The Mud of Transition

Lessons for writing from nature:  calendars are nice …. BUT like chapter outlines, merely a guideline.  Spring is fickle … BUT no matter what, the days are brighter, the snow is disappearing, the puddles growing. The plot is definitely heading towards warmth, towards the light. BUT like a good book, it’s all about the journey. This muddy middle will pass.  Splish, splash towards new growth ... towards spring.

Muddling through a draft of a new novel feels a bit like slugging through some prairie slush. 

Tenacious Pussy Willows

It always amazes me, when things get difficult for us humans, how unaffected nature seems. Whether it's death or disease or financial stress, nature just goes on doing what it does.

Because I'm immersed in the past, always researching something about my parents' lives, I can't help but compare and constantly refer to it. I'm boring that way . . . maybe that's why the kids moved out?

Anyway, in April of 1945, when the war was ending . . . with a painful, agonizing whimper . . . spring was emerging. No doubt there were pussy willows blooming as the bedraggled POWs straggled eastward to do their time in the Soviet gulag.

Did they find hope in pussy willows like I do?

spring

After four glorious months off work, I'm back on the street delivering mail and loving it. There's something so good about walking and being physically tired. Maybe, it's because it's so simple. And I missed my customers. I've done the same route for more than ten years now and recognize the perennials that emerge each spring, see the children (or grandchildren) growing, and (sadly) see endings - divorce, old pets, and yes, old customers. This past winter was hard on my route - at least four deaths. Death generates a lot of mail.

Spring is here - in all its dirty, windy, litter-ful untidiness. In the evenings I walk Buddy through the woods. Even there, spring is messy - soggy, muddy trails - mosquito breeding puddles. But the pussy willows are out and last night I heard my first frog croak. Today, the wind's direction is from the north. Yes, it's the semi-annual, battle of the seasons. Nobody said change was easy.

Signs of spring in Winnipeg

Things have shifted in the last week, here in Winterpeg Winnipeg. Amazing what a little sun can do. We're in SPRING mode. Here are the signs:

1) Potholes - they're big, ugly and everywhere.  Poor car.

2) Puddles - it's dangerous to be a pedestrian, or to even have the sunroof open.

3) Noise - birds are twittering their little hearts out. (Chickadees, robins, even crows and a noisy, hammering woodpecker).

4) The smell of melting snow in the sunshine should be bottled and sold as 'rejuvenation'.

5) Trash - ooh, what the melting snow reveals. Last November's flyers, cigarette butts, and a winter of doggie doo. Holding my breathe and moving on....

6) Cars are revving more around the high school. 

7) Outdoor soccer practices - well, the fields are soggy, but the conditioning runs are outdoors.

8) Trees are thickening with buds - and in a few weeks they'll be green and I'll be living in my own little forest again. (Oh, except for the new plum tree that Buddy mistook for a stick and chewed - almost to the ground. What a dog.)

9) The Canada Geese are back with their mates and setting up nests in the same dangerous spots by the new roads - just like last year.

10) PUSSY WILLOWS, soft and silvery, are emerging on the edges of the Harte Trail. They're my absolute favourite sign of spring - next to the smell of melting snow, the sound of trickling water, tweets of happy birds, and the ...

Oh, I just like it all!