Lindsay Eland - Middle Grade Author

Right now in Breckenridge, we’ve hit the sloppy springish-winterish part of the year. When the days are a little warmer. The sun is slowly melting the mounds of snow into little rivers that race down our dirt road and turn everything to mushy mud. Mud that eventually gets tracked all over my hardwood floors.

The time when the weather doesn’t seem to know what it wants.

In the summer, I wake up and know that it will be warm (warm being relative here seeing as we never get above 80) and there could possibly be rain in the afternoon.

In Winter, whether it’s sunny or snowing, I know that one thing is for sure–it’s going to be cold.

But spring is full of mornings of waking up and wondering.

Will it be 45 today?

Is there 7 new inches of snow on the ground?

You just never know with spring.

And for someone like me, who likes to plan out my days and map out the weeks and envision the weekends, spring is good for me.

It keeps me waking up in the mornings with surprise and wonder.

And whether that surprise includes muddy boots and footprints on the hardwood floor or snow covered hems and warm mittens, waking up with wonder is always good.

Hope is as light as a balloon on the end of a string, delicate as an autumn leaf pressed inside a book, as precious as a smile.

Hope is what moves our legs and arms forward, walking through one second to the next, to the next, to the next.

Maybe that is just one of the reasons why we don’t know everything, why we aren’t meant to know everything. Because it isn’t knowing or having the answer or having those dreams finally come true that keeps us moving, walking, dreaming, loving…it is that delicate, beautiful word called hope that we had along the way.

I got this amazing camera for Christmas this year. Really, it’s one of those  ”you could not take a horrible picture with me even if you tried” type of camera. Yes, it’s kind of full of itself, but really, it would be hard not to be so if you had as many features as this bad boy does.

One of the things that I’ve loved most about my new camera is focusing. I love looking through the view finder and pulling an image into focus, starting with the big wide picture and then watching the background blur. Slowly, twisting this way and that as my daughter’s smile becomes clearer, watching my son’s hands magnify so I can see each little line, John’s eyes deepen and sparkle in the light. Letting the background of scattered legos, or ruffled brown carpet, or finger printed wall fall into fuzziness so that I can see—really see what it is my eyes and mind and heart are drinking in.

Focusing on what really matters.

It’s so easy to focus on the background of life. To shift your gaze slightly, letting it rest on the in-completes, the mistakes, the unperfected, the stained, or broken, or washed-out things that are with us all. And even focusing on those backgrounds that are wonderful and miraculous and tear-jerking-happy.

Don’t get me wrong. Backgrounds are extremely important–more important than we actually give them credit for. They add meaning and depth and richness to any story, picture, or life…but they are not THE PICTURE. It’s the “what really matters” that we want to…twist…slowly…turn…slowly…focus in on and then

Click.

It’s those “what really matters” that we will pull out of the shoebox and flip through when we are tired and spent and lost. And in those moments, won’t we be so glad  that we didn’t let the backgrounds crowd the picture? That we can still see clearly a daughter’s smile, a son’s hand, and a sweetheart’s eyes?

All those things that, when everything is said and done, really matter.

Snow covers the ground like a thick, fluffy blanket. Everywhere you look there is snow. Piled on the deck, stacked on top of the roof, laying across the paths, and sifting itself onto tree boughs. Falling like cotton balls from the sky, each tiny flake lands next to another other which is next to another which is next to trillions of others. Each flake is different with it’s own points and crystals, it’s own beauty, it’s own time to fall and it’s own time to land and it’s own time to melt. It’s own story laying down next to another story next to a trillion other stories. And I like to imagine each of those snowflakes sitting in the crowd of others, asking the one beside them, “Who are you?” “Where did you come from?” “How was your journey down from the sky?” Cause, even with snowflakes, getting to know the story of the one next to you begins with a question.

And all stories: written and told and lived, start with a question.

And the answers—the stories themselves—are as different and beautiful as the trillions of snowflakes falling one after the other after the other after the other from the sky.

I was terrified of the dark when I was little.

I imagined hands reaching out from underneath the depths of my bed just beyond where the covers met the floor. Something hidden in the shadows that was ready to reach out and grab onto my ankles. Or perhaps something hiding in my barely-cracked closet tucked behind my clothes and shoes and stuffed animals stored away. Being a worrier since birth didn’t help matters. (though I should mention that we worriers have the very best imaginations  since we can imagine just about anything and everything happening.)

But now I have a respect for the darkness.

Two weeks ago I was hiking up the ski mountain in the early morning.  I usually wear a headlamp on these dark mornings. A small bit of illumination to help me not focus on the dark around the edges.

But that morning, I decided not to. I don’t know why, cause like I said, I don’t like the dark.

But I did. I clicked off the light and started to hike.

The air was crisp, my lungs burned, and my legs ached as I took one step after another loaded down with the weight of my heavy ski’s and ski boots and the backpack on my back.

And then I looked up.

A star dove across the sky in an arc.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

Five times, I found myself gasping at the sky above me.

Then I started a middle grade novel called, A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. On one of the beginning pages are these words:

You see, the land of Grimm can be a harrowing place. But it is worth exploring. For, in life, it is in the darkest zones one finds the brightest beauty and the most luminous wisdom.

I thought of my shooting stars and smiled.

I don’t think I’ll ever hike up the mountain with my headlamp on again.

I’ll welcome the dark and search it’s blackness for that brightest beauty.

People are like

books stacked on library shelves

The spines a thousand different colors tucked next to each other

side by side by side

Some are torn and worn with age

hurt and loved a thousand reads over

Others are brand new, slipped onto shelves

Pages crisp and clean, bindings stiff and uncracked

People are like books stacked on library shelves

They tell a different story–each rich and deep

Stories of adventure, humor, romance, mystery, sadness, lonely, bravery, love, magic, history, future, poetry, music, science,               death, life. Page after page after page of living.

And each book waits

waits to be lifted off the shelf,

and read

and understood

and loved

People are like books stacked on library shelves

Always hoping that to one, perhaps they are a literary masterpiece

Windows

Stained with rainbows

Etched in frost

Splashed with rain drops

Pressed with fingerprints–big and small

Some stand on their feet and reach to the ceiling

Others just a small circle of glass in a forgotten attic

Closed and cool as the snow falls

Wide-open and warm on sunny days

Protection against winds that howl and whistle

Shattering in sharp fragments with the thunk of a baseball

But all windows are here to illuminate. To not ignore the darkness, but scatter it with light. To allow us to peer out at the world and to allow the world to press it’s nose against the glass and watch us.

Stories are windows.

Stories illuminate life. Piercing through perceptions, igniting hidden dreams.

Stories tell us all that life was, and is, and can be, and is meant to be.

We need more windows in our houses and more stories in our world.