In the winter of my college sophomore year, my then boyfriend wrote me a poem,

“Here in this December gray
a moment of cornflower blue,
I just want to give a bit of yourself
back to you.”

A love offering of my favorite crayola color. I felt so seen. Thirty plus years later, I finally feel the same simple confirmation.

Here in my yellow kitchen, I watch and I listen. Melting snow sounds like paper crinkling as the drops fall onto the deck boards. Starlings peep and flit about in the woods. I am by myself, but as Luke Brindley sings out from the speaker on the counter, “I am not alone.”

Four Januaries ago the sight of a log frozen in the river brought me to my knees. It was a symbol of my spirit–trapped–in a life that was keeping me from my true self.

I am freed.
I open the window, breathe in the cold.
And it feels good.

(Title borrowed from Luke Brindley. I hope he doesn’t mind.)