Last night, we stayed at my parents’ home because our furnace has stopped working.  Period.  So we moved from the frustration of trying to be grown-ups who want to provide warmth and safety for our kids to the comfort of having parents who make homemade soup and tend the fire.  With our boys tucked into bed, Mom, Dad, my hubby, and I enjoyed conversation and true relaxation.  Just before we put ourselves to bed, mom called us to the window.   A full moon lit the sky and everything it touched with a bluish glow.  Backlit by that gorgeous moon, trees cast tremendous silver shadows across the snow.  The world looked so bright and so clean in the unusual mix of light and shadow.  I could have stood a very long time gazing out at the yard, but we had had a long day.  Bed sounded too good.

I slept in my childhood bedroom.  Some things remain the same there.  My rack of Taekwondo belts still hangs near the door.  My case of ceramic and glass figurines is displayed next to the bed as it was for most of my youth.  A wooden cat sits above the door chasing a mouse on a long stretch of twine.  My four poster twin bed has been replaced by a double bed, and in it, I slept with an eighteen month old little boy.    As I lay in my old bedroom listening to my baby sleeping next to me, I looked out to the roof of the picnic pavilion that stands in the backyard.  During the winters of childhood, I would wake myself up through the night to look out at that roof, hoping to see snow beginning to pile up and confirm the hope of a Snow Day home from school.  On this night, a school cancellation wasn’t in question, but the magic of the anticipation was there nonetheless.