Snow

Snow in the South is wonderful. It has a kind of magic and mystery that it has nowhere else. And the reason for this is that it comes to people in the South not as the grim, unyielding tenant of Winter's keep, but as a strange and wild visitor from the secret North."
Thomas Wolfe

Outside my window, large flakes are falling heavier than I experienced a few weeks ago in Chicago. It is beautiful for all reasons Thom Wolfe suggests. Snow a rare and welcomed treat to Southern eyes. Anticipating spring, the bare black limbs of the tree in my backyard have sprouted new slender brown branches. I set my Christmas poinsettias outside to drink the sweet rain and enjoy yesterday’s warmth. Weather works that way here. One day it’s 70 degrees and sunny the next whirling clouds of white and wet cold threaten all the tender blossoms. Many spring flowers fall victim to the Southern sampling of seasons, which seem to follow no particular order. It’s winter by whim today. Tomorrow who knows.

I slept better in Chicago than I had in years. I told my hosts that they possessed the sleepiest home I’d ever enjoyed. It was difficult to stay awake. I am usually over stressed when I’m traveling. At home I’m an insomniac. My God it just thundered, thunder snow. How deliciously rare. It’s heavier now, sticking to the ground and the roads. He can’t stay inside. I just heard him open the door and go outside. I call out to him, “Honey is it getting cold?”

“It’s getting there quick. I wonder if I can get to work tomorrow,” he says.

A snow day. The equivalent of every snow touched Southerner contracting the common cold. A day in bed with movies and hot chocolate. Maybe even build a fire. He teases me that perhaps it is that long buried Western European blood. I am soothed by cold and snow. Inspired to write. I was working on some dull story about hand held devices. I dropped it immediately upon noticing the falling white.

"Maybe we should move, up North and West, doesn’t your cousin live in Portland? I’m going to the grocery store."

"Buy us some lunch, I say. I’m not cooking it’s a snow day".

I hear sirens in the distance. Accidents. Suddenly no one knows how to drive. Why don’t they just stay home and enjoy this heavy blanket of white. I am seduced and sedated by it…snow.

Work, Write, Work, Write Room

I feel like I'm moving through life in a fish bowl. At work, in class, at home and even online. Everybody wants or expects something and I'm tapped out. There is only one thing that I want to give myself over to and that is writing. I have to sneak around to write in this blog. It's indulgent to many. To me it's necessary, a feeding of the soul.

B threatened one of my writers a couple of weeks ago. The Writer called my house and wanted to come and visit. B thinks this man is obsessed with me. I know he's obsessed with the fact that I hold his his best work inside my computer. Because of technology failures and crazy relationship failures I became the keeper of the grail. I hold his writing. I am his editor. What do I do?

There's no balance. I'm pulled and pressed. It's 10 days until my birthday and 3 days after that I'm in Chicago for almost a week. No time to celebrate and my trip to the AWP conference will probably be spoiled by deadlines to projects.

I have come to the conclusion that explanations are vampires that bleed dry.

Attraction Theory and Thanking the Universe

This isn’t my new year’s resolution but a reminder to continue some practices that I put in place this year. In addition, this post is a public thank you to the universe. I started practicing attraction theory this year. It sounds like hocus-pocus, but I don’t really care as long as it works. My interpretation of the theory is that we manifest our reality through thought. Since reality is a matter of perception this makes sense. There is the additional element of quantum physics, which gets too involved and trippy, although, I find quantum physics fascinating.

To practice attraction theory you concentrate on the things that you want in life and actively pursue those wants while always being thankful for what you have. Actively pursuing is key. Yeah, unfortunately just wishing doesn’t always make it so. In short, don’t wish to win the lottery without ever buying a ticket. Also, you don’t not waste any energy on things that you don’t want. The hitch is that the universe doesn’t know whether you want this thing or not, but it knows that you are focused on it, so it provides the negative as well as the positive. Negative energy attracts negative and positive energy attracts, you guessed it, positive energy. The other element to attraction theory is that you wish positive things for everyone, yeah the whole world. I wish for health and abundance for me, for you, for everyone.

If you want to know more about attraction theory look it up. I know that it doesn’t cost anything to find out the basics and it doesn’t hurt to practice the theory. No, it is not a religion, but more of a personal philosophy. Furthermore, I’m not trying to convert anyone.

Dear Universe,

Thank you for the continued health and well-being of my friends and family. Thank you for the progression of my professional life. I appreciate how the small, seemingly insignificant calls out to me and later expands into a larger success. Thank you for the signposts that are illuminating my path. I look forward to our continuing collaboration with great excitement and I wish you and yours health and abundance.

Sincerely,

Me