Snow day Sunday in Berkeley

Snow day Sunday in Berkeley is high, squeezing pitches and tiny human obstacles.

It is fake snow and fake deals and fake horses and real families and real smiles.

It is lox and eggs and latke and latte, but to-go, because the crowd at Saul’s is deadly inside, fathers with bundles of kicking winter clothes in their arms and around their legs, mothers with their best charm for Debbie at the desk.

Snow day Sunday here is running into my folks, reuniting after a long work trip with hours and cultures between them. They made it into Saul’s, their favorite booth; they know Debbie, and Karen and Peter, and Jim and Alexis. They are home.

Snow day Sunday in Berkeley is home I want again, a family and little sister, speedy terrier, ancient live oak tree... Again, but with new people, wandering on walks with strollers, a screeching little butthead bounding along up ahead, a strolling partner in nourished silence at my side, and the new person I am.

Snow day Sunday in Berkeley is breakfast with yellow leaves and green lawns, brown benches, black trees wet with recent rain. And that ancient living oak tree here since I was Emerson’s age and before, here with my little sister, tumbling around through the creek, and our squealing adults behind us.