For whatever reason, some tracks just stick with me. They become a touchstone. This is one of them.

For me, this song is always going to evoke Christmas 2011, those cold winter nights right before my two oldest children returned from five months in Ghana.

I’m coming back to it now because, well, they’re leaving again. One is heading back to Ghana, the other to Hungary. And it will be Christmas before we’re all together again.

This doesn’t make me happy. But this song has a comforting shape I can hold onto, something to keep in my pocket and take out and run my fingers over it when I need to.

So here’s Pelbo’s “Join Their Game”