It’s four degrees this morning. The peach and pink sun struggles to rise over the Green Mountains. Its color is muted in ice fog, which makes it look like a watercolor painting. I can see it brightening through the windows frosted with hoar. Like gift-shop windows decorated for the holidays, they frame the possibility of a miracle.

We have new neighbors. They are young and have a three-year-old on weekends — like John and I used to have, except we had a better custody plan.

It’s 6 a.m. Her car won’t start. It is a venerable Honda Civic with Massachusetts plates. Sadly, she’s got no block heater to plug in to warm it up. But he’s out there with jumper cables and a heart of gold.

Barefoot and wishing I were wearing my purple alpaca socks, I watch from the kitchen window, sipping my coffee and wondering how I can help. I’ve got the lights off so they can’t see me watching. He’s got this. I know he does. But I want to be neighborly. It’s so cold.

The battery lurches back to life like a heart-attack patient coming back from a flatline, near-death experience. They kiss — a quick peck over lowered scarves — and she drives down the snowy hill. He watches her go.

I am reminded of the many obstacles we faced at that age. Also the rewards. These rewards were slow to come but persist all these years later. Personal growth is like that. Kicking and screaming, I rage against the frozen, dead battery of the known — the routines, the things I’m good at, the things I know how to do with my eyes closed. Like this love letter. I write it freely. I even enjoy the edits I will ultimately make.

Writing Spirit Traffic challenged me to grow, to improve. I worked, my battery died, I got a jump. Like those paddles used for sudden cardiac arrest, my writing coach analyzed the heart rhythm of my writing, stopped its chaotic electrical activity, and restarted me with a normal beat. My second book, Riding the Line — which might not even be its real name — laughs at my current efforts at resuscitation as my editor sends me back to the drawing board. Again.

The words do not come to me on their own, like they used to. As Arundhati Roy says, “I have to hunt them down like prey.” I grab any piece of coal from the old fire and start drawing animal figures on the wall of my cave. Hunting scenes.

Yeah. The analogy doesn’t quite work. The slings and arrows, the deer and lions, don’t morph magically from Chauvet Cave art to the elements of style. I have to work harder. I have to figure it out. This is personal growth. It’s not linear like the cave paintings. It’s more like driving up a steep driveway in deep snow on summer tires: try, slide back; try again, gain a little more of the hill; slide back, try to avoid the snowbank and the passing traffic on the highway; turn around; get a running start from the parking lot across the street; try again; crest; cheer.

There is a hump at the top of the hill. You have to have enough momentum to get over it in the snow. I know that the drive home from work tonight will charge her battery enough so that she’ll be able to make several attempts.

I’ll make sure to have my purple socks on as I watch in the dark.

Buy Me a Coffee

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Love,
Jane

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