WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #4
I miss the snow. I grew up outside of Chicago and snow created the person I am today. I need intense experiences that beautify and shock me at the same time, things I have no control over. As soon as it snows, I run out and scoop glove-fulls into my mouth, crunching white icy steaks, tasting the iron in the air, the blue color of the cloud.
We are in a drought of snow. It is cold, but nothing falls from the sky: blue and unassuming. On Wednesday, the grey clouds moved in, low and threatening. Shaman and old women felt the snow in their bones, birds were noisy then suddenly still at mid-day. All Wednesday I asked family and strangers, Did you see any? Snow? We all mentioned a few glistening flakes around noon, refracting light in the sun, but nothing sticking.
Same with my book DIZZY SUSHI I have sent out now to one agent and one publisher. Perhaps not a drought, exactly, but a period of waiting while I collect more information on the next agent, perfect my pitch, try not to freak out, try not to dream. Just wait patiently. Like waiting for snow.
I found myself in Tesuque last Saturday and decided to walk along the creek, the one you catch from County Road 72A. There are a limited number of parking spaces—all full—and I almost gave up, parking far down the road. As I hiked to the trailhead, a whole group of kids and adults with more kids in backpacks started up behind me. I walked quickly, avoiding the throng, only to run into ten more people with their dogs. I should have known on a Saturday it would be crazy. One dog came up to me on the trail and shook itself, spraying mud and water from the icy stream. I was less thrilled when he grabbed my hand in his teeth. “No,” I reprimanded while its owner gleefully admonished, “He won’t hurt you.”
Out of site of other humans, I started running. I ran past the private property that enclosed the creek behind tall coyote fences. I could hear the water bubbling under the ice but I couldn’t see it. I kept running, feeling like I was the main character in “Light in the Forest,” and I was running away from the white household who said they were my family and back to the Indians who had kidnapped me, who were my true family.
I didn’t stop running until I was past the wildlife sanctuary—also behind fencing—and into tall stands of ponderosa pine. Then I walked and walked and saw no one. I climbed up a long hill into the sun and down the other side in the shade.
There was a monstrous pine with a perfect bell-shaped top. I sidestepped down the steep side of the hill until I stood underneath it, the needles creating a bed for the cones to drop into. Next to it, the Tesuque creek cut through the canyon under the ice sounding hollow. But where the ice was thin or melted, the creek bubbled over rocks with a high ringing sound.
I sat on the edge of the creek, resting on a rock covered in green and gold lichen, and noticed a thin layer of snow on the ice. I ran my fingers across it and sucked the crystals from them, numbing my lips and chin. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to remind me what a whole bowl full of snow ice cream tasted like.
