Weathering Storms

Funnel Cake
I keep thinking about the way confectioner sugar covers funnel cake at the fair: powdery on top and crunchy just under the dusty surface. It's everywhere. Particularly so under your feet.
Crunch crunch.




Our trees {at least those left standing} are in suspended Seussical animation.


The cherry tree has bloomed for the last time.



Having been through an ice storm once before, we are saying "thank you" every time we turn on a light switch and still have power. We rush to finish each task and put things away so that they can be easily found with a flash light just in case. Looking around the neighborhood and reading the wind forecasts for tonight, we know we are on borrowed light at this point and that power could go at any time. Even so, the time we have had with light and heat has been such a gift.

The last time we had a big ice storm that knocked out power for week, we lived in a different neighborhood, one that we chose because of all of the mature, sweeping trees. Those trees seemed to explode that night: popping bones and a long tumble to the ground. I didn't realize how much that experience -watching trees fall into homes and on cars- stayed with me until today when in the yard, I heard that familiar pop and practically took cover over my daughter. A large limb tumbled down and split over the fence. We were about 10 feet away, but still, I made a joke about the snapping trees and promised hot chocolate if we go inside. Like when I smile through airplane turbulence to help both of us think it's all supposed to happen this way.



I think about what it must be like to be a mom in Gaza tonight as the cease fire is broken, where parents have grown accustomed to taking cover over their children. When those photos come in on the AP wire, I wonder how the editors feel about the images and if they feel called to pray for the people in them, like I do. When I see them, I don't think of them as far away, I think of how I would feel as a mother, trying to protect my baby, in a place that once felt safe to me.

Someone who helps us with the house told me a few weeks ago, "Sarajevo is my city. I wonder sometimes, did I dream it all?" It was once beautiful to her, then like a hell on earth with entire families killed in front of her, and now as she returned this Christmas, it is a place where people are happy again. "I see people laughing and in the market and I keep looking for ghosts. I wonder if it is real the happiness or real what I remember." Her stories are haunting, particularly of the threats she felt for her babies and their safety. We both decided after a cry one morning that the economic worries we are all having in this country are nothing in comparison to living in war. She said to me, "Imagine what it is like to have money in your hand, but it is worth nothing. You cannot buy food for your children." I think about her stories every time I am able to buy food for my child and when I hold her until she falls asleep. We all want the same things for our children.

I feel so thankful for warmth tonight, for a dry place to sleep, for bread, for my family. I pray for moms everywhere as they try to keep their babies safe and warm.