It's All Coming Back To Me...

While walking around my neighborhood, I went past this house where the sidewalk got a bit bumpy and there was an old pine tree with saggy boughs hanging pretty low over the sidewalk. In the shade of the tree, the sidewalk had more slush and snow than the rest of the street, and the house has smoke billowing out the chimney. The smell of the smoke and melty snow brought me back to the dirt road at 825, on an early spring afternoon when you could smell the snow melting on the first relatively warm day. And someone always had a fire going...The melting snow and chimney smoke and pine tree just brought me right back to those early spring days growing up.

There are days when it's hard being away from home and family. But I take comfort in moments like that which seem to transport me back to familiarity and comfort.