Blinding and wonderful

The snow is so bright in the sun, it is hard to look at. The storm slated to slide south of us began yesterday shortly before lunch, and carried on well past dinner. The kids are disappointed that there has been an unpredicted substantial snowfall - yet again - on a weekend. Why not during the week, when we surely could use a day off in the doldrums of winter? But I don't mind.

Now it is Sunday, and the sky is crystal clear, bright blue. The children gather again from around the neighborhood to ride our hill. Excited squeals on the way down are replaced by groans and gasps on the way back up. Dads mull around at the top of the hill discussing potential J-bar set-ups to make the trudge easier.

I turn away from the window and can hardly see the kitchen with my irises still pinched tightly closed against the glare of the sun bouncing off the white, white snow.

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I am watching J in the shower. She still struggles a bit with the water in her face. But mostly she is a happy humming automaton, now tipping her head back to rinse her shampoo, now drawing a smiley face in the steam clinging to my shower's glass wall.

Her enjoyment of being able to take a shower from time to time in my bathroom seems disproportionate to the event itself. Her face lights up at the prospect like I have told her she has won $1000, or a puppy. This is not unlike her reaction to hearing we'll have yet another fire in the fireplace during dinner - which involves skipping around the house for 10 minutes. A different kind of joy, more like deep contentment, manifests itself when she is faced with a yard covered in a blanket of snow ready to be marred by a trail of her footprints. She will clomp at first, making distinct marks, then drag her feet along making tracks like Ezra Jack Keats' hero, Peter. Either brand of happiness is a miracle of childhood, I say.

The shower continues. Water glistens on her skin and I see more muscle than pudge around her middle. She is more leggy than she used to be. She appears to have more of a mastery of her own self. More than proprioception, more like grace. Just like K at this age, though not as lean overall. She crouches down to pour water collected in a formerly empty bath gel bottle onto the shower floor, then pats at it to make a splashing sound, all the while singing a song recently learned in school about angels.

She is un-self-conscious - hair straggly and dripping around her face, knees bent, bottom close to the floor, hands busy. I am silent, drinking her in, even though she is so magnificent and beautiful she is hard to look at.

Like the snow in the sunshine.