The Kind of Day...

It is a beautiful snow covered day in the Pacific Northwest. Everything is white, from lawns to sidewalks to trees to rooftops. It’s the kind of day that makes romantics swoon- cold snow outside, warm fire inside. This is the perfect day for you to sit quietly in the kitchen, take a small, dulling pencil to an unlined piece of paper and just write. From time to time you will be glancing out the windows, inspired by the tranquil snowscape.

It’s the kind of day that if you didn’t have report cards due in less than a week, and you didn’t have to share your computer with your husband, and you didn’t have the world’s fattest starving cats mewing constantly at your feet, and you didn’t have children with mini-icicles hanging from their eyelashes trudging snow through your house in desperate search of hot cocoa, then it’s the kind of day that you could decide to become a serious writer.

It’s the kind of day that you will reflect upon later as you sit on the couch of the Today show with a tiny microphone tucked into the lapel of your new suit. That snowy Thursday in 2012 when you were so taken by the beauty of the world and the stillness of your soul that you tossed aside all else and wrote. You will talk about this very day while giving commencement addresses at certain fine colleges. You will recall the background whirr of laughing children as they soared down the sledding ramp your husband built before he threw out his back. And you will give a little chuckle at the memory, because his back will be fine at that point and you will only remember how funny he looked on the ground in the snow.

Later in your memoirs you will refer to this very snowy day. The day you decided to stop being a dreamer and instead be a writer. The day you glanced out and saw snow weighing down the limbs of the evergreens, the slushy lake, the sound of frozen rain hitting your rooftop and then the silence as the rain turned back to snow. You will remember your hands wrapped around a mug of something warm, you might remember it as creamy hot chocolate, but it was really just a mug of steaming tea.

It is the kind of day that you serve homemade cinnamon rolls to your children and their friends as they take yet another break from sledding. It’s the kind of day that if you hadn’t been on a diet, you, too, would indulge in a warm homemade cinnamon treat. No, wait, it’s the kind of day that you shrug your shoulders and forgive yourself the indiscretion, enjoying the sweet taste of cream cheese frosting and warm cinnamon on your tongue.

It’s the kind of day that you need to move from room to room to room to find a quiet place to write. And as you move, with your writer’s eye you notice laundry that needs to be folded, bags that need to be unpacked, toys and shoes that need to be put away, lists that need to be crossed off. You allow yourself a few more minutes to write. Your pencil is getting duller, your paper is full of words, scratches, scribbles, and is that a sketch of a tree?

It’s the kind of day that you realize you are not a professional writer; that your commas are all wrong and you dislike flowery descriptions almost as much as you dislike birthday cards that rhyme. You remind yourself that you think it’s cliché when writers write about writing, but then you forgive yourself because you are writing about snow days after all. It’s exactly the kind of day that you will find yourself laboring over report cards, eating a little too much of everything, tediously folding laundry, giving hugs after minor sledding crashes and maybe sneaking in a run down that sled ramp if you can. It’s the kind of day that you will find yourself, eventually, snuggled on the couch reading a book written by someone more talented than you. But your heart still feels happy and your life still feels full. It’s just that kind of day.