from... Madison

Tuesday. Minutes before the flight from Paris to Chicago is to take off, my daughter and I are cleared for boarding. We shelve our Plan B of having a tiny Christmas tree in our tiny hotel room and exchanging small trinkets on Christmas Eve over croissants in Paris.

Though even as we settle in our seats (freshly ours!), it is by no means certain that we will take off. Fog. But, as I’ve said, Paris is used to fog and as one does well with familiar nuisances, so too, Paris functions well on this densely wet day. The plane takes off.

We land in Chicago in ... fog. And without my suitcase. My daughter tells me – it's only fair; mine was lost going there.

Indeed, there is a certain symmetry to this trip: what starts oddly ends oddly. What’s foggy there is foggy here. And so on.

Of course, once back, you forget the headache, the struggle, the cloudy sky. Or, maybe it’s that in Madison, you learn that clouds have their pretty side?





The lake has iced over. Wow, so fast?





And in other news, on Wednesday, that would be the 22nd of the month (late!), we finally decorate the Christmas tree. At my daughter’s home.

All is bright.