Inventing Snow

“Don’t go anywhere,” my wife says.

We are slow dancing in the kitchen. I was late for work twenty minutes ago, she has been coding in front of the computer for hours by now and is still in her pajamas.

“Ah ah, boo. Stay with me.”

The curve of her back fits perfectly in my palm. I am not aware of my other hand or her fingers wrapped gently around it. We are moving in step to a silent mutual rhythm.  Every time she speaks I am drawn back to her eyes: auburn, sparkling, kind. Looking into them while knowing they are looking into me, seeing me as I am right now, and still wanting to stay for this dance fills me with gratitude. She reminds me of how good it can feel to be alive in my skin.

The joy is fleeting, but not diminished, as my mind returns back to the narrative playing in the background. It is dark, depleting, and violent. Another flashback has decided to join us.

We keep dancing. My body wants to stay present while my mind meanders back into the past to figure something out that’s necessary right now.  I don’t know its reason or its urgency to interrupt this morning.  I keep in step, trying to figure out if there’s ever been a way to balance such stark contrasts of reality in a single moment while honoring both.  I’m still not sure it’s possible.

My wife watches my eyes go distant and helps. “Ah ah,” she coaxes. “Stay here with me.”

Whatever it is that I need to do to live with these things, it is worth the dance.

© Mayme Snow

On the morning of my 33rd birthday, I went to Race Point just outside Provincetown to watch the sunrise.  I realized while tossing and turning in bed that I had never seen the colors of day break stretch across the open waters of the sea, so rather than try to salvage any more sleep I decided to take advantage of the fleeting hour before dawn and get my butt to the beach.  Cape Cod had been blanketed by snow the night before.  The thick clouds were still rolling low in the sky when I started the car, trees bent and cracked in the wind, and thin snowflakes doted the windshield like lipstick from blown kisses.  The chance was perfect.

When I arrived at the beach I quickly learned that I was the only soul in sight.  Snow drifts nestled into the dunes making the landscape a barren calico of sand, powder, grass, and drift wood.  The Atlantic wind bit my eyes and cheeks as its gusts led the sea in a feverish dance.  Waves crashed in roaring laughter while a flock of seagulls stood in mourning around a dead beloved.  It was a good morning for a funeral.

I walked along the creeping tide as it reached out and teased my feet.  Beyond the coast the water was as dark as midnight.  I headed eastward towards the horizon.  The entire sky, save for a sliver to the West, was full of snow clouds that had no intention of moving along any time soon.  For a half-hour I perused this beach in the most sincere sense of solitude one could imagine.  I had never had the sea all to myself.  Every step was an unspoken dialogue between us and I was humbled to be alone in such company.  Sometimes I would stop and listen after each stride, other times I broke out into a full run so my lungs could lap up the cold air.   » Read the rest of this entry «

The following is a short story I published on Literary Snapshot, a website where anyone can submit their literary works that are 100 words or less:

Anna and Hasim were quietly sitting together in the afterlife, watching the sun rise and set simultaneously.

Hasim turned to Anna, noticing the orange sky reflect in her pale eyes. “So what brought you here?”

Anna’s lips cracked a humble grin while she kept her gaze on the horizon. “I accidentally stepped in front of a truck.”

“Accidentally?”

“Yes, I was distracted by thought and was not paying attention to the light.”

“Heavens, what were you thinking about?”

“Being mindful.”

© Mayme Snow

For hours they had been digging underneath a sweltering sun, scavenging for a crop that clearly wasn’t there. The potatoes had long returned back to the earth in hollow shells of rot underneath the soil, capable of only nourishing the maggots and worms. Everyone knew it was a total loss, yet the forewoman couldn’t pull herself away from the hope that there would be some redemption among the weeds – something to harvest in place of failure.

Two of the laborers paused to straighten their backs.

“Did you ever see the documentary about the lioness who lost one of her cubs?”

“No.”

“Despite the fact that it had died days ago, she continues to carry it around – sometimes for weeks – as if it were still alive. She simply can not let it go.”

The two turned to glance at the forewoman as the weight of her desperation sunk the steel fork into the ground. With a grunt she began to dig another hole.

© Mayme Snow