Winter in Old Mission

My sister was married this summer and we celebrated the new marriage with dancing and eating and happy chaos all about under our huge maple tree. The boys had built a dancefloor and strung lanterns through the lower branches. It was such a whirl of people and color and the culmination of a lot of effort. There. Just a breath in time. Laughing until we cried, wishing it would not end so soon and then it was over. Just like that. The trampled grass was covered by autumn leaves and now snow. I just watched the evening sun wink through the lanterns, still hanging there. A lot has changed since that August day. I went away and sailed for a bit, Autumn came while I was gone and winter was quite deeply installed before I got back. Kids are in school now, wedding cake long forgotten. My sister is thrillingly happy though. She lives in a little house and while her husband is off making war, she works at a cafe and takes care of herself, planning for a baby next fall. Life has it's ups and downs, it's flu-season and days at the beach. It's real. This is real life, in real time elapsing as I sit here typing. The seasons are tangible and change happens all the time.

My life sometimes has this hypnotic sameness that I hum along to until entranced. Sweet, slow mornings, padding around the house, helping out with the kitchen scene. Kids at the table crying over algebra exactly as I cried over algebra a decade ago. Church, errands, compulsively reading hour upon hour. I lull myself into thinking that I'm not really getting older, I'm just pausing; a very long pause.

This afternoon my youngest sister and I floundered through snow so deep that our feet had nothing to stand on. We sank through waist deep snow and then burst out onto the wind-whipped ice of Old Mission Harbor. Fresh shards of thin ice stood upright, sharp points all hari kari. The wind and sun will melt them down into small mountains of gloss. Away toward the thin line of open water stretched the vasts fields of new ice. We slid and tripped and crunched along, adrenaline bursting with the sick crack of the ice. It's not like I'd be dangerous. It was only an air pocket collapsing every now and then. Even so, we'd shriek and move faster across the sketchy parts. I love my life, these moments of incomparable simple beauty. Just when I feel the hum of sameness dominating...everything, then there is a walk like today when the simple everyday seems exquisite and unfathomable.