First snow of the season.

It's the silence of snow that coils peace through your veins. That first snow that tickles your face as it melts into your skin, you can't help but to hold your tongue out and catch a drop of this serenity. Your shoulders relax, your neck tilts back and you exhale into the bright white light that has turned the night into an endless reservoir of tranquility.

And then, you start the snowblower, get out the shovel and run to move the car from the street before the snowplow barrels down and entombs it.

F. Back to square one.

Surrender.

Beneath the surface

a fairytale unwinds

breathing through relentless

ignorance.

Opening into the brilliance

of glassy waters,

surrendering

to the sweetest ecstasy

that was once scarred of bitterness,

left in the emptiness of the cold.

Now cozy and warm

your eyes lingering within mine

twirling me endlessly,

indulging in your integrity of

unending tenderness.

Prickling my spine,

gathering in my throat,

so sweetly innocent.

Amidst the iridescent nights

smothered with caramel thirst,

persuading me endlessly.

The spirals of fear.

Since I've started this slow-moving journey I've been trying to wrap my brain around things that people want to read about. The popular blogs seem to be about food, fashion, crafting -- things that I follow along with and have nothing new to add, but do take recommendations from.  I keep finding that every time I write something ... I delete it. I do not trust that I have something worthwhile to say. 

I have not really shared this writing trial and I'm finally admitting that I've been waiting to see if I do have anything to say, or that maybe those few that I have shared with might show encouragement to the process. I wonder why I need that encouragement.  It's as though I need to perfect my writing, and ultimately myself, before I really allow anyone to share this with me.  But no one wants to share with someone holding back and I am wondering what is really holding me back from expressing my fears and my dreams or passions, to anyone listening?

I've realized that it's fear. Fear that I really don't have anything worthwhile to share. Fear of embarrassing myself. Fear that I will not find what I'm searching for.  Fear that I won't be able to develop my soul into it's whole.  Fear that maybe I really am just a cheese-ball chic who wears her heart on her sleeve, feels too much, over-analyzes everything and always doubts herself.  It is a panic button of self-doubt and no way to be if I want to instill myself as a writer and one day an author.

I need to write with what I'm good at, from the heart and wearing all my emotions out in writing.  I used to be able to find the words that truly flowed through any emotion and I want that to fill me again.  My background is in creative writing and the techniques that I learned will need to be refreshed and the soul-searching anguish will have to be pulled from the depths and absorbed into language.
 
I was reading back on a good friend's blog and realized how right he was to reference this in helping to find just what he needed, and what I've now found inspiration in. So I share both of them with you and hope that he doesn't mind: 

You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell…But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the “works.” You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

F. Scott Fitzgerald in response to a story sent to him by the daughter of a family friend and aspiring author (Full Letter).

 
It may be poetry, it may be a comical rant or something that has inspired insight (or hindsight), but whatever form the words come out in, I hope them to be honest and moving, and maybe even a little jacked up.


Do you have something to share? Let me know!

Unwrap the happiness.

I heard on the radio this morning that we are supposed to make sexy time a priority during this crazy holiday season.

Um, yeah? Well F me sideways and shove me down the chimney.

It has seriously taken us seven days to try to finish decorating our Christmas trees and we still haven't gotten the ornaments on them (Ryan is taking extra meticulous care in stringing the lights onto every single branch and insists that we hang the ornaments together).  I have hardly gotten any shopping done, and between waking up at 4:45am to be at work, volleyball, football or bowling, making dinner, doing laundry and having gym time...HO HO HO time isn't working out too well.

And, let's be honest, I have a very short window of  "availability" per day.

If it's not in the planner then it doesn't get done.  But I'm pretty confident that I speak for most ladies when I tell you that if you came to bed with us, at a normal bed-time, you might get more lucky than you think.  Or hey, surprises are nice. 

Really, if we've already put off doing that one item on the checklist, what's it mean to put it off for another half hour?  So take off the Santa suit buddy.  Christmas is the time for giving, so I'd appreciate the gifts in the velvety bag...and preferably before 9:30pm.