Somewhere else...

            The pond iced over while we were away. A crusted-over mat of snow covered the car that I left outside the garage. Two coiled hoses sat barely visible under the snowcover by the kitchen garden. We left in a hurry after the 5:15am call.
            “Nellie’s water just broke…things are progressing along,” Mike said calmly, hoping his call wouldn’t incite us to careen wildly down the highway.
            Now we’re back home. The daily papers keep arriving on the doorstep. The dogs are waiting to be petted and fed and walked. The bus squeaks and hisses at 7:30 as it stops to pick kids up across the street.           
            This week, Fiona arrived here on the Earth, sparkling clean, at the very beginning of a brand new life. One exuberant, extended family of humans is transfixed, transported, lifted temporarily out of the fray and into the miraculous.
            On the day that Fiona was learning how to breathe, a student of mine was poised to pass her Miss Maine Teen tiara to the newest pageant winner. Another local kid was expelled for having a gun in school. And a bunch of people in a bunch of places slipped into or out of life, sending seismic reverberations through a bunch of living souls.
            Our pond has iced over. Somewhere else, summer flowers are pushing through the soil, reaching for the sun.
 
My 60th year in 60,000 words
Day 79: 226 words, TOTAL = 13,264; 46,736 remaining