Mindful Miles

Don’t tell me about grand gestures, sweeping speeches, or a single red rose. That’s not the kind of love story I want to hear. If you want to tell me about love, truly tell me, then take me to the heath.

Show me a love story told in movement. Let’s walk the narrow, winding paths that disappear into the horizon, our footsteps keeping a rhythm that is all our own.

Let’s stumble over the gnarled roots and race the wind to the top of a hill, our breath catching with shared joy and laughter.

I want a love story written not in words, but in the way our hands find each other naturally; in the simple, profound act of moving together, forward, through a world that is wild and beautiful and completely ours.

Let’s find a quiet spot and sit among the heather for a moment of reflection. From here, we can see the path we’ve walked and the vast, open space that stretches ahead.

A love story on the heath is not afraid to look back at the difficult moments—the storms that came through, the quiet, unforgiving stretches.

It is a story told in the way we lean into each other against the breeze, and in the way the gorse provides a sudden, sweet-scented burst of gold amid the sharp thorns.

And when you tell me a love story on the heath, you don’t have to say a thing. I will feel it in the way the light constantly shifts, painting the landscape in shades of brilliant gold and bruised violet.

I will hear it in the shared, quiet breaths we take, filled with the scent of damp earth and wild things. I will know it in the simple, profound act of moving and pausing, in the shared journey that is our great love story.

An unspoken understanding that this journey, this ever-moving, ever-changing, ever-reflecting life is the greatest love story of all.