Thursday, March 5, 2015

Snow Falling

When a weather forecaster predicted snow for the first time this year, I cried. 

I cried because it made me think of the day last year when I heard that someone I loved had died. But today is March 5, 2015 – a year, a month and a day or two later, and when it started to snow early this morning I thought, Hooray, and when I got the call to stay home and to stay safe, I thought hooray again as I picked up my pen and started writing.

Today I am writing about one of my favorite subjects, a subject whose personality and charm profoundly and infinitely affected my youth, a subject who is playing a dominant role in the book I am writing.  (Some of you know who he is. Some of you may have guessed by now who he is, but for the rest of you, he will be a surprise.)

At 6:30 this morning, I lifted the blinds so I could alternate between writing and watching the snow.  By then I’d been writing for more than an hour, and by 7:30 the snow was falling as though it meant business. The business of keeping me inside. I realized then that the snow was a gift, a gift that gave me the space and the time I needed for writing.  

It’s no wonder, I thought as I looked outside, that writers, like Sue Miller and Stephen King, live in New England. As I watched the snow, something inside me stirred. My head and my hand felt more intimately connected than they had before. The words fell effortlessly from my pen onto the paper as the storm became more intense and the wind grew stronger. The snowflakes became larger and began swirling around in circles.

Now, from my room on the second floor, I look out and see that almost everything outside is white. The trees are barely outlined against the white-gray sky and the tiny specks of snow are flying in every direction. Inside my room, I feel safe and warm. Outside, the snowflakes remind me of the earth’s abundance and I wonder how many snowflakes there actually are outside and, as I looked at the space between myself and the trees, I feel it beckon me toward that silent, infinitely abundant space inside myself.   



My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE