How I picture it: For years we lived inside a sort of snow globe, protected. Something had crystallized, gemlike, around us. I believed we could withstand the snow globe being lifted, shaken, and set back down again. I believed we would withstand it. Things would change, but we would still be us. It’s as if I had lived under a spell, dazed by the falling snow and how it sparkled, unaware of the reality of my own life. But I did not call it a spell until it had been broken. I did not call it a spell—I called it marriage, family, life.
