I'm Thinking of ...

I'm thinking of waking up to three inches of sleet with a glittering
cover of freezing rain. School's cancelled. I can't safely make work,
so I reschedule office patients and arrange for the colleague who lives
nearest the hospital to make rounds. I'm thinking of our hectic
lives--mine full with children and a commuting job, the children with
school and after school lessons and regular visitation 20 miles north
of the city with their father. Now brakes are applied to our hurried
lives by the oh so slippery ice. My children begin to stir. As I make
coffee, my attention is drawn to a family of six in front of our house.
The four children are sliding saucer sleds with their parents providing
push starts at the crest of our sloping street. I hear the plough
trucks mumbling several blocks over. I yell for my kids to grab their
purple sled and hurry if they want to join in. With careful slip
sliding steps, I station myself at the bottom of the hill and around
the curve to watch for oncoming cars. In the excitement of watching 30
minutes of careening children, I barely feel the wind's chill. Finally
the snow plough trucks relegate my children and their new friends to
the tame, yet also frozen slope of my yard. I watch them from my
kitchen window, while whipping up dozens of blueberry mini-muffins for
later, when the young hoard descends upon my living room.