by Rick Bass
Children grow up and move away, friends grow old and stooped, communities shift and flow, fragment and weave back together. The deliciousness of a moment, and of beauty, is almost always heightened by the consciousness of such brevity. It is a sweetness, an awareness, however, that I sometimes tend to overlook, or take for granted; and it's good for me, particularly during the holidays, to step back and remember that it is not merely the marsh, or the natural cycles of things, that give me stability and even peace in a tumultuous world, but also the braid, the weave, of people passing all around me—a current of people, friends and others, as ceaseless and interesting as the wind itself, or the currents of some broad river, or, again, the flow of the seasons themselves, passing around and around the globe, year after year, bathing us in change, and at the same time bathing us in regularity, with a constancy that is remarkable, and which in my opinion follows very much in the same pattern and logic as does the human emotion of love.
It's New Year's Eve, and snowing hard, a true blizzard, with huge, soft flakes falling by the millions. We're having some friends over to celebrate, and we've been cooking all afternoon: grilling an elk ham, slow-roasting a couple of pheasants, and baking desserts. The Christmas tree is lit up outside, glowing blue and yellow and green and red in the storm, barely visible, like a lighthouse, and it's seven p.m, and the phones are all out, and we're waiting, waiting, waiting: watching out the window, and waiting.
At about eight o'clock, the headlights appear through the trees and falling snow, coming slowly down the driveway, one truck, and then another, and another, and then another.
My heart leaps. I couldn't stop it if I wanted. Here they come again. Here comes everything again, one more time, at least.
