Jackie and I stroll through the neighborhood as various posts roll lackadaisically around my mind. So many ideas still begging to be written - some ripe like a soft, full peach, others still just a blossom, springing forward with fresh hopes of finding a page when they are mature. The little dog’s tags jingle a familiar tune as we loop through cul-de-sacs and wave to neighbors maintaining their late fall landscaping.

I want to memorialize my pregnancy, how much I just adored being pregnant. The memories are ready and the words are forming readily now. I’m getting ready to talk about labor and Joel’s birth. Nearly four months later the memories are fading enough to be tolerable, or perhaps I should write about Fall. Fall is inspiring bloggers everywhere to capture the essence of a season that turns a hairpin corner here in Michigan. These thoughts and many more taunt my fingertips as I mix a simple dinner for myself, Leo off at a meeting.

But then I sat down and realized I owe you more. Because tonight the peace has come and as much as I share the anguish, the peace is such a lovely place that to deny it a page seems a travesty in its own right. You already know how I feel tonight; I just have to find the right words to bring you here with me.

If you are a mother, before you took that first pregnancy test perhaps you had that split second when you knew there was a baby forming in your womb. When you smiled that private smile to yourself, and held the secret between you and your child until a few lines on a stick told Daddy what you already knew. That feeling; that calm, excited, stunned realization that things were so incredibly good and perfect and changed. That moment – is how the peace feels when it falls on me and clings like a loose, playful fog. All is well; not settled, but well.

And if you don’t know this feeling, perhaps you love a perfect summer night the way I do. The night when it is warm enough to stay outside, but the air hints at a chill as the humidity departs when the sun sets. The crickets chirp and the slow lapping of waves set a backdrop for a smoldering beachside campfire. A deep breath is easy to take the way it never is during the stifling days and the stars refuse to remain hidden. There is nothing to do but live in this moment, tomorrow awaits, but the night will keep it at bay long enough for you to pretend that today never happened and tomorrow will never come.

Or maybe the first snow holds a mystery and romance for you like it does for me. When the fire is warm and the snow falls heavy and deep; sounds are muffled to the especially sensitive ear after a crisp and lengthy fall full of noisy leaves and thundering rains. Quiet falls as quickly as the snowflakes, they blanket a dull, brown, muddy earth, sparkling and fresh. A lovely cold reminder of just how pretty winter can be before we have tired of shoveling and icy roads. That moment when stillness reigns and a few flakes have conspired to create a lush carpet awaiting snow angels and snowball fights – that magical moment when you believe in all good things once again.

That is the peace that finds me on the good days, friends. When I know that this is not all there is, but for this moment everything else can wait. So tonight all is well; not settled, but it is well.