Welcome to the Season of Reflection

As the Northeast lies dormant under a Nor'easter storm bringing snow before Hallowe'en, I've started thinking about the quiet season that is beginning, more harshly for some than for others.  It's about to be colder.  The leaves are about to take the wind and pile up in drifts.  The pumpkins are ripe and the butternut squash are full of flavor, but it's hard to find a tomato with that summery taste.  I have started to accumulate books to read over the winter break, and I have some ideas that I want to write about as I extend the bits and pieces of my new novel.  Now that I live in SoCal, it's hard to remember how fierce the wind was in fall in North Carolina, how bitter the cold felt on my neck and how icy the air that I breathed into my lungs on early fall mornings walking to school, how long it took to get ready to go out of the house, with boots, sweater and coat, mittens, scarf, and hat to find and assemble.  I enjoy sipping camomile tea with vanilla and sending my mind back to reflect on those days, so I can use some of that sensory detail in my writing.  And I love having long periods to read and write, instead of snatched, almost stolen bits of time.  So welcome to the time of reflection, or to the anticipation of it.  Fall is here.

"Time change" is a good pair of words to think about. I don't just mean cherry blossoms, daffodils, spring breezes, lack of sleep. I mean, "Could it be time to change?" It's not just when we are in the midst of cancer or the like that we can consider change. It can come whenever we make space in our lives to welcome it. I just heard about the basketball coach at Boston University, who was a "six-figure salesman." He was assaulted late at night, coming out of a bar, by a broken-glass-wielding attacker. His face and neck still show terrible scars, and he says he almost died. In the hospital, he decided his life wasn't a good fit and he wanted to coach. Slowly, after his recovery, he built that life for himself. What's magical about the hospital? Time. The time for reflection isn't built into our lives. Maybe such time was never built into human lives, but it seems as if time to reflect has recently gone AWOL. I have heard many talks about using the 15 minutes parked outside the school, picking up the kid from his or her activity, to write. But you can also use it to do nothing but think. How well does your life fit? Is there a life you can imagine that would work better? How might you get there?

Looking forward from this winter solstice

The Solstice, the turning of the year. We just passed through the 2007 winter solstice. Even though we aren’t through with winter, the days will get longer from now until the summer solstice. Day length is a trend of cheer all though the period of quiet and cold. But the quiet season should be a time for reflection. The solstice happens at a time that feels frantic to me. But now, I feel like I have two weeks between semesters and after holiday antics, and now I hope to think over where I’ve been and where I’m going. I have decided to visualize where I’d like to be as a writer next year at this time. Perhaps you’d like to try that too!