Snow


Dear family and friends ~

These are trying times, indeed. And the temptation — and ability — to check newsfeeds constantly can be both mentally and emotionally exhausting. We need to take a break.

If you watch PBS NewsHour, you’ve probably noticed that Judy Woodruff has lately taken to ending the broadcast on an uplifting note. For those who missed it, here’s 85-year-old Lucile Day’s recent “Brief But Spectacular” essay: Lucile Day  I highly recommend it for a four-minute reprieve from distress. It kept me feeling better for awhile.

I woke this morning with Judy Woodruff on my mind. I’m grateful for her gifts of humanity and hope in these difficult days. And then it dawned on me that I could do my best to pass that on. So I decided to start a brief daily e-mail I’m calling “Taking a Deeper Breath.” But first, instead of getting up to read the online news, I went out for an early morning walk to be in the world and to clear my head. It was snowing hard (!?), and I had the road to myself. I stopped to let flakes fall on my tongue. I tramped in the nearby forest, listening to the “tweetie bird! tweetie bird!” call of the song sparrows and the chickadees’ reply. It was easy to breathe more deeply as I relaxed. A sense of peace carried me home, and I want to share it with all of you. I hope that this poem will do that.

You may know of Kate DiCamillo as the award winning author of The Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie, and the Mercy Watson Series. But she also wrote a lovely poem that is perfect for today. Please enjoy. And stay healthy.

Love,
Nancie/Mom/Mimi/Grandma


Snow, Aldo

Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees were still
bare and the sky was
gray and low and it began, suddenly,
to snow:
big fat flakes
that twirled and landed on the
black of the man’s overcoat and
the black dog’s fur. The dog
lifted his face and stared
up at the sky. The man looked
up, too. “Snow, Aldo,” he said to the dog,
“snow.” And he laughed.
The dog looked
at him and wagged his tail.
If I was in charge of making
snow globes, this is what I would put inside:
the old man in the black overcoat,
the black dog,
two friends with their faces turned up to the sky
as if they were receiving a blessing,
as if they were being blessed together
by something
as simple as snow
in March.
          ~Kate Di Camillo

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