Five Paragraphs

Lonely, but it starts to fade as soon as I recognize N watching the fog come across the water.  Her smile stretches from ear to ear.  We hug and talk about plantains and a small fish from Namibia that she’ll cook for her dinner tonight.  She says she will show me how to cook plantains many ways – it’s easy.

I start my walk.  I try to smile at everyone who looks my way, and I think back to a decision I made my sophomore year of college.  My freshman year had been a disaster.  Going in to my second year, I wanted to transfer and sat hugging a small pillow to my chest after my parents had helped me move into my single dorm room.  I vowed that I would make myself smile at everyone walking toward me on campus that year if it killed me.  I kept my vow.  By the second semester, I had met my future husband and best friends.

I like the evening walkers and runners who pass me.  It’s like we’re all in a club.  A pensive girl wearing black tights with a green heart on the hip meets my eyes and flashes back a grateful smile.  A lean-bodied older man wearing an ocean blue cotton t-shirt jogs by in good form.  He has a small tattoo peeking out from his sleeve and a kind expression.  A tall tan man with a neon orange tank top surprises me with a jaunty salute-like wave.  I glide on my feet, listening to an old cherished album of fingerstyle guitar on my headphones.

The cares of the day melt away from my ribs.  I allow myself to picture my mother’s face, my brother’s face, my father’s face.  They are the radio set on low in every room, friendly cartoon ghosts following me, embracing me with gauzy arms that trail away the moment I turn.  I stand in front of them, facing out.  They have their hands on my shoulders and they are proud of me.

At home, I sneak up on Harley lying in the middle of his comfy green bed, one large triangle-shaped ear cocked.  Two years in to our companionship, I know exactly how to snuggle him affectionately in the way he likes now.  Don’t touch the front paws.  No pressure on the hips.  Strong flowing strokes from the top of his head to his withers.  Broad scritches on his ribs.  Tonight he stretches in pleasure at my touch, making a low rumbling sound I’ve never heard.  His lips pull back to show the tip of one front tooth.  I find a rainstorm soundtrack on Spotify and we lie together in the low light of the living room.  I remember summer camp and tin roofs and beach towels damp and heavy.

Fall is almost here.  The quieter season, the getting back to more serious things, the tucking in for another winter.  My heart sings at the approach of cooler weather.  Apples.  Baking.  Turmeric tea with fresh grated ginger and cinnamon sticks, poured into my favorite tall mug.  Boots.  My long down coat I bought last winter.  More blankets on the bed.  That one Neko Case album I listened to so many times on the daily drive from Hallowell to Portland, up early for my 7:30am office job.  How I looked out the window and couldn’t believe that I felt this way, but yes – the colors of the passing landscape in November became more beautiful to me than all the riotous clamor of summer.

Early

I said, A bee came up to me, and I saw the wasp watching me from under the breezeway. Harley tottered to the mock orange. Oh good, you said sleepily, then turned over once more in the peaceful morning.

Afternoon

The boys outside on the sidewalk are counting down: 5,4,3,2,1! There isn’t any punishment coming, just a race starting on one of their first summertime days. I sort and fold clothes on the other side of my window shade, calm and happy, while the radio speaks softly in jazz.

Later

Plump yellow heirloom tomatoes wait on the kitchen counter next to a vase of palest coral peonies. The dishwasher lies steaming and open. The wide front door lets in the trilling snores of frogs and deep cool air. Today I found my father’s Cross pen, gold and heavy, in the bottom of a long-unused tote bag.

Bedtime

A tall glass of water next to the lamp. Two or three books, and damp New Yorkers. A floor fan thrums quietly by Harley’s bed.  On the air is woodsmoke and faint beats of early fireworks.

Sumer.

Sumor.

Sama.

We’ll sleep easily and well tonight, like children do always. Summerday.

I.

The grass has grown tall enough for its first mowing.  I know this because, as I pull to the curb in front of our house, I see Matthew lingering in our driveway with a soft smile on his face.  He lives a few streets over and cuts the grass for us and other families.  We’ll see him walking around the neighborhood, never looking left or right, hard steps, hands balled in the pockets of his sweatshirt.  He’s had problems with drugs in the past, and it seems like you might not be speaking the same language when you try to have a conversation.  Non sequiturs fall out of his mouth.  But he is gentle-mannered, polite, and a fast worker.  I always wish the grass would hurry up and grow when he stops by a few days too soon.  We know he needs the money.  He once came to the house as the day was starting to turn to evening, knocked on the kitchen door, and asked if my husband could loan him five dollars to go out with his friends.  He’d only charge us twenty next time, he said.

II.

It’s a cold early spring day, the kind of day I relish as a fair-skinned runner who suffers in even mildly hot temperatures.  There is a light rain that may turn to a downpour or fine mist, depending on how the New England weather gods feel at this hour.  I imagine them sitting in their cloudy seats, heavy white robes gathered, gazing down at the lot of us.  I don’t mind the rain at all.  I can remember only one time in my many years of running that I wished myself home because of weather – it was in winter, at school in Waterville, and I’d bundled up against a zero degree day to set out on my six mile loop.  When everything ached and my face had become immobile in the bitter cold, I broke down and entered the Dexter shoe store located about two miles from campus.  I carried no purse and was clearly stopping in to warm up.  There was no one else in the store, and the salesperson eyed me a little suspiciously and asked if I needed help.  I walked up and down the chest-high aisles, pretending to look at leather boat shoes, until I felt defrosted.  Then I sprinted back to my dorm, berating myself for being underdressed.  My roommate looked at me as if I had two heads.  You are sick.  Sick! she crowed, a huge smile on her face.

As I start a slow jog on the pedestrian path going out to the East End beach, I am pleased that the cloudy-seated gods have decided to soften the rain and settle the wind.  The arcing branches of a circle of shrubs shelter small gatherings of impossibly bright yellow daffodils.  Green and crimson buds are leafing out before my very eyes.  A single seagull hangs in the air over the beach, reaching its wings to tip from side to side and suspend a second longer against the gray sky.  Three dogs and their owners form a play group on the narrow strip of sand, the dogs all flexing spines and curvy tails and swift feet.  They fly over the rocks to retrieve tennis balls and barge into the ocean, too alive to mind the burning shock of the cold water.

Most people are fair-weather runners, so I see only a few other hardy souls on my route.  As I start to pass under the bridge to get from the East End trail over to Baxter Boulevard, I see an overdressed and rough-looking man sorting through items from a shopping cart about thirty yards away from me.  As an often lone female runner, I’m well-practiced in how to be aware of my surroundings even with headphones on, and especially whenever I run under this bridge.  Because a high chain-link fence and steep riprap descending down to the water are on one side of the path, I’ve occasionally decided that should I see someone or something that makes me nervous under here, I will immediately turn around and run back – fast – the way I came.  I keep up my pace as I approach the man, and by the time I pass him, realize that he is too engrossed in his examination of a CD in a plastic sleeve to notice me skimming by.  A dear friend once confided to me that someone we both loved was as close to homeless as the friend had ever known this person to be.  I think of this remark as I run up the short hill to cross over to the boulevard.  Always I’m reminded that I have so much, that it takes nothing to smile at a stranger, that none of us have any idea what someone else has been through.  Or where we’re going.  That too.

III.

Candy-hued tulips congregating stiffly everywhere

Huge koinobori carp streamers by Yosaku restaurant, furling up and down the breeze

Green traffic lights vibrant against a lowering sky

Kind crossing guards holding up their STOP signs and coffee mugs for hurrying children

The edges of my windshield adorned for days with translucent pink cherry flower petals

IV.

Heading home in my car from the studio after a late afternoon class, I see three men dressed in worn jeans clustered on front steps in a crowded neighborhood.  Two are sitting on the same step, and one is standing.  There is a hint of chill to the air, and as I pass by, the man standing leans slowly down and puts his arms tenderly around one of the sitting men.  The sitting man keeps his chin tucked, arms across his chest, and leans his head into the embrace.  I watch them in my rearview mirror, expecting the hug to end.  But it doesn’t.  The hug continues for as long as I can still see them in the mirror of my quiet car, the standing man’s bulky coat and the sitting man’s bent legs gradually blending into one form as I drive away, block by block.

As Uncle Bob, David, and I walk toward the entrance to the club from the back parking lot, we can hear the thump of music out on the sidewalk.  Two Tons of Steel, a rockabilly and Texas Country band from San Antonio, is playing tonight at the Broken Spoke, a dancehall that opened in 1964 and is celebrating its 52^nd birthday this year.  Google says that we’ll find live music and boot-scootin’, beer and chicken-fried steak inside.  It is a cool late February night in Austin and the stars are out.  I’m wearing jeans, a sweater, and wedge sandals that make me a few inches taller than my usual 5’9”.  I glimpse a youngish woman entering the club wearing cowboy boots and a seafoam green spaghetti strap dress with a full, knee-skimming skirt.  Later on, under the lights inside, I’ll see that she has a large tattoo of a rainbow that spans her entire chest.

My tall uncle holds the door open for us, and we enter a wide, sepia-toned front room.  Facing us as we walk toward the action in the back is a dummy torso seated in a chair at a round table.  He’s dressed authentically in a cowboy hat and a western shirt with snaps on the pockets, and I almost think he’s real until I look closer.  The walls and shelves are covered with framed photographs of famous people who have boot-scooted at Broken Spoke before us.  It’s busy, and we step out of the way of eager but polite patrons who just want to start dancing.  Uncle Bob pays the cover charge for the three of us, and we hold out our left hands for a stamp.  As we look for a seat at one of the many tables set up on either side of the open dance floor, I am caught off-guard by a man close behind me who suddenly squeezes my upper arm and smiles.  If y’all are looking for a table, there’s one right here, he says, and gestures to his jean jacket slung across the red-and-white checkered oilcloth.  He is so friendly, so affable.  The physical contact, the smile, what I thought was a quick wink – it seems so forward to my reserved New England soul.  For a moment I hesitate, then realize this is the Texas way, and I smile back and thank him.

We sit with legs crossed on folding metal chairs and immediately feel so drawn in by the bustling warmth, music, and bright neon signs that line the posts on either side of the dance floor that we can’t help but tap our feet.  David and Bob acquire beers with lime slices stuck in the lip.  Two Tons of Steel is a 4-man ensemble consisting of an upright bass, drums, two guitars, and one vocalist.  They are wonderful – not too loud, and their music is energetic, clean, and tight.  They don’t stop playing the entire hour and a half we’re at the club. As I watch the two stepping couples, I can’t stop the smile that starts to spread across my face.  There are young people, old people, all shapes and sizes.  Some women wear loose, sleeveless tops that spin and float as their male partners twirl them out and in.  The way the couples hold each other in dance position seems both formal and tender, the man’s hand pressing and guiding the small of the woman’s back.  Faces show concentration and steady joy.  Some folks know all the words to the music and are singing along.  Almost everyone wears cowboy boots.  I admire a long black skirt heavily adorned in sparkles on a woman sweeping off the dance floor to look for her friends in between songs.

Watching the crowd, it quickly becomes clear who are the really good dancers.  Yet no one shows off or takes up more than their share of the floor, and I soon see that the couples all keep moving in the same direction, a slow carousel of stepping, soft stomping, and spinning.  A tall man in a turquoise button-down with a bright orange t-shirt underneath catches my eye, and by the time we leave I’ve watched him dance with at least a half dozen women.  At first I think he’s a little wild and goofy, but that first impression turns to astonishment.  He is amazingly graceful and smooth, with quick feet and sure hands.  His sloping shoulders and long arms and legs never stop moving, and although he is sweating, he does not look like he is working at all to expertly guide his partner in her small orbit.  He has an open, slightly blissful face and blue eyes that scan the crowd, possibly looking for the next lady he’ll ask to dance.

There are a few short old gentlemen who also draw my rapt attention.  They are dressed neatly in cowboy boots and hats, jeans, and wide leather belts that do the job the mens’ flat backsides used to do; their weight has shifted to small round bellies in the front.  They, too, have many different partners on the dance floor, and although their joints are quite stiff and their hips barely move, their booted feet are so deft they could belong to much younger men.  They seem serene and confident.  They twirl their partners courteously, their arms crooking high above their heads to keep just their fingertips connected as the ladies turn.

I pick out other confident movers among the crowd, making mental notes so I can recall the feel of the place later.  The muscular-looking man in a ball cap who smiles up at the air above the heads of his partners.  The woman in tight, rolled-up jeans and red high-heeled shoes with lipstick to match, who sees me staring in awe at how well she balances in her heels and grins.  Broken Spoke offers dance instruction for an hour before their main live bands play in the evenings, and I could kick myself for not taking a lesson.  As I’m standing at the side of the dance floor to get a better view, a nice guy politely asks me if I want to try, explaining that the cowboy boots he’s wearing are the first pair he’s ever owned.  I say that I don’t know how, am from Maine just visiting, and we chat amiably for a few minutes.  Later on I see him with two different dance partners, moving beautifully in his new boots.

After many songs, we finally have had our fill and file out of the low-ceilinged room toward the front door.  I can think of nothing in my life in Portland, Maine, that is like what I’ve just witnessed.  Portland is full of smart, skilled people who tend to be a little sarcastic and very liberal, who divide themselves up into their special groups and then come together over politics and various worthy causes.  They might not know what to think about the roomful of folks I’ve just watched and admired.  If they were here, they also might have warmed up slowly, been a touch surprised by the disarming friendliness.  They might have felt, as I did, underdressed and out of place.  But soon, they’d be on their feet.  They’d see the unforced, wholesome delight in every face, the sparkling skirts, the cowboy boots.  They’d watch, perhaps with a touch of envy, as a soft-bodied older couple sway up from their folding chairs, clasp hands, and join the dance floor crowd with assured, measured steps, looking like there’s no other place they’d rather be.

{from March 2011}  I like looking at people’s faces.  Maybe that’s why I am dismayed by how cell phones have profoundly changed our society.  No one looks up; no one looks out.  They’re just tapping at their damn little devices.  I guess I’m old-fashioned.  I don’t care.

With an hour to kill in Portland tonight I decide to drive up streets less familiar to me.  I get that feeling I sometimes get — an overwhelming wash of love for other people even though I don’t know them, for their unguarded faces.  A man at the end of his day with five o’clock shadow.  A group of young boys in vibrant red and blue socks playing ball, their coats piled in a huge mound against the fence.  Someone has taken a little kid’s bike and shoved one handlebar through the chainlink high up, a modern-day intepretation of a Shaker hanging a chair.  The perfectly-framed face of a young woman wearing a hijab, the wind gently stirring the loose folds of her long skirt.  A man with a bushy gray beard who flashes me a big toothy smile after we both watch his white and black dog scamper to catch up and then zoom past him.  People are out.  People are stirring their thoughts by walking.

Spring is coming; spring is one of my favorite thoughts.  And then the brief dazzle of summer, the dreaminess of bending over to pick warm strawberries, the skin on our arms bare to the hot sun.  But for this late afternoon hour of my day, it is enough to look plainly, directly, at faces wearing concentration, fatigue, and joy, and hope that the problems are working themselves out, that the conversations are going somewhere.  I’m glad that there are still some unswept streets in the city of Portland.  We’re all in chrysalis yet and we need a little more time.

{from December 2016} Last night, there is a man shouting in the parking lot of the gas station. I keep my hand on the nozzle and crane my neck to see in the dark — is he calling for a dog? Bridget. Bridget! A pale-faced woman in a worn black winter coat finally shuffles toward him from the opposite direction. They confer under the whitewash of lights and then go inside the convenience mart to buy something. I go in, too, and stand in line with a soda. The tall man in front of me has a large stain on one leg of his pants. He is clutching a small bottle of ketchup, a loaf of bread, and a few other food items I cannot see. The clerk kindly offers to pay the five cents so the guy can have a bag to carry his groceries. Thanks, man, says the tall guy. That really makes it easier to get home. He wants to keep talking, he seems hungry to tell a story about paying it forward, but the clerk has turned away and now asks me if the overlooked nickel on the countertop is mine. Nope, it isn’t, I say, smiling.

Tonight, I go to the three grocery stores: Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Hannaford. Three different tribes. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are bustling, mad, crawling with people. It seems like every woman I see in Whole Foods has evening makeup and salon-fresh hair. The lines for the cash registers stretch down the aisles. People shift from foot to foot, glancing at iPhones, looking over the things piled in their carts. A blond-haired woman carrying an enormous stuffed giraffe in her arms stands behind me and smiles a little smile at everyone smiling at her. Some lucky child is going to go bananas on Christmas morning.

At Hannaford, there is a whiff of forlornness. The woman gathering carts stands just inside the automatic doors and lets out a big whoop to shake off the cold of the parking lot. I glide up and down a few empty aisles, checking my handwritten list, and pass a gray-haired man guiding a large cart slowly around a corner. A jar of pickles is the lone occupant of the top tray of his carriage. He appears lost in thought. He may not have shaved this morning.

I walk to my car, thinking that I have so much. So much. More than I need. Maybe I’ll find a magic wand in this parking lot, underneath the dirty slush and grocery cart tracks. Maybe at first I’ll think it’s glinting ice, but when I stop and look closer, I’ll see it’s an honest-to-goodness crystal wand. I’ll pick it up, take a deep breath, close my eyes, and raise my arm in a wide, wide arc. I’ll sweep away the dark, and loneliness. I’ll say, Come in, you magnificent light.

{from April 2016} My mother kept plants in the sunny dining room for my entire life.
When the leaflets of the oxalis had died off, she’d gather their limp stems and dry little hung heads in one hand, tugging them gently all the way around the pot, and throw the fistful in the wastebasket under the kitchen sink.
She’d pinch off the sodden and still-vibrant spent flowers of her Christmas cacti. She’d walk around the house, tending to other easy chores in her bathrobe (she loved to be in her bathrobe for hours), cradling the blooms for a long time, as if she’d forgotten them in her small hand.
She’d cut back certain fast-growing plants only when they began to encroach in a serious way. Once, she made an alarming discovery: the philodendron by the front window, under its mounds of snaking and sprawling leaves, had started to grow into the cushy green carpet.
She didn’t have fancy plants. She left many of them in the cheap plastic pots in which they came to her. She never lost her head and decided that orchids were where she’d go next. With simple order and kindness, she kept this collection of living green things beautiful for decades: water, pinch off, cut back, turn the pots every once in awhile.
In my mind, I’ll always picture her bent low at the waist, her size 5 feet bare and nestling into the carpet, smiling over her peaceful kingdom of unhurried life.

{from May 2015} I ride a wide road past open fields.  I labor as smoothly as possible up gentle hills and then coast down and around each next bend.  By gum, spring is really at it today.  Grass, birds, leaves, insects, air — all are in the most delicious hurry to show us, to hasten the ever-widening sense of NEW MORE HERE.  Here the trees dressing themselves, rushing to fill back in the spaces between them that have been too stark since last November.  Here the mossy egg-shaped stone that thinks it is as pretty as a dapple gray horse’s shoulder.  Here, and here, and here, small birds dart up frantic from the grass.

The road is smooth and cracked, heaved and settled.  I ride through cooler sudden patches of air.  To my right, Maxwell’s is encouraging their strawberry fields for the paths of wandering June pickers who will park in the grass in neat rows and fan out, who will need no longer than an hour of reaching under the leaves to top up slope-sided cardboard trays.  Then, here — here is the sudden view of the ocean, straight over my shoulder.  A chickadee’s “fee bee!” reminds me of my mother’s voice calling me to dinner on a long-ago summer night.

Why does asphalt sparkle?  I watch the road continuously peeling away under my wheels, marvel at the thousand glints.  I think of talking with an acquaintance who complained that his 3,000 square foot house was not large enough, that he grew up in a 6,000 square foot house, how on earth is he supposed to LIVE in a house smaller than that?  I think of riding home to our very modest house, of having to carefully shift the wide laundry basket so I don’t bump walls as I travel from bedroom to hallway to kitchen to basement.  But: go outside.  Out here, the grass, birds, and leaves signal to you, open your sight wider and wider, invite you to look as far as you want, as long as you want. Out here, your mother is part of the sky, the green grass, the berry fields, the low stone walls, the small joyous stirrings all around.

On Sunday, I drive out to the South Portland Target to exchange an item I bought earlier in the week. I make a left hand turn into the vast parking lot and slow down, peering at the rows for a relatively close empty space. I see one and pull in, a little lost in thought and half-listening to the radio. I’m in no hurry and am somewhat looking forward to strolling the brightly lit interior of the store. Do we need a new bath mat? Sure. Toothpaste. We need toothpaste.

As I gather up my gloves and purse, I glance over at the car to my right and freeze. The man sitting in the driver’s seat is looking down at his hands, texting quickly with his thumbs. I can see that there is a small child sitting in the seat next to him, but can’t see the child’s face because of the angle of the sun. The man’s face in profile — his haircut, ears, strong neck and jawline — looks exactly — exactly — like my brother’s. I know this happens — that we see doppelgangers for friends and loved ones, that we ourselves are sometimes mistaken for someone else. We find ourselves doing a double take, or we’re approached by a stranger wearing a funny expression. For several long seconds I silently will the man to look up from his phone. I quickly scan the car — a black sedan with a child safety seat in the back — and stare holes in the side of the man’s face. Still, he does not look up. The resemblance, from this angle, is astonishing. For one wild moment my mind asks, What if? What if it was him? How? I finally climb slowly out of my car, turning my head multiple times to look back at the man as I walk toward the store.

Once inside, I get in line to make my exchange and scan the face of every man approaching the automatic doors while I wait. The store is fairly busy and the doors open often. Young couples drift in. Moms and dads steer the signature red shopping carts, kids perched like happy captive monkeys. I know that if this man comes in, I won’t recognize him. Because it’s not my brother. It’s someone else, someone whose profile in the sun looked for a moment like the person who was uniquely mine in life, my only sibling. I won’t recognize the man. I feel shaken and calm at the same time.

I return my ironing board cover. I make my way to the Home section, picking up a few throw pillows, taking too long to decide between a triangle pattern or wavy lines pattern for a replacement cover. The large store seems to have swallowed all those people coming in. I don’t see anyone else while I’m contemplating my choices in my lonely laundry aisle. What would I say to him if he walked by?

The car is still there when I return outside. This time, a tired-looking woman is loading stuffed white and red Target bags into the trunk. The man is still in the driver’s seat, turning away from the window to arrange something inside the car. If the radio is on, if the man is talking to his child, if the woman is sighing to herself, I can’t hear. As I put the car in reverse and back out, I finally glimpse just enough of the man’s face to see that of course, it’s a stranger. The eyes are set differently. The face is more round. I stare for a second longer, then accelerate to the far corner of the parking lot. For one moment, I feel like smiling. I wish the young family a good afternoon, a good life. I hope the woman sleeps well tonight. I think of all the stars in the sky, the multitudes of them.

{from December 2016} We start the morning watching the men’s 30K freestyle in Davos, our heads unconsciously bobbing in rhythm with the skiers’ amazingly fit bodies levering over the snow. They cross the finish line and some of them collapse, beards and mouths crusted with foam, snot, and ice. Their lungs heave as the cameras come in close on their faces. They lie with skis and poles splayed, ecstasy at the finish and the agony of the effort showing in crimson blotches on necks and cheeks, eyes closed, heads cradled back. We are thrilled — we who, compared to these unfathomably strong athletes, once merely dabbled in ski racing many moons ago.

On to the rest of the day. Open studio and art sale with happy crowds and the mingled scents of falafel, ink, cinnamon, coffee in the air. It is the season of light, magic, and wonder, and it takes no effort at all — no heaving lungs or anaerobic threshold — to radiate warmth to each other through our puffy coats, knit caps, and big scarves. I am with my friend with her beautiful baby, and her generous spirit makes me feel like this precious infant is mine, too, and we’re showing him off together to the friends we meet. All children should come to this existence that way — welcomed with sharing and open hearts. We walk around and around the studios, taking in collage art, freshly printed t-shirts, tiny ceramic vases, silver jewelry, bowls of chocolate kisses, and plates of butter cookies.

Back home, D tells me to change into long underwear. We’ll be heading out soon to cut our own Christmas tree! I layer up and we leave the house to Harley with the radio on to keep him company. In the driveway, we step up into the cab of our truck and check to make sure we’ve brought our own bow saw for the task. At the farm, we talk to a kind-faced woman who tells us there are many more trees to see in the third field up, don’t you worry. We drive slowly, park, and spread out in cheery search parties with other bundled families. Here and there, dogs pull at leashes, alive and eager, and children call out in excited voices from among the shaggy rows. After a few minutes we find our perfect tree. We both thank it out loud as we carry it back to the truck, its cut end unbelievably fragrant.

The tree breathes greenness into the living room. I’ll spend the evening decorating and listening to my favorite music, lost a little in the private world of my cherished memories, of my parents’ tradition of waking us late on Christmas Eve and letting us open all our presents then, me in a pink fleece bathrobe and oversize glasses on my young face. One year, I got a Barbie beauty salon, a big plastic thing, and I couldn’t believe how wonderful my life was at that moment. Today has felt like that — moment after moment of pure wonder at my jumbled, love-filled life. Do you believe in a divine something, a guiding star that traversed the night, an all-encompassing love that will fold you in its arms when you need it most? I do, and whether you and I agree or not does not change my love for you in the least. On this cold December evening, I count my blessings and prepare my heart for more. The light will never let us go.