Tuesday March 9th, 3:01 a.m.

I miss warm-colored walls and flowered curtains, black-and-white mountains, and the spiderwebbed branches of winter trees.  I miss the smell of wood burning in the fireplace, and mom making her Pennsylvania-German version of stroganoff.  I miss walking uphill, and downhill.  I miss hearing the repetitive slapping of the lake on the dock for the first time after the thaw.  I miss the initial sinking shock and then the rising relief of the first cannonball of the season.  I love spring in Boston, but spring is going to happen at home withoutme this year.  I can feel the melting, the growing, the waking up, from here.