A Beautiful Day to Write by Janet Jones
I stand on the grassy hill, watching the sun sink down into the horizon, astride my bicycle with my tennis racket, telescope, and hiking boots clutched in my arms. As the warmth of summer disappears along with the sun, I can feel the bitter cold and snow creeping up behind me like a mountain lion stalking its prey. “NOOOOOO!!!!!!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
Cold, rainy, dark November. For me, it is the antithesis of everything that is capable of making me happy. I hate the cold. I hate the rain. And most of all I hate the fact that warm, sunny weather will be absent in Ohio for the next five months.
Why do I still live in Ohio? My family is here…especially my husband, kids, and grandkids. Three big reasons I cannot find an opposing argument for. The joy of being with these people is completely addictive. But my addictive personality is actually the problem. I am also addicted to bicycling, tennis, hiking, and stargazing—all activities that become extreme sports when the mountain lion of winter pounces.
A completely anonymous wise person once said:
“When it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark look for stars.”
This only works if the mass of clouds obscuring the sun and the stars actually decide to go away, so you can see rainbows and stars. Gloom’s definition is an Ohio winter.
My usual coping mechanism this time of year is to escape into my Harry Potter books and movies and daydream about our Florida vacation in March—when I drive my husband crazy trying to fit bicycle, telescope, tennis, and hiking gear, along with luggage, our miniature schnauzer, Buffett, and us, in our car. It’s like a 3D puzzle, I tell him. He thrives on mental challenges.
My daughter once wrote me a poem called, “A Beautiful Day to Go to Work.” I was an IT administrator for an engineering firm, working part-time. If there were no computers in dire need of my service, I would check the weather forecast before scheduling which days I would go into work. Sit inside on a sunny day? Nope. There were usually at least a couple of days of week it would rain for me to show up.
“So as long as it rained from nine to five, Hasbrouck Engineering’s computers would continue to thrive.”
But this year, the thought has occurred to me that mentally escaping may not be the wisest course for someone trying write novels. I remember this summer enjoying all my outdoor passions on an almost daily basis, like I usually do. It felt good to be that fit, but then I would also bemoan the fact that I wasn’t getting much writing done.
So, I may hate the change in seasons but it does offer more time to write. Cozying up to the fire with my laptop when it’s nasty outside does have a certain appeal. I’m thinking that Minnesota writers are surely more prolific than Florida or California writers. And even the need to escape and fantasize about warm weather could actually be a good thing. Time to write the “beach read” set in a tropical climate; or the science fiction tome about constructing a huge climate controlled bubble around Ohio…if only!
I need to remember that when it keeps raining in Ohio, day after gloomy day, and the sky is a dark mass of clouds rather then stars—that I need to create the rainbows and paint the stars with my words.
I need to write. Write my inspirations. Write my passions. Write my despair, until there is nothing more to say about it. I can wallow in the dark for only so long.
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.” (Albus Dumbledore – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J.K. Rowling)
You knew I would get a Harry Potter quote in here somewhere.
Writing can be that light. It’s a beautiful day to write.
Janet that is a beautiful story you wrote. I also am looking forward to a Florida vacation and know it will be snowing soon.
So better finish packing and leave for Sunny Florida.
Mom
Thanks Mother! You are the smart one…getting out of Ohio for almost 4 months. I’ll see you down there in March!