Snowy owl-sightings and snowier walks were planned for yesterday as we cleared out of our now-leafless Victorian neighborhood and headed up to the lake for the day. The days are growing shorter. Nights are long and the echo of the moon was visible in the daylight sky, holding low to remind us that the dark comes soon, keeping us rushing through our late afternoons.
The drive takes forever. We eat red pistachios and sing Nick Drake songs, and Jacob has the most hilarious running joke of taking any heavy metal song and singing it as if it were being sung by Harry Connick Jr. I laughed so hard I feared the pistachios might wind up shooting out my nose but they settled for choking me half to death instead. I haven't laughed that hard in ages.
Our walk was icy-cold. Frosty kisses were worth it. The kids kept giggling. Jacob would stop every ten feet, grab me and dip me back low so that my hair touched the ground. I was full of snow. He was grinning as we walked, his nose was red and his eyes bright. He taught the kids a silly song that involved lots of stomping and clapping to stay warm and then we finally got too cold and the dark started crowding in close to our twilight and so we turned and raced back to the parking area from the labyrinth of trails. Only I didn't run, I walked briskly and watched as Jacob pretended to run fast beside Ruth, pantomiming falling behind and then tripping and falling into the snow. She was howling in delight, Henry was chortling and had snot running all over the place. I was laughing so hard I couldn't say anything anymore.
Both kids fell asleep on the drive back to the city, and Jacob took my hand in his and sang to me the whole way home. Songs he was making up about a princess who lives on the beach and meets a prince that she falls in love with and he builds her a sandcastle with an oven inside big enough to bake a thousand chocolate cakes. It was quite something. This princess had pet oysters who gave her pearls in exchange for her affections, and there was a switch inside her castle that turned on the sun or moon at her command.
Only Jacob insisted that it wasn't a fairytale song but a true story and that I should recognize the princess in the song as myself. I told him I couldn't light up the moon at my whim and he pointed to the glowing sliver of crescent now clearly visible outside my window. He smiled and said I could do whatever I set my heart to. That I have control at last. That I am capable of anything and everything. That it's magical.
He's right.
