Snow day leaves lasting memory

Growing up in New York and Pennsylvania, snow doesn't thrill me as much as my friends and neighbors here in North Carolina. I have too many memories of being snowed in for days, trapped by icy roads and drifts that blow back as soon as you shoveled them out.

I recall the smell of wet wool mittens and scarves dying on the back of the old wood-burning stove and unbuckling galoshes with red, numb hands. Even the thrill of a no-school day faded as we realized that also meant a no-library day and we  had read every book in the house. This was before TV, so we amused ourselves by putting together jig-saw puzzles and listening to the radio.

I think those winters were when the term "cabin-fever" was invented.

I remember one day in particular. It had snowed, but the following morning saw blue skies and a field of the white stuff packed just right for sledding. Since we lived on a hill, the neighbor kids came in droves. Some had sleds, but others had a piece of cardboard or an aluminum tray.

Among the sledders were two boys from a neighboring farm. This family was extremely poor, and usually we didn't associate with them--not because of the poverty, but for a reason that shall become clear.

Mom looked out the window and saw that the boys' torn trousers revealed they were not acquainted with underwear. Their little butts were red with cold.

Mom called them inside to warm up, standing them near the registers that brought the heat from the furnace to the rooms above.

As they thawed, the odor of manure wafted throughout the house. It seemed they weren't acquainted with soap, either.

As soon as they were dry, she shooed them home. By then, the entire house smelled not so much like a barn, but the pile of fertilizer heaped outside the barn door. It took days for it to dissipate.

I know that child protective services were called more than once to investigate the family, but evidently the kids were fed and clothed (somewhat) and dry. And I know one brave teacher took her second-grade charge to the bathroom every morning to wash him and provide clean clothes. She reclaimed these at the end of the day because, like the clothing good-hearted souls donated to the family, they tended never to be seen again once they walked out the door.

This started out to be about snow, and ended up being about poverty. The two are forever associated in my mind.

And someone ought to do something about both of them.

Battling the alligators

I think most writers would agree with me that it is more difficult to revise than to create a book.

The first draft comes easily. Ideas flow and plot twists abound. Characters become our new best friends. Our fingers can't keep up with our thoughts. It's like dancing to music only we can hear.

But revision--that necessary evil--is a much slower process. I've been working on the same chapter for two days, taking out a paragraph, then putting it back in. Replacing a word with a more descriptive one. Adding  action to show what the characters are thinking. Adding description and then wondering if I've gone too far and it the reader really needs to know what something looked like.

I've removed whole sections  and  replaced them elsewhere in the story. I've removed other sections and hit delete. I've written new scenes.

In the last hour I've agonized over a section that might or might not be important to the plot. Not crucial, but not just filler, either. A point has to be made, a hint dropped. Am I taking too long to plant the seeds? Can I tighten the scene to make it move along more quickly?

In short, I feel as if instead of dancing I'm slogging through a swamp. With mosquitoes. And alligators.

I'm not complaining. I've been through this swamp before. I'll make it to the other side.

And then I'll take a break and start all over again.

Because that's what writers do.

The accidental writing exercise

Somehow, I have become secretary to five different organizations. I was either elected or found my hand going up as a volunteer.

I don't mind, really. If I have to be there anyway, I can concentrate better if I take notes. And, it takes me back to my newspaper days when I recorded everything I heard for publication. I was at a commissioners' meeting last week gathering background for a scene I'm writing, and found myself taking notes as if I were being paid for it.

I think being secretary helps my writing skills. I have to listen and observe. I have to write quickly, and check my facts afterward if I didn't hear something clearly, or didn't understand it.

Then I have to go back through my notes and organize them for clarity and continuity. Meetings don't always go according to a neat schedule. Something is said, something else is said, another point is brought up, the subject gets changed and then it circles around to the first subject again. Sometimes it is more important to record what was said than to record in what order it was said.

It's the same way in fiction. If authors wrote conversations the way conversations actually happen, with all the interruptions and interjections, the reader would soon be confused as to who was saying what. Actually, there have been times when I've been reading a novel and had to stop and go back to the beginning of the conversation and mentally add the "He said ... She said..." If those authors had ever been a recording secretary, they would have been more careful.

 So I count taking minutes as part of my writing time -- a four or five times a month writing exercise.

It's a win-win situation.

Polar Vortex; rarity or omen?

I learned a new phrase yesterday: polar vortex.

Okay, it isn't new, but it's new to me. Actually, it has a nice sound to it. Words you might run across reading an adventure novel; something the villain gets sucked into like a black hole.

Or maybe not so pretty if you see a map of the United States on television and it is all blue. As in freezing temperatures from California to Maine, from Michigan to Florida.

Skeptics are sneering about global warming as if today were proof positive that it isn't occurring. I think proof is in the extremes we've being having, and if this isn't one, I don't know what is.

I had to go out this morning and felt a real empathy for the kids waiting for the school bus. They looked as if they wished they had listened to their mothers for once and put on that hat and scarf.

I wondered about the stray cats we see in our back yard, the black and white tuxedo, the calico and the little black one. Are they safe and warm somewhere?

I worry about the homeless men, women, and families who need shelter and I hope they found it. If ever there was a time for a church to open its doors, this is it.

In a few days the temperature will begin to climb and we will mark this down on our mental calendars like  Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the Big Snow in 2000. In a few years we will be saying, "Do you remember when..."

Or maybe not. It could be that this rare event will become commonplace.

I hope not. But I have learned, as have you, that we can't count on the weather any more. It continues to surprise us.

Polar vortex. Welcome to our vocabulary.

A thought for the new year...

Although I gave up making resolutions years ago, I still look forward to the new year. I can't help wondering what it will bring.

When I was very young, it was the hope that this year I would meet the man of my dreams.

After the wedding, when our family failed to grow, it was the hope that this year the pregnancy test would turn out positive.

When the children arrived, my hopes were for their health and safety, and to meet the milestones of walking,  talking, and finally the first day of school.

When the children were older, I told myself that this year I would get the job/promotion/career path I wanted.

When the children (now adults) left home for jobs and families of their own, I wondered if this was the year we would be given a grandchild.

And even later, I hoped I would find in retirement the time to do all the things I didn't have time for when I was working and raising a family.

You see the trend. I hope for the good things, the positive, even when I know the coming year will be littered with the inevitable setbacks, failures and disappointments, and illnesses.

But I put this thought aside, shove it out of sight, refuse to consider any but the rosiest of futures. I think I am hardwired this way, or it's something in my DNA. This is going to be a good year.

I wait with eager anticipation for whatever is going to happen, to happen. It is like an unopened gift, the contents of which will be only gradually revealed, to be known fully only at the end.

I hope it is the same for you, and that the coming year will be filled with blessings and wonder.

Happy New Year!

 

                                      Wishing all of you

                              A very merry Christmas!

Little Pitchers and Christmas Traditions

I was reading a magazine article that suggested Christmas is a good time for families to sit around the table and share stories as a way of bringing generations together.

I was immediately catapulted into Christmas Past when our family did that very thing.

With caveats.

One Christmas (or more likely, a composite of Christmases, the details of each having merged into one memory), after dinner had been eaten, and the food and dishes cleared away, the adults sat around the table and talked. I say the adults, because children then were seen and not heard. The children were me, my sister and baby brother, and our cousins.

We had traveled by train to Mom's parents' house in upstate New York.  After breakfast on Christmas Eve morning we walked to our aunt and uncle's house, across town. It was so cold the snow squeaked when we trod on it and our breath froze in a mist in front of our faces.

We went to my aunt's because Grandma's house was too small to host the entire family and although I don't know for sure, she probably had to work. Grandma was a waitress and proud that she had a job in the Depression. I can see her now in her white uniform with a hankie peeking  out of the breast pocket. The hankie would be edged in pink or purple or yellow lace that she crocheted in what spare time she had.

But we did all get together that afternoon and evening. Grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles and cousins crowded around a table and shared a meal, after which the children were told to "go in the other room and play."

We pretended to obey, but our ears were cocked toward the kitchen where, after many cups of coffee and a few bottles of beer, the laughter grew louder and occasionally turned into guffaws as one tale after another was told: Do you remember when...?

This was how our family history was passed down -- unguarded stories and little pitchers with big ears.

Someone finally noticed it was getting late and the children needed to go to bed. We were once again bundled up to face the icy cold starting with leggings and adding jacket, galoshes, muffler, cap and mittens. We were so well padded we could have rolled down the hill to Grandma's, but we rode back  in someone's car (I have a fuzzy memory of riding with my sister in the rumble seat, but that was probably another occasion). The sky was clear with the glittering stars reflected in the ice crystals caught in the tree branches.

Once inside Grandma's kitchen, our outdoor clothing was removed in reverse order, by which time we were wide awake again. A bedtime snack of cocoa and cookies appeared. The goodies were not home made. Although our mother began her baking a month before Christmas, neither of my grandmothers had, to my knowledge, ever baked a cookie in her life. These were store-bought cookies from a tin, which were a treat to us because we didn't have store-bought at home.

Tucked in bed at last, we were given the conflicting orders to go right to sleep and to listen for Santa's sleigh.

I don't know if we'll sit around the table and tell family stories this holiday. I am pretty sure, however, that if we do the younger members will stay at the table and add their own.

Traditions aren't meant to be carved in stone.