With
52 With The most important word in the world is with. We are always with. —My daughter, age seven The sun rises over the trees behind our house, and the dogs want out. Today it’s supposed to snow again. Tonight we’ll have soup, just the two of us and talk about our month in Italy, how we wondered if we could live in all that light. We’ll remember the last time we danced alone. The wind is moving across the drifts as the sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, and chickadees dart into the feeder dangling above the three squirrels grabbing what falls. Yesterday at the little market just up the street, the owner asked how things were. I thought of my grandmother, how she would walk “up street” every day to get a “meat cake” and something for dessert. Maybe this evening, 53 before we search for a movie on TV, we’ll go for a walk, take the dogs, feel the wind on our faces. I’ll take out the trash for the morning pickup, the night sky draping over our part of it all; the moon now just a slice. When I come in, the dogs will want out before they sleep. I’ll wait for them to come back in. With no one else, we will say good night. ...
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