Sabbitical Day Five

A reminder to those of you jumping onto my blog posts at this juncture: In early March, I drove to the far north reaches of the Highland Lakes area of Texas for a week of solitude and writing. I’ve been posting some of my journal entries here, on a loosely based schedule, since then. The following entry was written the morning March 2, 2010, Texas Independence Day….the day Texas fought for and won independence from Mexico.

The bad weather the proprietor mentioned yesterday blew in with a vengeance last night. Wind howled and whistled through the bare tree limbs that cup the roof of my lake cabin. The electric heaters were turned up full force and still, I was cold to the bone. When my hands grew stiff, I gave up trying to type and decided to read instead. Misery, pure misery. I couldn’t help but think of the 1846 Donner Party trapped in the Rocky Mountains for months, in blizzard conditions, without food. I’m a sissy. My Texas roots must not go so far back as I thought for surely, those who fought for independence were a brave lot as they faced the Mexican army at Goliad, the Alamo, and finally on the prairie shores of the San Jacinto River a few miles from where I grew up.

My gift for the morning though, came when I sat with my cup of coffee and looked out toward the frosty lake. Perched in the same tree that howled all night, was a strikingly gorgeous blue bird. His chest was dark cinnamon red. He flicked from twig to twig as if trying to show me how the sun glinted and sparkled on his bright and beautiful blue shoulders.

As if that hadn’t been gift enough for starting a clean-slatted morning, a fox trotted by my window pretty as you please. She had a mouse clinched in her teeth. Breakfast for the kiddos, I thought. Across the way wind chimes clanged in a left over breeze from last night’s storm. It was time for me to get back to writing.