Poetry and Snow Angels

Amazing things, suprises... You're better off not looking for them, but it doesn't hurt to become a pro at wringing them for every last drop of the good stuff once they show up.

Another definition of surprise--this time of the noun:

Something, such as an unexpected encounter, event, or gift, that surprises.

How often do we leave our eyes open to the unexpected? Too often, I wager, we like the everyday calmness of our lives too much, to risk unexpectedly encountering anything we can't control the outcome of. Then again, control's pretty much a like-to-have in life, and not so much a reality most of the time no matter how much we need it to be.

Artists (getting back to our metaphor of writing as life, or at least the art of writing paralleling the art of living) harness surpises--at least the successful artist does. You have to study and prepare and practice, yes. But you also have to be ruthless about taking advantage of those surprises that come your way. The gifts, as our definition above states.

Be ready for your luck, a stragetic business professor a Georga Tech once told me. Seeing the gift is the first skill you have to master, and a lot of us aren't creative enough at that, to move on to developing the next. Which is harnessing the unexpected. Letting it in, inviting it to fill you, and releasing control of where it takes you. If you know where you were going, after all, where's the surprise???

This week, my son's innocent enthusiasm for life illustrated this for me better than anything a professor, a degree, ten years of corporate business experience and four years in publishing have been able to achieve. It snowed in Atlanta this week. Not so much a surprise, because we all saw it coming. But also this week, came the moment I thought might be possible but had given up looking for because it wasn't my moment and I didn't want to mess it up with anticipation--my twelve year old discovered he was a writer...

This kid's a math and science genius (even if I do say so myself). He takes gifted classes in both, is in the LEGO robitcs club at school, loves being in the band and on and on...all things I loved, too, meanwhile he's a natural-born story teller who's struggled in Language Arts (not with grades, but with his difficulty to make everything perfect as quickly as everyone else turns in their first drafts).

So, he decided years ago he wasn't going to like LA, even though he reads and reads and likes to talk about books and loves music and watching movies and favorite TV shows over and over because he digs the characters. Anyway, his class hit poetry this last week...and what can I say...on his first try, with no revision, he started pouring out prose so full of emotion and unique viewpoint it blew my husband and me away. Words strung together in amazing ways--truth and humor and depth in a young voice that makes you hope it will just keep talking so you can hear what comes out next...

"I'm not a writer, mom," he insisted. "I don't want to write books..."

"You were born a writer, honey. Nothing you can do about that. And who says you have to write books? Or try to publish."

"I don't have to write books?"

"Nope, just write something. And you will, for the rest of your life, I have no doubt."

"Oh--Hey! I just thought of another poem."

"Cool!"

And off he went to write about his cats. Or was it the wind, coming and going and "leaving" the trees when it was ready to blow somewhere else... Or truth... Seriously, the kid wrote about truth, and it made me cry. Not because he's my kid, but because the honesty of what he was sharing about himself without even realizing it humbled me... Okay, AND because that honesty was coming out of my kid's mind... What's a mom to do...

Guess how old I was when I learned I was a writer--Twelve. Guess what I was doing at that moment--sitting in 7th grade Language Arts, listening to the first poem I'd ever written be read to the class... Yeah. Gives me shivers, too...

Like the snow outside. Which we've all enjoyed looking at and messing with and it'll be gone soon so why not revel. But guess how the youngest writer in the house decided to enjoy it. My son and the kids next door were making snow men, then all too soon he'd lead them back over to our house to make snow angels--on the trampoline. My little hyper, never-sitting-still engineer found the one surface where the most snow had built up (because a scientist would know that the canvas would freeze first because the cold air would be circulating above and below it). And so he picked his favorite jumping, laughing, constant-motion place to be still and make something beautiful with his friends in. He made the most of the surprise in a way that no one else would have dreamed up. If that's not an artist...I don't know what one is.

Making something beautiful and unique out of unexpected surprises... That's what writers and artists do. That's what we can do in any part of our every day lives. In fact, it's the best part...take my word for it. You don't have to write books or paint paintings or learn how to play instruments or sing... You just have to give the creative part of you the reins every now and then, then motivate yourself and others to take advantage of the surprises you find...

That's what I'm doing, anyway, while I work on the draft of my next Atlanta Heroes book, the art department sheets for that book's cover, and the copy edits for the second book in the series... Oh, and as I watch as my child revels in his budding love for writing and probably the only snow he'll see this year...

Go make yourself some poetry and snow angels this week...