As simple as that
We didn’t get pounded with snow over the weekend like my friend Abby in Baltimore. Here in Charleston, snow is something we rarely see.
But as the weekend approached and the sky turned gray and rain fell, there was this feeling in the air that a snow storm was coming.
Our typical routine on Saturday morning is to let the kids play for a few hours while Shawn and I sit on the sofa, drink coffee, and click around on our laptops. It’s a mix of work-related things and catching up on articles and emails we weren’t able to get to during the week. And since the kids know their way to the cereal (they're digging in the pantry all the time) and enjoy the downtime as much as we do, they usually keep themselves occupied. When they start bugging us every five minutes we know our time is up.
But this Saturday morning, Shawn realized that he'd left his workout clothes at the office (we had plans to go to the gym later) and needed to get them. Blake woke up first and went with Shawn, because riding in Daddy's car is so cool. Daddy plays the music really loud.
So I was alone, on the sofa, on a Saturday, drinking coffee. These days, that’s on the level of an exotic vacation. Minutes later, I heard Cate doing her sleepy stomp down the stairs. Dillon was still in bed, and Cate doesn’t always know what to do with herself when her brothers aren’t around. So I invited her to come sit with me.
Then I got a message from a neighbor that it was “snowing” on our street.
“Cate, guess what? It’s snowing! Do you want to go see?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
We ran to the front door. I picked her up and we walked out on the porch and admired the flurries. Flurries so light and scattered that my camera would never detect them. Like little dust bunnies floating. Flurries that had no chance of sticking when they hit the ground.
But it was exciting all the same. It was a fleeting moment of magic, of wonder.
Until Cate said, “Brrr! It’s cold! Let’s go inside!”
And so we did. Then we headed to the kitchen to make biscuits and bacon. By the time Shawn and Blake returned and Dillon stumbled out of bed, the house smelled so much more delicious than dry cereal.
I’m documenting this experience simply because of how it felt. How it felt to get up, open my front door, open my eyes, and see.
I’m sure the mix of rare snow flurries and the brisk air contributed to the effect, and also, because I accepted the invitation.
It was an invitation to reconnect to the feeling of being awake and alive and present inside my own life.
It was a quiet, encouraging, inner thing that nudged me and said, Get up. Go look.
In a few fleeting moments, I remembered: Oh right, it’s as simple as that. {tweet that}.
