A Day Like This

by Kelley McNeil

I knew the road by muscle memory, my hands steering the wheel and my foot aware of when to let up on the gas and when to add pressure, anticipating on their own what would come next as if performing a practiced routine. Country roads were like that, and I found comfort in the predictability of it. I preferred them over the lottery of speeding drivers and circumstances one found on highways and business routes.

Some things, like fences and furnaces, old houses and marriages, were too broken to fix.

“Try to find peace in this life, and the peace may find you in return.

There was no white as lovely as the sparkly white of nighttime snow.

the whole world had stopped to take a quiet breath and then held it.

Hiraeth, calling upon the wistful and beautiful Welsh word that described the bittersweet longing for lost places and persons—those either real or having never existed at all.

life is full of mysteries, and we may never know all the answers.

the people we love, the life we lead—is forever altered by each decision large and small.