Linda Ford

Yes, we’ve had a lot of snow. It’s impossible to say how much because it’s blown into drifts. But here is a picture of the planters on the wheelchair ramp where snow is a mushroom cap. Doesn’t it look like a Hallmark card?

Mind you, I don’t like it quite so much when I get stuck in it as I have.

The drifts are deep. Here is a drift by our trees. I suppose it is close to six feet high.

Again, it’s pretty to look at.

I suppose it’s all in how you view snow as to whether or not you enjoy it. Shoveling a hundred yard driveway is different than looking out the window.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.  ~John Ruskin

There is no season such delight can bring
As summer, autumn, winter and the spring.
~William Browne

Snowflakes are kisses from heaven.  ~Author Unknown

Snowmen fall from heaven… unassembled.  ~Author Unknown

Or as one person says, When it snows you have two choices: shovel or make snow angels.

I’ll add a third choice: stay indoors as much as possible and enjoy the view.

Here’s my view.

We often celebrate Thanksgiving twice. Once in October for the Canadian Thanksgiving and then again in November if we have family visiting us from south of the border.  Such was the case this year.

We began the weekend on Thurs. with a wiener roast. Our turkey dinner was slated for Friday to accommodate those who had to work.  The weather was balmy and pleasant. Not a flake of snow or drop of rain. Dry ground. Drifting leaves. Cats romping about.

Some of the family decided to stay over Thurs. night. We have one spare room which was already occupied so we put up inflatable bed wherever we could squeeze in one. Someone slept on a foamy in the laundry room. Someone slept next to the freezer on a mattress. It was…cozy, shall we say.

We woke to snow. Heavy, wet snow which turned to ice as soon as a vehicle drove on it. Snow fell heavily until mid afternoon. The streets and highways were well iced by then. The Queen Elizabeth II highway was shut down with a 50-60 car pileup. The trip from Calgary (normally an hour to an hour and a half) took 4 1/2 hours.

The birthday girl had to stay in the city by herself while the rest of us ate turkey. Sorry you couldn’t make it, Tania.

The roads were too treacherous to travel on so everyone stayed another night. No one complained about the crowding. In fact, it was kind of fun. We were warm and dry. We had lots of food. And good company.  Lots of people to hold the two baby girls. Here is a picture of them enjoying each other. Haedyn is checking out Anastasia’s ear. She also pulled her hair and tried to get some action out of her cousin.

It was a great weekend and made me realize again how blessed we are with family, conveniences, food, water, heat, homes, etc. I could go on and on but consider just one thing we take for granted–water. We showered, bathed, flushed toilets, did laundry, made number pots of coffee, drank lots of water and likely never once gave a thought to the fact much of the world does not enjoy a super abundance of safe, clean water.

So today, I am going to consciously give thanks for water. (As I wash 4 loads of sheets, 3 loads of towels and enjoy another cup of coffee.)

Which brings me to another thought about water. How satisfying it is. How necessary. We have also a spiritual need for refreshing, cleansing water. In John chapter four, verse ten, Jesus says he will be to us living water that satisfies.

How blessed we are to have satisfying, abu

ndant water at our disposal.

Once upon a time, many years ago, we watched a funny movie. It was New Year’s Day and we were at my in-laws. Everyone was exhausted because of company, parties and Christmas in general so an amusing movie was in order.

The name of the movie was Once Upon A Horse starring Dick Martin and Dan Rowan (Of Laugh-in Fame).

As I recall, the story line was about two petty criminals who decided to rustle cows and then the market fell. The sheriff threatened to fine them if they didn’t feed the cows properly. They tried to give the cows back but the owner couldn’t afford feed either so refused to let them leave the cows in his corrals. They even tried skipping town but the sheriff brought them back to take care of their cows. So they were stuck with worthless cows and had to buy expensive feed for them.

And there is exactly where truth and fiction intersect. But we won’t get into the current economic situation for farmers. Suffice it to say that often a story points to a truth that is painful, poignant or reveals something about us to ourselves.   Stephen King say Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

So read fiction to laugh at yourself and your situation, or to see the truth more clearly, feel it more deeply. Read it to vicariously learn how to live the truth through the characters. For me, I intend my stories to entertain at some level so most of all, read fiction–my stories in particular–for enjoyment.

The IDEA of writing a book is fun.Writing a book is hard work. In fact, ideas are fun. A story starts as an idea. What would happen if…? Who are these people? What are they doing? Then suddenly, the idea turns into work. The people, the activities, the idea all have to form a recognizable shape. We all know the shape of a story. We’ve been taught it since we were infants at our mother’s knees. (Although different cultures have varying story shapes.) For me, the ideas, the people, the events look a lot more like a huge pile of tangled yarn than a neatly knitted scarf. My job is to knit the yarn into a project–scarf or otherwise.

Thinking about this creative process reminded me of a book I once read–Hundreds and Thousands–The Journals of Emily Carr. As a well-known Canadian artist (painter) I was curious about this woman. I’m not keen on some of her later work. I find some of it heavy and dark, almost oppressive feeling. But then there’s the other stuff that has an air of lightness and whimsy. For example, compare these two paintings.

from http://www.gallerieswest.ca

from www.glenbow.org/collections

But I loved reading her book.  Spying on her I suppose. She struggled with her craft, never quite satisfied with what she produced. She said, "My sketches have zip to them but they don’t strike bottom yet. They move some but I want them to swell and roll back and forth into space, pausing here and there to fill out the song, catch the rhythm, to go down into the deep places and pause there and to rise up into the high ones, exulting. Let the movement be slow and savor of solidity at the base and rise quivering to the tree tops and to the sky, always rising to meet it joyously and tremulously. The objects before one are not enough, nor color, nor form, nor design, nor composition. If spirit does not breath through, it is lifeless, dead, voiceless. And the spirit must be felt so intensely that it has power to call others in passing, for it must pass, not stop in the pictures but be perpetually moving through, carrying on and inducing a thirst for more and a desire to rise. " (Page 194 of Hundreds and Thousands: The Journals of Emily Carr.)

I love that passage. Perhaps because she has so clearly captured the way many artists– whether authors, painters or other medium–feel about the work they create. What I see in my head, the good idea, the struggling story don’t translate to the page as vividly as I always hope.  I want my stories to ‘go down into the deep laces and pause there and to rise into the high ones, exulting.’

And so I capture ideas, untangle them and try to knit them into a story hoping always to capture the swell, the song, the vigor and the spirit of what God has planted in each story.

I’ve had a busy summer. Summers are always busy. By fall I am looking forward to a routine. I read a quote the other day that helps me understand why I need some sort of schedule in my life.

‘Be regular and ordinary in your life so that you my be violent and original in your work’ Gustave Flaubert

Now I don’t know anything about Gustave Flauber except he identified a very good reason for living my ordinary life on auto-pilot as much as possible. I don’ t write the sort of stories that have violence in them and perhaps that wasn’t even what he meant. But I do need to have my mind available for creativity.

Now that might mean different things to different people. Perhaps a quiet beach stay.  Or a secluded patio.                            

For others it might mean a regimented schedule with events happening at exactly the same time every day. Or it might mean living life simply.

For me I suppose it means reducing the external demands, trying to be organized about meals and all those other things required in running a household.

At times it can be exhausting. Yet there is a calmness to routine even when it’s hectic. It frees my mind to think about my stories.

Which reminds me, I was asked to be one of two authors in a 2 novella-collection for Christmas 2010. That sounds like a long way off but the story has to be delivered by December of this year. When I was first asked, I wondered if I had time to do it and if I could write a story in half the word length I usually do. But the story exploded from my brain and I am happy with it. I hope the editor likes it too.  It’s a cowboy Christmas story.