I was up early this morning, just early enough to see the first rays of sunshine shimmering over the tops of the trees down the hill, across the railroad tracks and on the far side of our little harbor.  It was very still… this new morning.  I had decided to get up early to attempt to get my house in better order.  With my Mom still in the rehab facility (yes, for one more week)… I’ve been out and about so much during the past 5 weeks that my house is begging for attention.

The sun drew me right into my living room.  My mother-in-law called this room our front parlor.  I love this term. At some point in my home’s 250-year history, it may have been used as an afternoon tea room for the lady of the home or even as a place for the man of the home to bring his guests to smoke their pipes and sip a bit of brandy in the warmth of the room’s fireplace.  I often think about the people who have passed through my front door and walked on the wide pine planks that feel so powerful under my feet.

In my family, this room has become the place where our grandchildren and our granddogs love to be.  The couch is  a window to the world.  Little fingerprints and little nose prints dance on the glass of the windows… remnants of their fascination with people and pets and trucks and snowplows and mailmen and joggers and mommies and daddies pushing strollers.  Life outside these windows.  Lifetimes outside these windows…

As I stood in our front parlor this sunny morning, armed with paper towels and my trusty spray-bottle cleanser, I smiled at the little finger and nose prints all the more magnified against the sunshine… and decided to keep them there.  All the squiggly, smushy, streaky glorious remnants of life and lifetimes inside these windows to our world.

At least, for now!