morning

     I sit on my living room sofa. My hubby and daughter are still asleep. Nigella Lawson's orange marmalade cake is cooling on the stove top. The snowflake cinnamon pull-apart bread is waiting for the final rise before baking. Three board games are piled on the hallway bench ready to be packed. Soon the others will wake up, we will take the cakes and games and head to my mom's place. It leaves me just enough time to post my slice.
     Yesterday, Monday, was a day sandwiched between my daughter's fifteenth birthday on Sunday and Christmas Eve Tuesday.  We have a Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, a ginger bread house on a coffee table, and big pink balloons with unicorns hanging on the walls. This year my daughter opted for a birthday with family only - big sisters, grandparents, aunt, and nephews came and left. We'll have the same people together today. It's all about people. And food.
     We could have stayed home yesterday. Instead we drove to a neighbouring city. My husband was behind the wheel, I was reading on the passenger seat and the fifteen year old on the back seat gifted us with her choice of music from a capella  Christmas songs, Lady Gaga, Queen to yungblud. The view from the window spoke of an endless November rather than winter. The sun stayed low and hidden. It looked as if all the colors had been sucked out of the nature leaving only shades of brown and grey. In the book I read, the author returned to Paris after twenty five years. He records his observations and thoughts day after day for a month during a summer. Slices of Life with philosophical current and high literary standards. He had changed and he hadn't, the city had changed and it hadn't.
     The trip occurred because my daughter and I discovered that our ID-cards would expire in January. We needed new to take official photos, pay dues to the state, and sign documents. The government issuing our ID-cards doesn't care whether our identities have changed in any way over the past five years. Ten to fifteen is a big change. When it comes to numbers then forty-two to forty-seven is not such a big change, yet the person I was in the car yesterday was not the same woman I had been five years ago. Our experiences change our identity. Even in a year. It won't show on the ID-card though how the triumphs, disappointments, daring deeds, sadness, joy, or surprises shaped us last year. Nor does it matter what we have read, are reading, have written or left unwritten.
      That was yesterday. Today is a different day. It's still grey and wet and nothing like winter wonderland. My husband will drive us to my mom's place. I'll read in the car, and my daughter will probably listen to music. The gifts are packed, the poems memorised and the table is set with a festive tablecloth and holiday themed napkins. We'll eat cakes and the food my mom, dad and sis have prepared. Like always, yet never the same as before. The day will be like many Christmas Eves in the past and yet not the same exactly.
    The bread is ready to go to the oven. The slice is ready to be posted. I'll wake up the others.

Sending you all warmth and light!