Today’s Daydream

I imagine we are in a small red house near a frozen pond. It’s winter. We’re snowed in, miles from anyone or anything, and that’s how we like it. 

Inside are colorful rope rugs, wooden walls papered with flowers, a stone mantle around a fireplace that gives adequate heat. I’m not sure who’s there except me, my daughters, and all the dogs we’ve ever loved.

The dogs snore by the fire, legs kicking. I bake gooey cinnamon bread while the girls play outside, skating on the pond in their sneakers, slipping and falling, unhurt. Unhurtable.

I lick the sugar off my fingertips and stand at the kitchen window watching as my girls pretend they’re ballerinas, then Willie Mays sliding into home. They stop, stand up, point, hold their fingers over their mouths, “Shhhhhhhh.” I turn and see what they see: a five-point buck with a mound of snow on his nose.

There will always be more beauty, more mystery than we can ever imagine.