Coming Home to Winter Storm - Looking for Spring

This snow storm that has hit north Georgia and my home in western NC has stopped us all in our tracts. The ice is what gets us. In Roswell, GA where I have spent a few days with my sister and brother in law, I have been happy to stay indoors and enjoy the white woods through the large windows.

It is unbelievably quiet here although we usually hear cars on the street beyond the lake. No cars today. Everyone stayed home as they should. Schools closed and businesses shut their doors as well.

Mother Nature throws us these curve balls occasionally, and we have to slow our pace, stop and breathe slowly. 

Maybe that is why we have these kinds of days. Perhaps we have to be forced to slow down and realize that we don't have to get out every single day and do something. When the roads are so bad we might have a terrible accident, we remind ourselves that nothing is worth getting out in this mess, unless it is a matter of life and death.

As for me, I used yesterday to write and revise some work. I don't know where I'll send it or if it will see the light of day, but I did enjoy writing for an hour or two. 

I enjoyed having my sweet sister give me a shoulder massage that helped the pain caused by the damaged rotator cuff. She has also done Reiki, an energy healing on me a couple of times. I don't claim to understand it, but I do know it helps. My body has taken a beating with all the travel I've done recently.

My sister, Gay Council Moring

The trip to Florida this winter was harder than last year's escape to the sunshine state. Someone said the Karma was not right for me this year. I had health issues, computer issues, automobile issues, condo issues including losing my keys and AC going out. In spite of that, I loved seeing good friends and family, reading my poetry for a senior group, and speaking to a group of folks who want to write.

Sandy Beall and Richard Sauers, her interesting and fun husband

Tammy Beall and Sandy 

I loved the ride from Tallahassee to St. Pete with Sandy Beall, one of the most generous and kind women I've ever known. She also drove me all the way back to Atlanta and then flew home on her dime. We have known each other for about thirty years and have so much history together we never run out of things to discuss. She says she enjoys the drive and we made an overnight stop to visit a family we both love. 

This cold weather is bound to end soon. Spring is waiting with baited breath 

to jump out and surprise us, I'm sure. 

When we least expect it, we will see 

a robin in the yard, a humming bird 

will hover on the deck searching 

for the feeder he frequented last year. 

The sun will come back and warm us. 

We will forget the cold of February, 2014.

Writing About Your Life

I had the pleasure to speak to some interesting and nice folks who will be starting a writing group soon. We discussed how we all have stories to write. Some are painful to revisit. Some are parts of history our families will be happy we took the time to record. Pat Daharsh, award winning haiku writer, brought this group together.

Bill, who sat to my left, said he and his wife have written a book of memoir but he has little idea of how he might push his book out the door to reach others. That is the part of writing that boggles the minds of most of us. However, Bill has a large family with many children who will cherish that book as the years go by.

A former student and a friend, Lynne Sparrow, author of a most interesting memoir, Patchwork, is not promoting her book to the public. She only had ten books printed, she said, and she is giving them to friends and family. It is not her purpose to sell copies, but to tell her story her way. And what a great story she tells. 

It is Never Too Late 

I told the group I spoke to this week about the many senior writers I know. Some of them write fiction and some of them write memoir. A. J. Mayhew published a first novel, The Dry Grass of August, in 2011 at the age of seventy-one. Nadine Justice published a page- turning memoir the year she turned seventy. Susan Snowden turned out a thought-provoking novel, Southern Fried Lies and Celia Miles wrote Sarranda's Heart, another of her Appalachian novels, about an independent strong woman character. Maren Mitchell published her self help book, Beat Chronic Pain, an Insider's Guide, a book for anyone who lives with daily pain or knows someone who does. G.W. Newton who is housebound due to health issues has sold several hundred copies of his book Bunches of Wild Grass mostly to residents of the south Georgia area where Newton grew up. 

Even if the writers I met this week never publish a book, I hope they will record the important events of their lives for their families. Each of us owns something very special, something that the younger generations will not ever have -- our memories of our lives.