This recent snowpocalypse: an impossibly outrageous three days stuck inside, anticipating electrical failure and dangerous traveling conditions, powering down, disconnecting. Turned me inside myself for a look at the better of life. My better self. Turned me solely to my imagination, immersion in it.
Giving myself to imagination on the level of toddler at play means wild abandon, release of control, no matter what the situation. Stepping away from the different kinds of noise in my life has allowed me to spend some quality time with my mind. To listen instead for the chimes at the front porch, a bit of wind whipping through leafless trees, or the crunch of icy snow, that muffled sound of the air as it comes down, the sleet pattering the windows, as I nod off in the chair, listening. My mind turned to creating for its sake--writing for myself, doodling and painting, becoming like a child.
Pausing long enough to really see the pattern of day-to-day existence influencing my identity as writer, mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend--that’s what spending a few days cooped up with a stir crazy little one got me to cultivate in myself.
Our minds, used to worry, prosperity, the concerns of the material, can barely process, at first, the beauty of a slowed-down world. We spend time anticipating and preemptively working toward our goals. Having days with no goals at all seems more than counter-culture--seems even foolish.
The snow and ice have melted away, but I’m hoping to hang on to some of this feeling, that somehow it's ok to be in a little bit of nothingness, and find something unexpected. Even in the sunlight and the ordinary.
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