Sweetness

First, we had a three day weekend. I was miserable for most of it, with headaches and a fear that my flu symptoms were related to the strep throat in my classroom last week. Last night, the Sunday night equivalent of the long weekend, I slept horribly, dreams rattled by my son’s dry cough, insomniac paranoid thoughts — for example: what if there isn’t enough oxygen in the apartment? Seriously, Amanda — and incessantly looping songs of the annoying pop variety.

I awoke, edgy but alert, about an hour before my intended snooze-a-thon. I showered, and went to the kitchen to make Langston’s breakfast. My phone rattled on the desk in the bedroom. Glancing at the caller ID, I saw a number which began with 411. Strange. Not a bill collector or blocked call, to be sure. Then I noticed that I had missed five calls while in the shower. Worst-case thoughts swept through my brain, and I quickly dialed voice mail. Two beautiful, beautiful messages described that there was no school today.

A few minutes ago, with a belly full of pancakes and delicious coffee, I danced with my son to Sam Cooke in front of his bedroom window. Dark blue curtains with golden stars and moons were drawn aside to frame snow falling, falling straight down.

Afterflakes

In the thick of a teeming snowfall
I saw my shadow on snow.
I turned and looked back up at the sky,
Where we still look to ask the why
Of everything below.

If I shed such a darkness,
If the reason was in me,
That shadow of mine should show in form
Against the shapeless shadow of storm,
How swarthy I must be.

I turned and looked back upward.
The whole sky was blue;
And the thick flakes floating at a pause
Were but frost knots on an airy gauze,
With the sun shining through.

Robert Frost