moments

                 Once in fourth grade, I accidentally went home an hour early for lunch. We lived only a block from our elementary school, so I was supposed to watch the clock and walk home at a certain time...something like 11:45. Somehow, I'd mistakenly left at 10:45!
                I didn't notice I'd left early, but I was confused when my mom and dad weren't at the house when I got there: mom always came home for lunch too.
                I expected my parents to show up any moment, so I contented myself with sitting next to the heater vent, in front of the bay window in the livingroom. As I enjoyed the rush of warm air blowing from the floor I was joined by our cat, Stinky.
                I remember petting the kitty as we sat there luxuriating in the sun from the windows, the air from the furnace, and the comfort of one another's company for at least half an hour.
Finally, mom and dad arrived, and we realized my mistake. We ate lunch, then returned to our respective schools without further mention of the day.
                It was just a small, accidental moment, but to this day it's one of my warmest memories.  Since then (or maybe even long before) I have equated quiet afternoons and dust-filled sunlight with contentment.
               I was reminded of this moment just last week. Jonah and Eli had both gone down for a nap; Joshua needed to complete his homework before I would let him play a game on the computer, and Elora was reading aloud some nursery rhymes from an old coloring book we had brought home from Grandma’s last summer.

                I invited the two of them to come back into my room to continue their activities while I folded the clothes i had just washed. My room is the warmest room in the house in the winter, whereas the kitchen (where they’d been sitting) is definitely the coldest! Especially under blustery conditions as we’ve had the last few days.

               We were only there for a half hour or so, but it was a lovely interlude in the watery winter afternoon light of my room. I wish we could have stayed there longer, but Josh was intent on playing that computer game.

              Not all perfect moments have to take place in stillness or quiet.

              A few weeks ago, during the Christmas break, we had another nice afternoon together. Eli was taking a nap, and I took Josh, Elora, and Jonah to go feed the fish at our neighbors. Elora got this job from her teacher while they were gone for Christmas; the teacher's school home is only a short distance from our own. After feeding the fish we went down to the mailboxes to retrieve our mail, and I realized I’d left some mail at our house. I let them stay there while I ran home to get it, and when I got back they were busy excavating the giant pile of snow around the mail boxes.

This was a different day, inside the mailbox shelter

                   Because of the unique combination of the below freezing weather, the high winds, and the powdery snow, in the winter we have these interesting drifts and plateaus of snow. When the weather is just right, you can break up the surface of these snow drifts, and recover huge thick slabs of snow, some up to three feet across and six inches thick!

 

Sculpted snow

                When I rejoined them, we all took turns picking up the big platters of snow and dashing them against the mailbox shelter. As we slowly retreated toward our house, our game evolved into tossing the rough disks to one another, as we either caught them or ducked to avoid them.

It was about this time of day...in this location.

I wished I had my camera to capture the surreal late afternoon sunlight of winter filtering through the clouds, and bathing us in an ethereal aura as we spent about 45 minutes tossing the snow back and forth in our odd game of catch.

 

Do you ever have moments like that?