New Years Eve evening. Ben & I are driving on a highway somewhere between Madison and Tomah on our way north for the weekend. Darkness in this part of the hemisphere settled over us more than an hour ago. Since then the temperature drops from 10 to 0 to -4 degrees. I can barely make out if Ben's eyes are open or closed when I look over at him lounging in the passenger seat. I decide he is sleeping. I rule the radio. I am listening to the ever disappearing radio waves of Milwaukee's NPR when a shooting star jets across the entire length of my windshield. I am delighted and pause to make a wish only. . . I can't think of anything.
Oh Nine (despite all those little annoying details regarding mixed up taxes & construction) provided a million little blessings that I hardly even deserved. I cannot express how meaningful every single person & event was to me this year: delicious cooking classes @ The Chopping Block with lovely ladies, a more than fabulous birthday, Thursday night theology study & Wednesday night martinis with very dear friends in my church, weekly trivia at Bowmans and then Nevins with Pat & Kelly, visits with friends who have chubby, darling babies & toddlers, driving Cape Cod in the pouring rain with my mama & Ben, Valentines skiing, etc. I am so thankful that I couldn't think of a wish for my shooting star. I hope that 2010 will provide just as 09 did.
Ben and I spent the weekend with Megan in Minnesota where the comfort of being in the presence of an "old" friend is warm & cozy. On the way home, however, I have Ben drive and as we are entering the highway after a mini donut gem stop, I am mesmerized by a giant moon the color of burning coal- that dangerous pulsating orange you see at the bottom of a fire pit. The moon's deep glow is beyond stunning as it ducks in and out of the forest of trees. We stare at it: a headlight just over the horizon playfully flickering on and off as the highway dips into wooded low spots. There is a college radio station playing New Orleans jazz & we know there is only this limited time to experience just this moment with the pumpkin moon, the swinging horns, and a hand resting on my knee. We would have fought to keep that radio wave the entire way home.
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