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In a Strange Land

lost. [lawst, lost.] having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place….

Last weekend I got lost. The person driving knew where we were going or at least understood in which vicinity we were heading. But, my sense of direction is always off. I’m toast without a compass. I’m trouble even with one. So after roundabouts and wrong turns, I knew only that we’d pulled up somewhere in small-town Wisconsin in the midst of something strange but in a place full of story.

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King Kong, upset by the breakup with the movie star and a ban on the skyscraper, settled for the farmer’s wife and the slope of a rusty roof.

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The kangaroo appeared jovial with his constant bouncing from stoop to street to neighbor’s porch for tea, but the giraffes were not convinced and eyed him with suspicion. He moved too quick, he spoke too fast, and he had no spot of real definition.

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And the woman behind glass, though very patriotic, had nothing to say about the state of the union.

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Then again, maybe all she needed was a microphone.

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Shifting by Degrees

IMG_0933Last weekend, the temperature outside rose by 10 degrees, then almost 20. The sun hit the ground full force, shrinking ice and stretching puddles and filling the air with the start of a new season.

Like any good Wisconsinite on the first sunny, decent day, I got the car washed. I dragged the shop-vac out of the basement and sucked up all kinds of after-school snack crumbs from the back seat. I scrubbed the interior doors and center console to rid them of salt marks left behind by snow boots. I gave myself a workout sloughing off remnants from the last few months.

Then, I breathed a big sigh of relief and thought I just might make it.

The last several weeks have been hard. Not because I’ve been buried in mounds of snow like friends out east. Not even because I’ve had to shovel winter’s bounty more than once (though the last time I did felt like doing penance with its wet and heavy load). I hit a relative low in January, perhaps seasonal or cyclical or who-knows-what-sical, and it’s been tough pushing through to the other side.

ry=400But it’s shifted–like the temperature lifted–in a positive direction, and the newness in the air is a welcomed reprieve.

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So it is with writing, too.

My schedule at work has changed such that, even though I’m in the office more, I’m finding more energy outside of work to pay attention to my novel, taking one afternoon a week to do nothing but work on the story.

I won’t say the words are coming easier or the revising is less painful, but the manuscript is improving inch by inch. And after sitting stale for a while, a story that grows even by small degrees is like Spring at full tilt.

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Speaking of Spring and full tilt and writing, don’t forget to register for the Flash Nonfiction course I’m teaching that begins April 5th! Your house, my house, in your favorite cafe…it’s online and at your fingertips.

We all have stories. What’s yours?

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