How would God respond to making a mistake? Would planets collide or mountains slide into the sea? Or would the ledger of all life simply remain out kilter until a series of small events forced that ledger back into balance again? It's probably the l...
Starling opened his mouth and his mother slid the spoon over his tongue. He felt the lumpy, creaminess of the oatmeal as it moved from his lips toward the back of his throat. In a weak voice that was garbled slightly by the remnants of the oatmeal, he asked, "Does it still stick to my ribs?"
Donna Mae Prindle tilted her head and mouthed the word, "What?"
"Sorry," he said. "I guess that was too long ago." Then he paused to catch his breath before adding, "You said that to me when I was little. I think I was seven and I was home sick from school. For a long time, I wondered whether my whole body would get clogged with oatmeal if I ate too much of it."
Donna Mae looked at her son's chin and saw a small blob of oatmeal stuck to his lower lip. With a flick of the spoon, she caught the blob before it fell onto his chin and snuck the last bit into his mouth.
"There. Now, don't forget – it sticks to your ribs," she said without smiling.
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For as long as I can remember, I've hated winter but that might be because I never looked closely enough. Frost is actually beautiful, you know. Utterly and completely beautiful. It's a glaze so fragile that a single touch or a gaze that lasts too long can melt it before your eyes. But frozen worms are beautiful too. You can imagine their last movements wriggling across the hard, cracked earth. They slow to a stop and then they're stuck in one place forever like they lived their entire lives waiting to become a fossil. Brittle leaves drained of color are also beautiful as are stones that fracture under pressure from water-filled fissures and ragged tree limbs littering the ground like uniformly colored Pick-Up Sticks. Even fires are strangely beautiful as they gasp for air during the coldest nights of winter.
Those things are everywhere when it's cold. But ice is the most beautiful thing of all because ice is a silent partner. It is all ears and no mouth. You can tell it your fears and failed wishes and no one will ever know. You can even tell it what's south of south or north of north and that too will remain a secret. By spring (or summer at the latest), the ice will melt and so will all the secrets that you've shared.
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