A Snow Day with Nora

She immediately gets down on the ground and rolls without stopping over the top of the snow from the front steps to the orchard.

Snow angels with big wings.  Small wings.  One wing.  Pants.  Crazy hair.

We are penguins looking for icicles to eat.  (There's one in our freezer right now.)

"Look what I found!"  (Digging up her turtle sandbox as if she'd never seen it before.)  This new planet.

Cats egg-shell footed over the snow.  They hate this stuff.

Hot chocolate.  Blanket warmed in the dryer.  Barbies.  Listening to her voice all day throughout the house, talking, singing, jumping, rolling.  Completely wild with loving life.  Making a complete mess while baking (and me trying to "keep it in the bowl.")  "I'm covered in this stuff!" she says, obviously delighted.

This is joy.  

Then later, her laughter turning to tears, to laughter again.  "I can't figure out what I'm feeling, so I got mixed up with my tears."  I'm holding her because I know this place: 

But it's hard to write it.  The edge.  I don't know what I'm thinking exactly, only that joy requires a loss of control, demands that vulnerability I've been thinking about and trying to live within.  I live with a teacher.