Through a small, triangular pane of the stained-glass on the front door, I watched Adrienne round the corner and approach the house. Amid six inches of snow on the ground, and a winter wonderland of falling flakes, she skipped. She paused to catch some in her mouth then turned toward a city dump truck passing by on it's salt and shovel rounds. She waved at the driver then adjusted her backpack and ran towards the driveway. On exposed blacktop, she stomped her boots free of snow. She stomped around in a circle and I wondered if she was singing. She's seven days from turning eight years old, but she says she has a teenager's personality. Despite her confidence in her maturity, I'd bet she's singing--just like she did when she was five. Snow makes us all feel giddy and happy for sleds and hot chocolate. Of course, she's singing.
I lost sight of her as she followed the blacktop to the sidewalk that leads to the front door. She appeared again just as I stepped out to greet her. Her eyes met mine and she smiled. "Isn't it so awesome right now?" She yelled it with a teenager's inflection that she surely picked up from a Disney channel TV show. But in her deep, swimming brown eyes I could still see the girl just seven days from eight years old, not the teenager quite yet. If the eyes are the window to the soul then I could see myself at eight years old and maybe even myself at 88--she's the past and the future all in one.
"You are awesome," I tell her. And for today, I love the snow.
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