Through

Today, people are traveling. My students are heading home: jouncing half-asleep on a bus seat, or listening to an iPod on the train, or crowded into the backseat of a car with backpacks and laptops. Friends are driving miles and miles to be with family, some of them with small children strapped into car seats or homemade goodies balanced on the back seat. For other friends, the beginning of the holiday season is not a physical journey, but an emotional journey, at time to remember who they are, who they are becoming, who they want to be.

I am cuddled in a big chair by my own fire, surrounded by family and cats. My kids are home; in fact, all four are piled on the couch right now, talking and joking with each other. This afternoon, I took my mother-in-law shopping; tomorrow, we go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. As I doze sleepily by the warm fire, listening to the affectionate chatter of my children as they tease each other, I think of those friends who are on difficult journeys, who are driving into a storm and then going straight through, and I try to send them some energy, some warmth from my hearth.