I'm up before dawn to have coffee with my husband before he leaves for work on most days. Sometimes I've already left for work, myself. Today our state is blanketed in fog. My husband has left, the children and dogs are still asleep and I'm sitting next to our lit Christmas tree. I have an idea to take "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote to our homeschooling park day and read it out loud for the mothers or the teenagers or everyone. And I'm not sure why, but I opened it up and started reading out loud to myself this morning. I've never done that before. Maybe I should say I was reading to the dogs--they are here on the couches with me. But they are asleep. I read the whole thing out loud. I paused to cry twice because the story always moves me the way it invokes a less used world and true love. I had to whisper my way through the ending and then stop to weep. Real weeping with tears soaking into my nightgown and scarf. I'm getting too old for this story. I could not possibly read it out loud in public. I'd never make it through. But someone else maybe could? So I'll take it along, just in case the mood arises.