The snow is pretty. Repeat that phrase. The snow is pretty.
And I’m pretty much, temporarily at least, over the snow. More than the snow, I’m over feeling cold.
Cold is not over New England (it’s the end of January, so that’s actually a good thing). I’ve been a bit snowed under—the disruption of snow days and storms and that arctic snap, the confluence of deadlines and meetings and kids being sick earlier in this month, the feeling that I’m working really hard but not exactly getting anywhere. I’m not saying two steps forward one step back not getting anywhere, more like wheels on a snowbank whirring in place. I’m saying not my best week ever.
At times like these, I have come to be a believer in my muscles. Not so much the ones that lift objecting toddlers into the crib in a single bound but the ones that push through to better thoughts, the ones that see not the whirring wheels but the somewhat snowy street those wheels are destined for. I know this: when I open my eyes and heart and mind, things look pretty fine.
Just this week I got a few—not even only one—emails from people who’d read something of mine and been moved enough to tell me specifically. When I get all grumpy about how hard self-promotion is (ask my friend, Jonathan; he’ll concur that we shared some frustrations about this exact subject this very week) and realize (again) how willing I am to help others but frankly don’t always feel the favor gets returned (okay, you’re getting a little of my cranky), I also have to say to myself: but people let you know you’re doing it for them. The real truth is even if your book is on the bestseller list, what you’re doing is moving a person at a time. Savor each one, d*&^it. And, obviously, keep writing.
As for the rest of the work I do? You know, all the ways I give my time away for fantastic things? It’s tremendously tiring and satisfying. I’ve been working hard on two projects and both are speeding toward springtime even though it’s a snow-covered midwinter day in reality: I know I’m going to see tiny green spears—literally—on the former Bean/Allard farmland this year and I also know some incredible collaborations (community/campus) are about to shoot up (I’ll say more when I can). I love that particular first greenery, not unlike the wonder of that first tooth emerging from a formerly smooth infant gum, a simple reminder that change is the constant in life.
Meantime, a pipe seems to have frozen in our kitchen, so the generally warm floor isn’t. The room is cold. I work in this very room. The good news—after our miserable ordeal with pipes—is that the plastic tubing for radiant heat doesn’t generally burst so we’re trying to thaw it and wait it out without fearing disaster. The bad news is that what is generally really pleasant, working in a warm room, is chilly and unpleasant. A small heater plus warmer temps has made the room tolerable again.
More than once this week, my tweenager—he who is prone to meltdowns—started to tumble—and he picked himself back up. Talk about seeing the somewhat snowy street and not getting stuck in the whirring wheels! Last night was case in point. I said no to more West Wing watching (he is obsessed, living in the White House circa Jeb Bartlett’s Presidency obsessed). Eleven is just too late for a school night (hit me with it, unreasonable mama, I know). He began to do his pissed-off thing. Then, when I peeked in to find him lying in bed with the lights on still frustrated, he and I chatted a bit, and he just softened, accepting the parental decision (as Jon Stewart would say, “Whaaaaaaaaaaa?). He let me turn the light off and promptly fell asleep. I am not patting myself on the back, exactly; I am picking my jaw back up from the floor. I am really practicing this seeing what could lie ahead versus getting mired in the moment’s misery with him. That much I will cop to.
Yesterday, my daughter was carrying her baby doll and suggested, “I be the mama and you be the mama.” I replied I saw her baby and wondered if she were my baby. “We’re both the baby’s mamas,” she informed me. That’s a Northampton girl. I smiled every single time I thought of it.
Last night, my second grader read to her at bedtime, after a very raucous session of somersaults on the bed and jumping off the bed (whose bed? Mine.). The two of them on the rocking chair over the book, could it have been sweeter? Probably not—and I knew it. Earlier yesterday, when that intrepid second grader and myself walked to school the (new) snow was indeed very pretty. So it goes.
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