snow

In Portland, as in Seattle (where I grew up), snow is a rare and magical thing. 

I can distinctly remember watching my fathers' weather reader for hours growing up.  The watch pot never boils.  But that didn't stop us. 

"Oh, oh! It says 36 degrees now.  It could snow at any moment..."

"Oh no! It went back up to 38 degrees. Dang...."

"Oh, back down to 37.."

And so on.  For countless hours.  Or at least until bedtime.

As I have grown older (not that I'm ancient or anything) the trill of snow has refused to abate.  Whenever the air gets nippy I start seeking weather information.  The TV news is turned to on.  The internet is honed into a frequently updated site.  I do frequent "step outside" checks, and of course, I do the peep my head around the curtain to and peer knowingly into the street lamp more times that I will admit here.

Still no snow.

I just checked again.  The speed and size of the precipitation around the street lamps looks a bit to fast and small.  Not quite snow.  But, moving quickly in that direction... or so I hope.

My mother and sister and I drove from Eastern Oregon today, back into Portland, and it would seem that snow is the name of the game everywhere but here. 

In fact, there is so much snow going around that the passes are for the most part closed (which made for an interesting detour around the mountain... and when it wasn't snowing the rain and standing water were enough to spike my blood pressure into that panic level... and I wasn't even the one driving).  

While I detest driving in bad weather, and, perhaps detest being a passenger in bad weather even more, I do in fact love snow.  I feel as though the day has been tainted.  Snow and bad weather when I was in no position to enjoy them, and now, snuggled up in bed, writing my blog, nothing but cold, wet, rain. Boring.

The good news. There should be snow coming.  Or, so my aforementioned sources sources tell me.

Let it snow!

Prompts

Perhaps fate.  Perhaps happenstance.  Or perhaps I just have been waiting for something to speak to me.  And something did.


I was reading a friend's blog (what better way to come up with ideas, than to copy someone else's ideas) who was all excited by a writting prompt challenge.


I said to myself, "that's exactly what I need.  A prompt."  I thought, "surely I can find a prompt somewhere online."  And I found one.  For a contest, no less.  Of course they want me to pay them money or some such nonsense to enter, so I said, "haha, you're funny.  I'm not going to pay you anything.  But, I will steal your prompt and do my best to fufill the breif."  Okay, so I may have been alone and just said those things in my head.   

So here's the prompt:

Your character is in a car accident. Describe their reaction.
The task is simple: Write about your character's reaction to the car accident as an exercise to introduce your character to the reader.

Your story must:
Introduce your character using the given prompt.
Be written from the third person limited point of view.
2000 words or less: Word count must be provided at the bottom of the item or your entry will be disqualified.
Genre: Sci Fi

My Response:

The windows had fogged and the slightest touch sent rivers of condensed wet sliding down the smooth surface.  Smudging her hand along the glass provided Ekaterina with a clear view of her world as it disappeared behind her into the dark and white of winter.  She let her head lean against the coldness, feeling the frosty outside attempting to snuff out the rosy pink flush across her cheek.

With each bump and jolt, Ena’s head would tap loudly against the window.  Her blond hair would slide and leave behind a hundred thin trails for water to slip down.  She liked the thud she felt as her head returned to the cold glass.  She wondered if the reckless driver were to hit a big enough hole, if her head might break through.  The thought delighted her for an instant.  She imagined how the night air would let her breathe in a way the stuffy artificial heat of the car had been suffocating her from the moment she was herded into the vinyl prison.

Tears refused to come.  She had always thought they would make an appearance if she found herself on this road, in a car, moving faster than her feet could ever carry her.  Perhaps they had decided they were unneeded, that the wet fog sliding down the window and Ekaterina’s cheek were more water than the occasion required.

Her hand in her lap fidgeted restlessly with the parcel in her hands.  The course brown paper that covered the perfectly square box on her lap weighed no more than a hide leather bag her mother was famous for crafting and looked to be no bigger than a hat box.  It was all her mother could offer and so she clung to it like the lifeline she knew it was meant to be.

While the bags her mother created were beautiful and were worth an ungodly amount in The Center, they would not be likely to save Ekaterina from her fate.  Still, she held it tightly and hoped the offered bribe with help in some small way.

Staring blankly into the town that she once called her home the girl with the pink cheeks bid farewell to all she had once loved.   Lost in her own self-pity and fear, Ena closed her eyes. The darkness lasted all of a moment before she heard the loud screech of tires beneath her, and the unsettling whoosh of sound and speed as her body was lurched away from the window and into the padded bench in front of her. The floor came up to meet her and the air rushed out of her with this second hit. She felt the spaces around her stir, meld, bend, and break.  The sounds that accompanied the movements were stark, harsh, and jarring.  All sense of self-orientation abandoned her and the girl with the pink cheeks found her final resting place.

Only the girl with the pink cheeks was not ready to finally rest.  Her moment of self-pity played out, and the girl with the pink cheeks took a sharp shallow breath and crawled onto her elbows towards the cold night air that tickled her skin.

++++++

It's just a start.  But, what do you think?  Do you care about Ena?  Want to know what happens to her?  Why she was in the car?  Let me know.

K

Learning the Language

Did I mention that I'm taking an introductory Russian language class?  Well, I am.

It's a four credit class at the community college ACROSS town twice a week.  The professor is bubbly and likes to be called by her first name.  She's easily excited about all things Russian, demands we speak in Russian only (did I mention this was an intro class) and has dubbed us all with Russian names. It's pretty fantastic.

In the past week or so the pace of the course was accelerated, while the novelty has worn off.  Thus, I find myself suddenly a few steps behind.

After working all weekend and feeling drained and uninspired I wanted desperately to skip class, maybe drop the course all together.  What did it matter?  I've already done the whole "get-a-degree" and "your-GPA-really-counts" deal-i-o, and found that in the end, your GPA really doesn't count, just the degree matters, which I already have.  So, I found myself in my own head interrogating the me that wanted to learn Russian in the first place.  The exhausted, burnt out, unhappy me encouraged the aspiring linguist to give it up, that it wasn't worth the time and effort.

And then I skipped class on Monday.

Don't worry.  I made up class again on Tuesday by going to the other section.  The reason I changed me mind?  The reason I decided to finish what I started?  Well, at first I wasn't sure.  Most likely it was that parental nag in the back of my mind that has never completely faded.  I could hear the same inundation of parental pressure: Shine's aren't quitters.  Parents can be pretty unoriginal, no?

But, as I rode the shuttle bus ACROSS town on the Tuesday morning I had a few moments to chat with another student.  This guy was working on his associates in science and had big dreams of nursing school.  When I told him that I was an nurse he nodded his head enthusiastically and said, "oh, so your in the nursing program."  I'm not sure how, "I'm a nurse," got confused with "I'm in nursing school," but I clarified that, no, I had already been there, done that, refuse to go back, and have been working as a nurse for several years now.

He seemed so impressed and I won't lie, it made me feel a little fabulous.  He had many questions about my career and I did my best to answer them.  Only after some time did a light bulb seem to flicker in understanding over his head when he asked, "so what are you doing at PCC?"

I told him I was, "just taking a Russian class."  He nodded again, piecing together the separate pieces I had given him.

As we got off the bus, heading in the same direction he asked me one last question, posed more like a statement than a real question, "you want to go to Russia as a nurse?"

I found myself smiling and nodding vigorously in agreement.  I think I said something like, "more than anything."  In retrospect, I think I told the poor bloke about my Ugandan adventure and how I wanted to work for Doctor's Without Boarders.  I was verbal diarrhea-ing all over him.

None of this information I claimed is particularly new information.  That is indeed the reason I took the class (that and I felt it would be good for me to know the language working in Portland, as it is the 3rd most popular language in the area).  The thing that struck me however, was my enthusiasm.  Hadn't I been ready to quit the day prior?  Hadn't I found the class to have served whatever novelty purpose it was meant to serve?

All of a sudden I was re inspired by the practicality of the language.  All at once I was eager and excited to learn a language that I would hopeful use as a means of getting overseas and working as a community health nurse.