A writing life-1
So I am stuck.
8 am on a cloudy half-snowy day. The streets melted yesterday and now are a sheet of ice under an overnight skiff of snow. Only a skiff. A tease. When we are looking, hoping for meters. The piece I am working on lacks a cohesive structure. A thread or theme. Yes, Angie, I look for themes, too.
It’s a ski piece on waiting for snow. Early season training. And waiting for the mountain to open. We’re a week late opening now as it is.
I take a shower. I set the dishes from the last day (or maybe two) in the sink in hot water and dish soap to soak. I make a cup of tea. I boil water in a small saucepan, add oatmeal, letting it cook. It’s unprocessed organic oatmeal. In ten minutes, I take it off, plop it into small bowl, slice off a slab of butter, drop in a spoonful of brown sugar and fill the bowl with milk. I think of cold days in Palo Alto (not so cold) when my mom would tell stories of growing up on the prairies of Saskatchewan (very cold) and how oatmeal kept them going on the short walk to school. How they always put in butter, real butter. How we always had butter. Real butter, because my grandfather owned a creamery.
I think back to the early days of skiing as a child. Foggy days with streetlight only half visible in the still dark mornings as we leave to drive into the Sierras. Waking hours later on Donner Summit with the snow sheds covering the railroad tracks across the valley, granite walls and a blue bird Sierra sky. To ski for the weekend.
And I find my link. My theme. The preparations of those days. The wait and the first day on the mountain.