The house is full of teenagers again this weekend. M is back for the Thanksgiving weekend, and in her wake, the usual crowd of LARP teenagers have tumbled into each others laps and strewn themselves around Chez Cohn. There’s a stack of mostly-empty pizza boxes on the kitchen counter and the piano is alive with American Pie and songs from tin pan alley. Someone has baked a cheesecake. What on earth did we do to get such good kids with such wonderful, nurturing people for friends?

But we’re shipping M back to Hampshire tomorrow morning, then two days later I head south for Punta Arenas. Poor D and J will be rattling around this house like two beans in an empty jar. I think they’ll enjoy the quiet, though. M will be back in a few weeks for an extended winter break, and I’ll get to join her here for the last few days of it in the middle of January.

In the meantime, though, we’re reveling in this little bit of family and community. It’s always important to be present in the moment; it’s doubly so when the moments are this good.

Skype screenshot captured by my mother – this is as close as we’re going to get to a family portrait this year.