I'd like to call myself a writer...

...But judging from my complete inability to write and finish a post on this, my creative writing blog, for months, I think I had best relinquish the title until I can put my words where my mouth is. (Wait...)

In any event, this is an apology and a public avowal to do better. I've got writing on my mind, partially because I'm heart-sick for England, and partially because I've been very aware of how little writing I've done and how much I miss it.

So, here's my reaffirmation of my writing. Here I go. For reals, this time.

Promise.

Falling slowly

March 5, 2010

I am grateful, today, for the snow
that falls
slowly
but persistently

it wipes out the gray
and replaces it with white

it mutes the sound
of everything that goes unsaid

yesterday the news came
that a boy would not come home again
that a son
a brother
a cousin
an uncle
a nephew
a grandson
a friend
would not come home again

the emptiness is deafening
but the frozen flakes fall
accumulating slowly
and fill it until
it is not empty
just silent

Four years of cancer

I haven't written much about my dad's cancer, partially because I don't feel like garnering pity, but partially because it's hard to talk about. Hard to talk about it in a deep, meaningful, truthful way. I can spout answers to how he's doing, how we're dealing, in a very general way, but the truth? The deep, from my soul, truth?

I don't know if I can express that yet.

It's been four years, you would think I would have come to terms with cancer by now. And in most ways, I have. It's a part of our lives and it's the giant uncertainty that we live with.

But the future? What my dad having cancer really means?

I remember when I found out. I was walking across BYU campus through late afternoon sunlight and chilly winter air. My phone rang; it was my dad. He told me right away: "I have some bad news." I don't know what I said but I was in shock. A friend offered me a ride home; I accepted and we were halfway to the apartments before I remembered that I had driven that morning and my car was still on campus.

I spent the next week crying and trying not to cry and mostly, focusing really hard on not thinking about it. I felt like something had broken. Rachel called me one day while I was having lunch in the middle of the Wilkinson Center. I fought back tears and panic as I tried to reassure her that I was scared, too. I wanted to be home and at the same time, I didn't. I didn't want to look that word, "cancer", in the face. I was busy with work and school and I let that carry me.

Four years later, and the truth is, even though I have stopped trying to hide from cancer, I haven't really stopped trying to hide. I am still scared.

Driving to work

The sun is almost too bright against the melting snow along the roads. There are clouds in the sky, but they are fine and wispy, like the hair of a small blonde girl. I look for my mountains and cannot find them - the clouds come down the to ground. Timpanogos is waving proudly above them, only the tip of the horn visible. The clouds swirl and part; I glimpse the rock beyond them. With a whoosh of sunlight, they close again and I am left with only the hint and promise of something more.

Sunset in January

There are not many things that I like about January, but the sunsets are one of them. While the rest of the days are cold, gray, and monotonous, sunset is when the mountains and sky come alive.

There is a certain slant of light in the evenings when the sunlight hits the mountains and only the mountains. Golden and glorious, Timpanogos and Cascade mountains to the north and east are illuminated while the rest of the sky is shaded and slowly slips into dark blue. The lines and crevices of their faces come into sharper focus and the snow smoothes the slopes into gentle curves. Sometimes a little pink or orange fills the snow with colors and shatters the white and gray of our January landscape.

Even once the sun finishes its descent behind the Lake mountains in the west, Timpanogos and Cascade stay bright for a moment longer. They are luminous, almost like they absorbed and now reflect the light of the day. In those moments, I can't believe the mountains are real. They are too present, too distinct, too there.

For that moment, some haziness is removed and all is clear. The mind-numbing sameness of January days is lifted and the world becomes lovely. I can breathe in the promise of winter's sharp beauty.

And we're back

Back to writing, because I think part of me is dying without it. Literally, I can feel my skills and words fading without being put to regular use. I made it a New Year's resolution (because really, why not?) to write four times a month on this blog, which will hopefully translate into one post every week. I need this space to practice, even if no one is reading, and I need the goal and deadline to keep me motivated.

I've already missed two submission deadlines this year for magazines that I had every intention of submitting to. I don't want that to happen anymore. The only way to get 100 rejections this year is if I start sending out my material.

So we're back to where we began, a semi-public forum to rush write, brainstorm, revise, and get ready for publication. This is part of who I am; I want it back.

Ready, set...

Damp

Over a year ago, I started a blog post (that I never finished) with the following:

"When I stepped outside after class tonight into the rainy night air, it felt so familiar that I was surprised by it. I recognized that smell, that damp, musty smell of rain on the Chatham campus in Pittsburgh. It's been months since it was warm enough to just rain, and I welcomed the familiarity and surprising comfort that it brought me."

That's as far as I got, but I had a similar experience the other night when my husband and I got home fairly late at the end of a rainy day. The moment I stepped out of the car and walked into the weak light of the garage, I inhaled a downpour of memories. "It smells like Pittsburgh," I said happily, breathing deeply. I had to explain (or rather, I wanted to explain) that it rained so often in Pittsburgh that it's a smell I automatically associate with that city: damp, wet, almost musty. The smell of earth that never completely dries.

Immediately, I was back in Pittsburgh, walking home after class. The night was heavy with water, mist clinging to my hair and skin. I walked across the mostly-empty campus and stepped down the cement stairs that cut through the side campus lawn. There was a lamp post halfway down the stairs, and it shone with a halo of moisture around it. The rain wasn't falling anymore, but water was tangibly still in the air. I walked downhill toward the second lamp post which illuminated Woodland Road, my shoes slapping the wet cement caked with leaves and debris from the overhanging bushes and trees. I hurried down Woodland Road to College Avenue, reassured by the orange glow of streetlights with their similar halos. I had spent the first month of my stay in Pittsburgh hating the humidity with every pore in my skin, but now, as Spring was returning and the frigid winter had melted, I greeted the water-air as a...well, not quite friend. Companion. Compatriot. A piece of my experience that was unique to my Pittsburgh life, and I was delighted that I recognized is as something familiar.

Spring in Utah was wet enough this year that I got to breathe in the rain-soaked air more than once and breathe deeply and remember. I wouldn't have ever thought that "damp" would be a favorite smell, but now it is something that connects me to my Pittsburgh home and I welcome it. Even if it means having to wait until May for Spring to actually arrive.