In Honour of Today's Blizzard...

Last fall, the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia put out a call to writers for their pieces on writing in winter. My submission about my first winter here is one of the selections in the January/February issue and it seems just write to share it this weekend, in honour of the first nor'easter of the season.


A Writer’s Prayer to the Snow God
Sara Jewell

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
Make sure it snows, for goodness’ sake.”

It’s January 2, 2008, my first winter in Nova Scotia, and this is a place
where prayers get answered. Either that or I’m dead. Yes, surely it is that for
I must have died and gone to heaven.
Having succumbed to the genetically implanted impulse to rearrange the
living room once the Christmas tree is gone, my big blue reading chair is now
positioned in front of the picture window, all the better to view the trees and
birds and arrival of the mail truck (you never know when there could be an
acceptance letter sitting inside the mailbox). As a reward for doing a morning
of free writing on the opening pages of my memoir, I am sitting in the chair
with a cup of hazelnut-flavoured coffee, reading a murder mystery set in
Quebec in the winter, listening to jazz music and watching the snow fall in
big, white flakes. It’s our fourth storm in a week.
This is my writing quirk: I need precipitation in order to write. Rainy
days: amazing. The darker it is outside, the more alluring my yellow-painted
office becomes. Snowy days: awesome. No way to open any doors. Taking the
caution to stay off the roads seriously. Office becomes infused by a magical
light.
Coffee. Jazz. A novel. Chickadees. Lots and lots of pure white snow.
Where else could I be but in writing heaven?