Yellow Days

No, yellow days aren't days of high jellyfish count at the ocean or smog alert warnings. They are the four days we mark on the calendar between Thanksgiving and Christmas on which we do nothing special at all. We accept no invitations. We attend no shows. We invite no one over. We simply be.

Inevitably, there will be a call or a note home from school or an invitation in the mail. And I respond very simply, "We're sorry. We can't. It's a yellow day."

Just knowing there are those oases of calm in the midst of a busy holiday season is enough for me. Because I know that those are the days that I will putter in the garden, or play my flute, or curl up with my kids and watch a movie, or lose myself in a photo shoot in the woods, or finish reading that library book that I've already renewed twice.

And then, cold and tired and happy and relaxed, we all end up somehow around the fire by night, when one of us inevitably says, "I love this time of year."

Yellow Days