I dream about the countdown to holidays like 

single-digit kids dream of field trips the night before.

This year is different, though. The evening feeling stays. No

jovial carriage ride, no annual trip up to the mountain’s cranium: 

the second home, the cottage we came from. I dream of pine scents, the 

wide green eyes of the Adirondacks, and I bury my nose in my pillow. This year is

different, though, I remind myself. Auras will be blue. The smell of old tins and plastic decorations past their prime will kiss the dust. We’ll laugh together in pajamas, making jokes at the dogs, the bloated fiends on TVs spilling enthusiasm, pizzazz; a waft of sugar 

from the kitchen. I’ll still stick to my own head too much. We’ll take an

early afternoon walk, the grey-blue singeing the air, the diseased

trees giving blank stares in the waiting room, cold and crisp

and sterile. Some part of ourselves will crave more 

of the past: muscle memory, I suppose, 

but in every way, we will still love,

and smile, and understand. This 

year will not be so different.