The past, the cold can make you stronger

I just found out, Margaret Atwood, the author, is good at more than one genre. I read a book of hers called The Handmaid's Tale back when I was in the Creative Writing program. I say "back when," and really it was only two years ago when I left it but it seems like a longer time, enough time, at least, to change the course of my life. That novel by Atwood is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic account of a human society in which women can't easily have babies anymore. Rich and influential women take handmaids, instead - like the story of Sara and Abraham in the Bible. When I read it I was amazed, and I just couldn't stop reading because I wanted to know what would become of the handmaid who showed me her story, because she was unnamed and could've been anyone, even me.

But I've also just heard Garrison Keillor read a poem by Margaret Atwood, "In the Secular Night". Atwood as poet lets in on what happens in those unaccounted-for hours, what my mom calls "the wee hours of the night," when a person is less structured. The poet mutters to herself as she walks upstairs, eating a bowl of baby lima beans and cream with her fingers. She mutters and contemplates things that, like miraculous epiphanies, only come together when one has been awake long enough into the night. And of course, like every writer, she waxes nostalgic for a spell inside the poem.

I was just telling my husband the other night, in one of those rambling monologues I subject him to because I see no one but the dogs most days, that nostalgia and the past are inescapable for me. I can't hear, read, smell or watch anything without being kicked back to the first time, the formative moments of that spice or movie where I applied it like lipstick to the experiences I was having. But this is good for a writer. The ability to see the past as a catalogue of events meaningful when strung throughout each other in myriad ways is, indeed, what charges writers to write. The recurring themes, images and symbols in a single life and even throughout history beg for significance, so we write them into story.

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It's getting cold below the southern mountains, finally, even though November is well on it's way. Just two days ago, though, I was bearing my legs in cutoffs again, albeit with boots up to mid-calf. The little black spiders, frequently sighted on the ceilings in summer, even thought it was okay to parade about in the open again on floors and walls. I hadn't seen a spider in the house for at least two weeks, and I was quite content with it that way.

For me, no spiders is about the only good thing that comes out of cold weather. It's hard to do anything but sit balled up under a blanket, or bundled in too many clothes for real comfort, when it's cold. So, I try to see the cold weather as a challenge, something that will make me stronger and more resilient. I make myself go for runs in the cold, because it makes the body stronger. Also, I try not to let that holiday languor set in and ruin any useful line of thinking.

Tonight is going to be another cold one, but it's Friday, and that makes everything just a little bit better. Daniel and I are headed to one of our usual haunts, the Hare & Hound Pub and Restaurant in Landrum, SC.

But first, I'm going for a run with some friends. Don't worry, I'm layering on some Underarmor for this one. I might even wear pants instead of shorts.