10/22/20 | Snow came sooner than anyone expected. Sometimes the sky buries you, ready or not. * Sometimes construction crews arrive with out-of-state plates to flatten the slope of a gravel pit, where just last week your children learned they can eat milkweed pods, but only when they are tender. * We are too late this time. We watch the seeds dance up into the wind. * It is impossible to know where any of us will land. * The flags are here, a color we know means that something is coming. * Someone left them here, and they will be back. * I’ve been watching this spot for a couple of years now. Every time I’d pass I would stop to make my version of prayer on the roadside. Take heed, and leave something behind. * That way, the trees and water might know how I thought of them when I promised to return. * On those long drives north I wrote letters to my children, and grandchildren too, composing the words in my head. * I loved you, even back when we spoke softly, the language of permits and worry. * You might miss this signal. If you didn’t know where you were, or who you would become when facing your worst fears. * If you were no longer just a visitor passing through, too busy to notice. * People here check up on us: How are we doing? Do we have what we need? Are we safe and settled? * They mean: Did I fill the propane tank? Are my winter tires on? Did I warn the children not to wander too far? Do we wear orange so we will be seen? * No one asks about the long now, the one that bends and stretches us all from pandemic into pipeline, a slow rolling disaster — moving faster and faster. * Long days getting short, old rhythms returning. * Wake up, hear the children running in the kitchen, soothe their hunger. * Walk together, make pictures. * Speak softly the language of wonder. * Practice counting the pick-up trucks in the pit. Sound out the names on the doors. * Do we have what we need? * Sometimes, the sky buries you. * Ready or not. *