I was thinking about a term I learned in one of my college psychology classes.
The concept intrigued me at the time.
I always saw myself as someone for whom this concept wasn’t an issue.
That all changed today.

If you ever watch a child play, you will see creativity and ingenuity at its finest.
Oatmeal containers become drums.
Pots become hats.
Laundry baskets become boats on which the child will sail to faraway places.

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In our town, there is a little country post office.
It is so nice to walk in the doors and be known by name.
There is never a line to wait for service.
There is a tiny bell on the counter that is to be rung so someone knows you are there.

Our little post office closes two hours each day for lunch.
I always have to time my visits either before noon or after 2:00.
I’ve gotten used to the hours.
They are only open for a few hours on Saturday morning.

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It can be categorized under the unexplainable.
One of those things that defies explanation.
The thing that makes an otherwise organized person wave the white flag.
It is the zone in your house that is entered but never left.

No man’s land.

The place where the single lost sock goes that has simply vanished in the dryer.
The hideout for the Tupperware lid that has disappeared.
The location of the car keys that were just in your pocket an hour ago.
The spot where eyeglasses remain because you are too myopic to find them.

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We are two weeks past the day when we all changed our clocks.
The day when we spring forward.
The day when we lose one hour of sleep.
The day when we are supposed to check our smoke detectors.

It is the reminder that comes twice a year.
Change the batteries in your smoke detector when you change your clocks.
There are many news reports about houses that have been destroyed by fire.
Destroyed needlessly, the report says, because of the lack of smoke detectors.

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My children went to birthday parties when they were little.
They would always come home with a party bag.
Inside were things like candy, pencils, stickers, erasers, and plastic rulers.
The plastic rulers would change pictures as you moved them back and forth.

Sometimes the rulers were made of cardboard.
They made wonderful bookmarks but terrible rulers.
You could always tell when someone was at a birthday party on the weekend.
On Monday morning, cardboard rulers would be on the desks.

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I was settled in a chair on the sidelines.
I was there to watch my oldest daughter play field hockey.
These were the years before she actually played on her school team.
These were the years when she tried her skill in a community league.

This was my little girl.
The daughter who was the only one to play with a Barbie doll.
The daughter who carried around her teddy bear that looked like a monkey.
My very feminine girly-girl.

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My church is a multi-generational church.
That should not be surprising, but for many churches it is.
Our families are together throughout the entire service.
Only small babies and toddlers age three and under, are in the nursery.

The sound of the children is music to God’s ears.
Young parents need encouragement since every rustle of a paper puts them on alert.
The sounds that they are used to may not be the sounds that everyone appreciates.
They worry needlessly, since those sounds are the sounds of life.

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My husband and I were engaged on Christmas Day in our last year of college.
We set our wedding date for that October.
That summer before our wedding we looked for apartments.
My soon-to-be-husband would live in it then, and I would join him after the wedding.

We needed to live in the place of Amish buggies and farmland.
He needed to be close to work.
We set out one Saturday and had our itinerary mapped out.
I loved the first apartment that we saw.

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There is something about being the first one to make a footprint in the snow.
There is something free and abandoned about stepping out in uncharted territory.
Something so wondrous about leaving your mark.
I was here.

Such was the case this morning after a light snowfall.
No one had yet walked upon the white powdery snow.
No one had ventured down the driveway to get the newspaper.
No one had set foot on the walkway to come to the door.

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I look out on our empty deck and know that it is winter.
In about five months, the furniture will be brought out of the basement.
The glass-top table will be positioned in the center of the deck.
The umbrella will be set up over the table to shield us from the sun.

It is the glass-top table I am remembering.
It was one of those late spring days that compel you to open all of the windows.
A day to open the windows and let the cool breeze blow through the house.
Everything smells as fresh as the outdoors.

It was on one such day, it happened.

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