Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Dakota Christmas

Writing in First Things, Joseph Bottum with some Christmas reminiscences:

Sometimes you catch sight of a turn, heading off into the distance—a dirt track or a county road at right angles to the highway, as you drive along those straight, miles-long lines you find only in the West. And you know you’ll never go up it, never come back to find where it leads, and always there remains a sense, as you roll past, that maybe this time you should have turned and followed that track up into the distant hills.

Her hair was the same thin shade of gray as the weather-beaten pickets of the fence around her frozen garden. She had a way with horses, and she was alone on Christmas Eve. There is little in my life I regret as much as that I would not stay for just one cookie, just one cup of tea.

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