Pensive

It's snowing hard again today - though hard is hardly the word for it - enormous toonie-sized flakes twirl down to smooth and soften all over again the tracks of boots and plows. The igloo we built yesterday will soon be a deliciously secret cave under a swooping curve of snowdrift.
The close, gray clouds and soft snow absorb sound and light, making for a slow, pensive sort of day. Thoughts half-formed for weeks have space to take shape - like this:

Since leaving the Other profession, my senses are heightened, and I can see my children in ways that were previously obscured by anxiety and busyness and struggle. I look directly in their eyes, and watch the exquisite passage of delight, curiosity, opposition, comprehension - and they see that I see. I smell their hair, trace the curve of little necks bent intently over projects, linger over extra-tight hugs and the perfect fit of a small head under the hollow of my clavicle at storytime. There were many days Before when I would feel frighteningly disconnected, as though a dark veil hung between me and my family. The veil is gone now, and though I still do not fully understand who and what I am, I know with certainty that this is better.