They jump out of bed and fling the curtains open. Snow! It snowed! In ten seconds they will come running for our room, pull the covers from my face and declare those exact words a breath's distance from my smile, as if I wasn't already listening for their feet to touch ground and witness one of nature's most spectacular shows from my flannel cocoon. Just like I know what comes next before they even breathe. Theo will ask if he can change into his snow pants as soon as he gets home from school and go out to play. Sully will say he's staying in to play Batman but will end up dragging his snowsuit down from his closet and beg me to help him into it once he sees Theo getting ready to go out.
Like the quiet hush nature delivers on a snowy morning, I feel an equal magic deep in the marrow of my being. I know my children in the same mysterious, magical way. I know their loud places and quiet places. I know how one needs his creativity tended to most and how the other needs an extra dose of nurturing to feel like it's safe to open up and be himself. One loves eggs and the other hates eggs. One loves breakfast sausage and the other hates breakfast sausage. One loves chocolate milk and one will only drink white milk. They both hate tiny green "spices" in their food. I tell them they will probably loves those spices when they get older and they think it's funny like knock knock, who's there, funny. But I know this to be true because they are from my thread, we are woven together and I know them.
The time has come this late afternoon to go out in the snow and play - the first snow play of this season. They are squeeing and performing snow dances. Theo is frantically searching for his ski goggles so that he can "swim" in the snow. Sully is moving slow-fast, the extra weight of a full down snowsuit, a heavy load. He's going for a snow shovel, which I know he will wield through the gray air and probably hit Theo. And he did.
It was bitter cold outside; they didn't last very long. But it was long enough to eat snow, make snow angels, mow the snow, laugh and cry. They came inside and deposited the first of many heaps of wet gear in the entry way and placed their icicle bodies in front of the fireplace, needy for warmth. I delivered cups of thick hot cocoa, marshmallows dancing.
These boys!, I thought with all the warmth in the world flooding me. This is when I feel the most connected. I see myself in the snowflakes folded together origami-like and held by the branch. I feel my fire and their fire and your fire inside of me, all the same. It was the first day of snow play. It only lasted for about thirty minutes, including cocoa by the fire. In the moment it was everything stitched together, whole.
