not a window to my soul.

My right eye has been bloodshot for weeks now, rebelling against allergy season and spiting my attempts to keep a contact lens on her. She is going to burn out of my socket and roll down the Salty Tear River that she churned to a constant current last night. My eye is rose-colored glass, and when she finally breaks free, she will shatter. I will be blind. At this point, I say bring on the eye-patch…at least I won’t look high anymore.

snow play.

Like the rest of all mystified Texans, I opened my door yesterday to a bright white morning. My jaw dropped and froze while my dog, Brody, pawed the thick fluff. Snow?! I couldn’t help but to laugh as I tried to “scrape” off my windshield—the snow was about four inches thicker than my old school ID makeshift scraper, so I ended up brushing off the mounds with my arm. I spent half of my workday watching the icy cotton fall outside the two-story shelter school window. It settled into the trees, the somewhere-down-there grass, and I kept thinking, this is real snow, man. REAL SNOW.

We normally get ice, slush, or just heavy cold rain...the pretend stuff. The only snowmen I’d seen were flecked with dirt and grass, melted by a day’s end. But not this time. Everything is caked in white, soft like powdered sugar. The yards and houses are stunning and gorgeous. My neighborhood is so picturesque! The street’s mud-sludge is the only hint of anything impure in sight. Snow clings onto every roof and blankets each bush. The cold it rained down with isn’t even that brutal! Brody and I gave our yard a played-in look, sinking and kicking up snow as we tromped around. I snapped pictures of my silly dog as he pounced down like Simba on Zazu. With each landing, he lapped up snow and shook off the cold like a champ.

Now, cozy in a sweatshirt and sipping my second mug of chai, I’m certain—this Snow Day is perfection.

so kidtastic.

Maybe it’s because these past few weeks have been extra kid-filled, but lately kids remind me of how good life is, how little things are worth getting excited over. It’s liberating to squeal and break out into ridiculous dance moves. I love the sweetness of playing make-believe and giggling about anything and everything. That youth-inspired goofiness is a natural high, an instantaneous pick-me-up. I smile about those little things a lot, and figure sharing a favorite memory might be the best way to show why.

I paralleled to the curb and flicked the key toward me. As the engine settled, I crossed my forearms over the wheel, let my head fall. The day felt so much longer than most. I had called my best friend’s aunt after class, and she said I could stop by; the kids would be happy to see me.

Back when I first met Drew, I was with my neighbors (who also happen to be my best friend’s family) and some of their cousins for a holiday play and a pancake house treat. As we left the play, Drew looked up at me and said bashfully, “I want to sit by youuuu.” His small, raspy four year old voice must’ve pinked my cheeks—he was just so adorable! Two years later when I moved to their city for college, I knew I’d be inviting myself over to that family’s house often. Like all little kids, Drew and his little sister, Ava, liked to show-and-tell their newest toys. Drew was shy and always waited quietly with his Lego creations while Ava bounced around or leapt into my lap, waving a doll in my face. Those kiddos have always lifted me up effortlessly. I banked on their gleeful energy to be contagious.

As I sat in the car, I thought about how much I’d love a hug from Ava. My last time over, she’d been in a mommy-only mood. She use to run and hug me the second she saw me, so the lack of that greeting didn’t go unnoticed. I figured she’d still be in that phase, reasoning that it wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, bother me. I bumped my car door shut and looked up just as the front door smacked against the side of their house. Ava ran at me, flailing her arms spastically and shouting “SarasarasarasarasaraSARA!!!!!!” She monkey-jumped to my hip and latched her arms around my neck. “I’ve been waiting for you forehhhhver!” she sang as I swung her down. Drew smiled from the doorway and eye-motioned to the Lego spaceship dangling at his knee. After a few minutes of bounding around the front yard, I chased the kids inside and spent the remainder of the afternoon as a human jungle-gym and master story-teller.

baby, baby, baby.

The baby boy sank into the pillow, nuzzled between my side and the crook of my arm. His belly raised infinitesimally, breath as soft as a butterfly’s landing. I turned a page of my book and looked down at him again—his eyelids fluttered at the slight shift, but he didn’t wake. He felt safe cradled against me, warmed by the rhythmic motion of my breath, deeper and longer than his own.

He wasn’t mine, but holding him like that nudged a mothery feeling in me, one that surprises me sometimes when I babysit. Maybe years from now, I’ll read by lamp-light, my arm numb from my sleeping infant’s weight. But now, the idea seems foreign, far off, and unreal. I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as “a baby person”. Sure, babies are cute, but I more often notice how they cry and scream, pull your hair and try to rip out your earrings. I don’t goo-goo gah-gah at every baby in sight, or say things like, “oh I just can’t wait to have one of my own!” I can definitely wait.

I don’t usually pass time by imagining motherhood, but, in those unexpected moments when a baby sleeps soundly against me, I feel like, someday, I could be a mom, and I could be a good one. I would hope to be, at least. I don’t really ever know what to do with that feeling. It’s still foreign, far off, and unreal, but it’s also sweet and oddly innate. It freaks me out and leaves me cozy and distant-future hopeful all at the same time.