Our oldest’s birthday has always marked the shift in seasons.

The rain comes, as it did yesterday, and then suddenly autumn whispers.

The breeze at the pond is too much for adults to swim, and the boys fall asleep earlier than they have all summer.

My husband and I finish a movie before 10, and after we turn off the tv, we notice light falling across our just finished floors.

Out the kitchen window, we spy the moon, perched between the evergreens–our trees–out our window.

We closed on the house today… and it seems to us that the moon is offering her approval.

Casey steps out on the porch–something he’s always dreamed of–and I join him there to say goodnight to the stars in the silent sky.

Just then, music comes screaming across the pond…

“I believe in miracles, since you came along, you sexy thing, you sexy thing…”

(We built our home on the same dirt road as a summer camp.)

I want to resent this intrusion, this robbery of perfection, but I always liked that song, sang it all the way down to Key West when I was 12.

There’s something funny about disco music playing across from our home in the woods. Serenity and dancing. The sublime and the mundane. It fits our family. Reminding us that miracles abound.

(kelly salasin, 2005)