It’s November first and we’re nursing a slight candy hangover under a blanket. The older kid’s chest is rattly; the younger kid’s nose is runny. My fingers are freezing.

And added to our very pedestrian list of woes, the real sorrows: New Jersey and New York and Delaware, in terrible shape. When the governor of your state decides to postpone Halloween, you know you are allowed to wallow in self-pity.

So when I came across some photos lurking in my camera, waiting for me to come across a cold day so I could sit down and look through them, I gazed at them lovingly: it’s almost like looking through baby pictures, only that this was just a month ago, and the scene is not exotic or tropical. But the scene is happy and familiar and somehow full of hope, at least to me.

Are we ever ready for winter? Are we ever ready for devastation and loss and illness?

No, but they all come. And somehow the memory that we ever lived a day like the one above can make the dreariness brighten up a little.

01 Nov This entry was published on November 1, 2012 at 5:34 pm. It’s filed under News of the World, Zen Sarcasm and tagged better days, post-hurricane, stanton park, warmth. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.