celebrations this Friday, the 15th of May.

Bridget is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day. If you would like to be a guest writer, please click here.

I want to give America a great, big hug. I want to let it know how proud of it I am. How all of us in lands far from its spacious skies, purple mountains majesty and amber waves of grain can look on it with a renewed sense of pride and community.

In the past year and a half I’ve lived on three different continents. I can tell you that right up until Nov. 4, 2008, being an American in a foreign country wasn’t much to be proud of. As an ex-pat, I carried around the weight of political blunders I didn’t create or condone. While, like others, I wouldn’t deny that America was a great country, I was less than eager to share this sentiment in public.

I was riding the underground on a visit to London sometime in late July this past summer. Two young, British men were sitting across the aisle from me having a conversation about the United States of America. Apparently one had been there recently on a trip and found it to be less than agreeable. “In America, they see nothing but themselves. They think their way is the best and only way. Look at all the Americans that come here to visit… they are rude and loud.”

I became flushed with embarrassment, worried my mannerisms might accidentally betray my American identity and warrant the judgmental stares of my fellow passengers. Perhaps I should have defended my country by trying to come up with a witty comment to single-handedly prove that America wasn’t so bad after all. Instead I just sat there, saying nothing, shoving my iPod headphones into my ears.

It became like a game to me. To see how much of my identity I could hide so no one would be able to pick me out as being American. When I was living in Africa, once people figured out I was from the U.S., they would exchange jests of “Mr. Bush! No good!” I was always afraid I’d be viewed as the naive American who came to the Dark Continent with a warped sense of cultural, religious, and economic imperialism, echoing the political actions of my home country.

Then something incredible began to happen. Americans began drawing the line in the sand. We all found the sense of camaraderie and community we had once abandoned long before. We renewed the spirit of transformation and advancement that our ancestors fostered when they stood up to defend democracy and fought to form a more perfect union. From all corners of the world, we Americans watched with hope and awe, the coming together of our country. Though I was an ocean away, I was moved to tears many times after hearing about my fellow Americans, young and old, throwing out old stereotypes and taking a proactive stance to their government. I was far, far away but I felt like part of a community again, and surprising to me, a community to be proud of.

When Nov. 4 came, we could feel it in the air, even all the way across the pond. We knew something was happening. This was no ordinary election. The whole world was watching. I remember how that day changed everything. How instead of bashing America, everyone suddenly wanted to be American, too, wanted to experience a part of our joy and optimism.

Inauguration day seemed to serve as the closing argument, that yes, even with an economy and political system in near shambles, we have the ability to redeem ourselves. That we can, and must, work together to really create positive change.

I wore my Obama t-shirt to class on Tuesday, here in Scotland. Instead of trying to cover up my Americaness, I wore it proudly in vivid splashes of red, white and blue in the image of a new president promising progress. People stopped me on the street to high five me as I gingerly strolled to class.

After gathering with some friends to watch the inauguration live via satellite, we all went out for dinner. When the waiter came by, I ordered a glass of champagne. He looked down at my t-shirt, then up at the television that was beginning to broadcast the first part of the inaugural parade. A big smile suddenly came across his face as he asked in a Scottish accent, “Celebrating something special, are you?”

I sure am.

— — —

Courtney Hagen is a graduate of the University of Kansas who swapped her KU ID for a passport and moved to Africa after graduation. This fall she exchanged one beautiful place that starts with the letter “s” for another, when she left South Africa for graduate school in Scotland.

Courtney is a guest writer for This Ordinary Day. If you would like to be a guest writer, please click here.