Today is my birthday. And, it is also a snow day. Beautiful, quiet, fluffy snow has been falling all day on Boston. I have spent the day mostly alone...Ashley is working in Memphis, Tennessee with Hutchison School. I watched the snow, I spoke with friends who called me, I took stock of my year. What a year it has been...starting with a big fall and a three month recovery in Vermont. This year, I am glad to be in Boston for my birthday, glad to be back on my feet and out in the world. Grateful for all of our good work with schools and to be close to our family. I love the east coast...traveling on Amtrak, getting to know Boston, reclaiming Vermont as home, weaving together country and city life and our life of working with schools with enjoying so many treasured times with friends and family.

It seems improbable to come full circle around the year and arrive at yet another anniversary of one's birth. How does it all happen so fast? How do the years go by, round and round? Looking back and looking forward. It is supposedly linear, this progression of years, but rather it seems cyclical, like a merry-go-round, like a spiral, like a the petals of a rose. I like to think of this life that way...learning as we go, up and down, around and around, picking up bits and pieces, revisiting people and places, settling down more and more into the steady beat and rhythm of our breath, of wind and weather, of the seasons.

That is the way it feels to me now and I am again, grateful for all of it. And, grateful for another birthday. Happy February.