Women carry the essence of Christmas in the home. The decorations, the cookies, the activities flow through the efforts of moms’ orchestration. Cards are initiated from her desk, representing well wishes of the family. Gift exchanges at school happen because mom remembers. Women carry the chaotic schedules of social dynamics all wanting to capitalize on the joy of the season. Finding time to breathe while making things merry and bright pulls tension into the beauty of light and darkness, into the warm homes and cold nights, into the heart of anticipation and sorrow. To be a successful mom is to navigate these hurdles to the crescendo of a tree filled with presents and a room of familial bliss. A Christmas tea, however, is full of delicate thoughtfulness to set the stage for treating the women, who make up the bottom of the list of being taken care of. A special tea offers a chance to dress up and enjoy feeling beautiful for an evening. A night like this, a gathering of church women more than 10 years before I became Catholic, presented the fork in the path I was on. This tea became my road to understanding Mary’s heart as a mother. I had been asked to write a reflection piece to share at the tea. In my heart I knew what I struggled with – a desire to preserve the innocent wonder of my children in a world that hurt. I struggled with the noise of perfection’s cry, calling me to more decorations, more presents, more thoughtful gestures, more, more, more. I was running on empty. In the silence of the nights, my heart grew heavier. Why did Christmas have to carry pain? My dad had always gone to the back pasture and cut down a tree. Mom and Grandmother sent us away as they wrapped presents on the dining room table. Cookies and breads shaped like candy canes began to fill the air with the scent of freshly baked goodies. As I grew from child into a young woman, memories changed. My mother sat in a darkened room when I returned from college. This began her last year with the diagnosis of cancer. Winter cloaked so much in darkness. As a young mother, I desired to protect my children. Finances were tight. With more effort I knew I could make magic happen, but I couldn’t. Instead I found shortness of patience, resentment from being last, and fatigue from competing. Where was that silent night when I needed one? When asked to share a Christmas reflection for the ladies tea, I chose Mary. If anyone knew the chaos and disarray of the season, she did. Mary swaddled her newborn son and 33 years later stood staring and weeping at the nailed feet of the same son. Every breath he took from the moment he was born, led him closer to the cross. The manger she laid him in acted as the first cross and his swaddling clothes the first burial wraps. She didn’t know this. Her journey unknown while holding her baby resonated with me. What did Mary do with all of the foreshadowing that she had embraced with her vows to be the handmaiden of God? Her role in the nativity couldn’t just end. Words like Ave or Regina, or Madonna created impossible blockades in my mother’s heart. I needed to see the young woman, who didn’t have a birthing plan or safety, but instead needed resilience, patience, and grit. According to Chaim Bentorah , swaddling clothes were used to wrap the cutting of the umbilical cord after putting salt upon the cut. Mary's gesture demonstrated the infant’s loyalty to the heavenly plan set into motion thousands of years prior. The closeness of life to death’s mortality generated a sense of awe. Mary had to escape in the night to save her baby from the soldier’s sword. She navigated poverty and disbelief, shielded by her husband’s good name. She heard the whispers, the praise, the curiosity, the doubt gossiped around Galilee and beyond. Yet how did she stand there at the foot of the cross? How did she face her disfigured love hanging in humiliation? When she heard the words, “My God why has Thou abandoned me” did her heart echo the disillusionment of pain’s arrow? In that still evening’s light as I searched for the words to my reflection for the tea, Mary’s revelation that she had given birth not only to her son, but to her God, her Lord, her Savior clung to me. He had always been with her through it all. To celebrate this Christmas tea, I wished to treat the ladies to step into Mary’s sandals with me. The reflection turned into a monologue. Two rolling pins made an ad hoc scroll to hold the words from her position at the cross. Years later, in a moment born of desperation and frustration with my faith, I found those rolling pins, tore off the writing, and shredded any chance of reading her heart on the page again. My beliefs had been more than enough when I was Protestant. Here as a Catholic, I felt like I had given up more than enough, I got angry, but not at God. Mary had messed things up for me. Her role as the Queen of heaven and Holy Mother did not sit in my understanding easily. I was tired. I just wanted to be a good mom. That was enough. But once the door of questions opened, I couldn’t just walk away. I needed to be sure. Was Mary who the Catholic church claimed she was or did she simply have a singular place in the gospel story?

How many forms of birth control existed half a century ago is not a fact I know. What I do know is my mom couldn’t get her fitted diaphragm to fit. They already had two children and a poodle. The age gap was perfectly two years and two months apart appropriately dating sufficiently more than nine months after matrimony. My mother, the home economics teacher, who manicured her lawn with scissors along the fence line, had a perfect life. She had achieved so much as a first-generation German born in 1933. Married to her successful husband meant never more would she sleep with mice running across her face or hear slurs about her wartime heritage. The poverty of her past had been packed away in her own mother’s steamer trunk. Mom had escaped old maid status, tempting fate on a blind date with a handsome man in a convertible. That night nestled quietly between Christmas and New Year’s, however, redirected that pristine energy, surrendering to the unknown. Mom and Dad had recently dedicated their lives to a new path. They had been born again into the Baptist church, marking a major transition in the trajectory of their lives together. It only made sense that her birth control wouldn’t work on this night, the night I was conceived. Many times, I heard her reminisce about how she knew. Like Mary’s Magnificat, Mom always finished with her words of acceptance, “Lord, glorify yourself in my body.” While Mom never really taught about the birds and the bees, she did not hesitate to tell me about the second miraculous Christmas baby that showed up nine months later in September - me. I took pride in knowing that God wanted me, and that He was to be glorified in my life. My child’s understanding meant I was special. But being special in the eyes of God and being special in the eyes of men didn’t run parallel paths. I was and am attuned to how far I fall from the ideals of perfection. Mary, however, felt perfect. She found favor with God. She glorified God with her life. Her choices went against the societal pressure of having a child out of wedlock. She didn’t resist but found strength in the outpouring of her heart. Mary, however, didn’t blindly accept what Gabriel presented to her. She considered his salutation,” Greetings favored one! The Lord is with you.” She replied in a perplexed state. Luke says, “(she) pondered what sort of greeting this might be, “Mary’s full response included a moment to consider the immense impossibility of Gabriel’s words. Her fullest sense of human tendency to fail was on the line. This was the foretold prophecy of the ages. This announcement answered the fall set in motion from the beginning of time. She questioned, “How can this be, since I am a virgin.” This miracle is where my Protestant upbringing had focused my attention. The miracle belonged fully to God and Mary was just in the right place at the right time. She was an instrument for God’s glory and nothing more. As I came closer to Mary in my Catholic journey, the focus shifted from the miracle to the character modeling of Mary’s response. This shift did not reduce the act of God, in fact, Mary’s response heightened the union of God and fallen humanity. Mary became the human conductor uniting God’s promise to redeem us. Her instinctual response was, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Personally, I know that I was born from the acceptance of fates out of my mother’s control. I like the idea of thinking that like Mary, I am open and receptive to God’s will in my life. But if I am to be truly honest, Mary’s acceptance was not my own. When the path God granted me began to get rocky, I began to complain or sink just like Peter walking on the water. The distractions intensified and snuffed my resolve to pursue holiness. This pattern of falling short highlights the magnitude of Mary’s acceptance. My understanding of Mary changed from her as a tool towards her as a role model, but even a role model is harmless and can be taken or left behind. There was a force within Mary, however, that caused me to reconsider what precisely her position entailed for my faith. Mary could no longer be packed away with the nativity scene. She held the key to something more, but I didn’t understand what that something meant. To unite with the Holy Spirit meant she needed to be more than physically pure. Yet if she is perfection, I cannot begin to relate to her. Somewhere between sinless and sainthood I needed to understand the heart of the woman called to be blessed among women.

Mom served liver that night. The only thing worse would have been liver with spinach or maybe the soggy Brussel sprouts of the seventies. Before I could go to see my first movie at the cinema, I had to eat my slice of liver. I had to make a happy plate. My sisters stood around the table, cheering me to take one more bite. The four-year-old heart inside felt indignant at this trickery. How could my mother put such high stakes on something I desired? Whether a compromise was made, or someone felt sorry for me and ate the last two bites, my memory doesn’t tell, but I clearly remember stepping into the lobby of that two-story theater with the big red velvet curtain that encased the big screen. Everything was larger than life. Sitting in a balcony seat, waiting for the curtains to open, hoping my suffering would be worthwhile, I had no idea how impactful the next couple of hours would be. The opening panoramic views of the alps took my breath and me to a place completely foreign and beautiful. Maria came running out over the mountain tops singing her song of freedom and passion for life. She enchanted the Von Trapp children with Do Re Me and I became her instant ward, wishing myself far far away with a handsome captain to call my own. That night, I professed to my mother when I grew up, I wanted to get married in a cathedral just like Maria. My mother, never one to tell me a lie, calmly replied that she didn’t think that would happen. “Why?” Simply put "those cathedrals were over in Europe, and I would have to marry a Catholic, and that was not likely being that we were Protestant." My mother believed her answer sufficient, but I tucked those words near the memory of the liver and continued to dream and sing. Every Christmas the  Sound of Music  aired on television with the yodeling goat herd and whistle blowing Ralph. Each closeup of Maria falling in love made my heart wish even more to travel and feel the romance of the mountains and movie magic. As life would have it, I did travel overseas, I did meet my handsome captain, and I did have a wedding in a cathedral right in the heart of the most romantic city in the world – Prague. This means I did marry a Catholic, but as a good Protestant I said my vows hidden under the I dos, which included I would not become Catholic, and I would not raise my children Catholic. Being conducted in another language, I could technically feign ignorance as to what precisely we had agreed upon. I resented an institution telling me my beliefs were not enough…that somehow, I was not enough. On Sundays, my husband would drop me off with first one child, then two children, and finally three children. He would go to his church and then we went home. My pride found my family sitting in different pews in different churches. Deep inside I knew one of us had to give in, but why did it have to be me? Adopting Mary as my mother figure became a mountainous stronghold in my spiritual journey. I had a mother. She fed me liver, remember? She was a good mother and like all moms, she had built a world inside of me where my values and morals, knit together by memories, created the beliefs I lived by. Mary’s presence, however, teased me from afar. My questions didn’t seem to threaten anyone but me. I needed to find a solution. I tired of having one foot firmly planted as a Protestant while a toe explored the waters of Catholicism. In the Bible, Mary is characterized as pondering many things in her heart. This expression seemed the way to understand her. Unlike Eve, Mary didn’t act on her doubts. She tucked the lessons she learned into a place I had tucked the liver scene and life’s other disappointments. Mary’s heart appeared full of goodness, mine held tainted resentments. She sought wisdom and grew accordingly in grace, where I had only sought recognition of my sufferings. She became the ideal mother, and her perfection only shrouded my inadequacies in shame. As life continued to press down on my shoulders, people affirmed me as a good mother. People recognized I had great kids, and I do. The acknowledgment of others bolstered my belief that being a good mother meant being successfully in control of well-behaved children. Mary, however, as good as she was, raised a rebel. Her controversial son must have been the cause for speculative gossip at the well when women saw her. When I began to consider more of Mary’s character, I recognized the pangs her heart experienced when her son received societal rejection. I felt each sting I saw my own children navigate. I knew I wanted playground justice when one of my own was hurt at the neglect of another classmate. I cannot fathom how Mary managed. Mary’s son, Jesus, created change. His radical ideas challenged the traditions of men. They loved Him when He healed them and despised Him when He revealed them. Mary must not have heard only positive recognition of herself as a mother if her son was such a strong figure of transformation. Yet Mary pondered. Each accolade that I received gave me a false sense of my goodness. A strengthened sense of success. I continued to excel outwardly, hoping and praying no one would be the wiser of the lacking I found inside. Secretly, I knew I had been measured, I had been weighed, and I had definitely been found wanting. But secrets have a way of finding the fissures in our armor. Secrets desire to be shared. Secrets live to be free.

The pink line darkened, solidifying the pregnancy test’s prophecy. Parent, more specifically mother would be my new name. What did my husband and I do? We wrote a note for his family in case we didn’t return, loaded the Honda CBX 750, and rode to Paris from Prague. We slept behind a hops field, in a small tent, behind a chateau, in a small field, wherever the road took us. Free and open to the air, we saw mountains and believed we could touch the sky. We drove over stone bridges and under cascading pots of flowers. We feasted on fresh baguettes and aged cheese. We were awash in the church bells, and the daily greetings in the villages. We rode out of the main gates at the palace of Versailles like the carriages of old. We found our way until finally we rode down Champs de Elysee and parked near Notre Dame. We lived by the call of the road, embraced adventure with zeal by traveling over 1000 miles; however, I was newly pregnant and on a motorcycle for two weeks. My hormones explored maternal instincts that were not so instinctual. Straddling the Honda heightened my panic at being hungry, trapped inside a helmet, not able to eat as desired. The strain of would I be a good mother  motivated every tension and argument. While our last freedom trek across Europe became the memory to hold us sane through the mundane of diapers and all things baby, the actual taking of the trip tested our flexibility and enjoyment of each other’s company. I felt I needed to protect the life growing inside. I felt a surging sense of my body. I felt a growing sense of insecurity. How could I be what this baby needs? I couldn’t even eat when I needed. How could I be enough? My journey into motherhood parallels my journey into understanding the role and love of Mother Mary in my faith. One of my first impressions of Mary frames her behind a tiny manger, beside a tired donkey, and in front of a little picture of a starry sky glued onto the back of the little stable. Every year we took her out of the box and returned her when the Christmas setting had worn too long. Mary, the mother of Jesus, knelt passively, hands folded on her chest, the epitome of peace, staring at a baby with adult hair and features. I remember being drawn to her serenity. She certainly looked at home in the stable. As I rode the motorcycle across Germany and France, I began to connect to the donkey heading towards Bethlehem and the unknown. I began to recognize that Mary didn’t have a home. She had answered more than just a call of the road. My new concept of Mary, trapped on a beast of burden for eight or more hours a day appealed to me. While the Bible does not actually say she rode a donkey, she did travel, fully pregnant for at least a week across arid terrain with an enlarged belly and sensitivity to high temperatures. The Bible doesn’t comment on whether she complained or if tension arose between her and Joseph. There’s no mention of hunger, swollen legs or her heavy abdomen jostling a back fatigued from the weight of two. We can conclude the young expectant family met many people on the road. Possibly traffic jams resulted in lines for food. The only commentary we have allows us to infer that life was full scale demanding, out of her control, and her prophesied child would soon arrive with literally no room at the inn. Mary needed complete reliance on her husband and her God. Here in this scene of humanity, my journey of seeking Mary’s role in my life begins. So many questions had to occupy her thoughts as she moved closer to destiny. Her maternal instincts had to be engaging natural fears and typical questions, wondering about the care and safety of her unborn child. The worry of the unknown must have plagued her thoughts just as any first-time mother experiences, facing the daunting task of delivering a baby. Mary was human. She laughed. She cried; therefore, she worried and wondered. Mary as pregnant produced a bridge of humanity to identify what Mary and I shared. I wanted to see what she saw. What kept Mary focused on grace through her challenges of motherhood? While my initiation into becoming a mother began on a motorcycle and her pregnancy finale had her riding a donkey, we both knew we needed more than just ourselves to succeed. Mary, the handmaiden of God, did not have What to Expect When You’re Expecting . She did have Jesus, who stayed with her in the middle of her chaos. He didn’t come when life was convenient. He stayed with her through the heat and dirt of being uprooted by forces beyond her control. He didn’t wait until she looked like a perfect woman. He created a way through the obstacles of kings and the Roman empire. Stability wasn’t an accessory in Mary’s diaper bag. Jesus, however, never once left her through all the frustration of imperfections. God trusted Mary; Mary trusted God; and in a triangle of faith between Jesus, and God, she found herself filled with grace of the Holy Spirit. She became blessed among women. This Mary, traveling to the prophesied birthplace of our Lord, speaks deeply to me through the pressures and whys of life as a mother both during the Christmas season as well as times walking on the tightrope of motherhood. The Mary of my parent’s nativity looked serene, unharried, and pure. She portrayed exactly what I failed to achieve. I was more frazzled, tense, and alone. Her contentment separated me from understanding her as more than a passive ornamentation. Mary stayed confined to this one station in my life for many years. Not until a family crisis brought the need for honesty in my life did I begin asking the questions I needed to know. The mother of God must be more than a figurine of unattainable acceptance. She alone had been found worthy. She had high stakes in this game. Ultimately what I desired to understand was how the mother of God embodied the strength of a woman’s heart I so desperately needed. My discovery of the girl within the stable was born from the isolated scars of my own mother’s heart. My journey started with a simple whispered why followed by an even more secretive how.

When I took on the story of Ötzi the Iceman, I knew I couldn't assume I knew men. After 31 years of marriage, I cannot claim privileged access into the mysteries known as my husband's thinking. He still surprises me. Ötzi was nothing like me. He lived over 5000 years ago. He climbed mountains for a commute. He probably liked the cold. He was nothing like me. To be a believable character, I needed to fight to find a way past a woman's perspective. At first, I tried writing how I imagined primitive people spoke - honestly it sounded like Yoda. That didn't work. I tried a Hemingway strategy of writing about things that are crass and common, but my friend reminded me that it's okay if he pees in a bush, but have a purpose for doing so. Stepping into the shoes of this ancient man needed more than grunts and bodily functions. I needed to find a way to listen. What I knew I could not do was pretend Ötzi was me. I could not just try to write him as a Byronic hero. I could not treat him as an "other" fostered by the whole Men are from Mars ideology. In order to write his story the way I desired, I needed to offer him the gift of respect. I needed to see the human in him. The author Khaled Hosseini gave me the perspective I needed. His novel A Thousand Splendid Suns is my favorite of all his works. The story of two Afghani women caught in decades of an abusive culture grabbed my heart. I cried when I was supposed to. I got angry at the injustice against them precisely as I would if I were hearing their story from a woman. I felt the strength of Mariam's sacrifice as powerful as any splendid sunrise. Yet this story was told by a man. A Thousand Splendid Suns was part of my curriculum for years. I saw all kinds of students wrestle with the emotional journey Hosseini took the reader on. My teenage girls cried. My teenage guys secretly told me on the side that they had cried. The impact of this novel went to the heart. Writing that makes the reader feel on a deep level was captured in those pages. Each time I reread the two women's struggle, I found something new and I always returned to the question, "How did a man write this?" During an interview, Hosseini revealed his secret. He had interviewed over 250 Afghani women. He heard their sorrows and their unbelievable tales of suffering. His heart broke for the beleaguered souls daring to share their experiences. While listening, he began to see a common strength and beauty. He began to notice the power of not just being a woman and overcoming, but of being alive and in community. He found the human saga that every writer looks to as their Milky Way. The solution was to treat his two main characters, Mariam and Laila, as people and not as women. By looking at the heart of emotions and hopes and disappointments and longing, he found his path to the core of who the women are that he represented. When I wrote Ötzi's story, I thought of him as a human being with feelings and hopes that had to navigate the obstacles of plot points. I looked to what he might have experienced when feeling shame or guilt. I let the human character come and tell me how to write his story. When I needed to ensure an action that I described would be a guy thing to do, I asked my husband. He ultimately is my Gaspare. I valued his perspective when I said, "So I've got this situation and I don't know how to get out of it. What do you think?" Now that Ötzi's story has been told, I'd really like to write something from a woman's point of view. What I now understand, however, is no matter who's point of view I use, I need to treat them with the respect and dignity of being a human being with a story that somehow transcends boundaries of time, culture, and gender. I need to let my characters tell me who they are. The hardest part will always be to try and write it all down and keep up.

A point of discussion with my editor centered around my description of the shades of shadows. Many scenes in Shroud of Ice are couched under the light of the moon. My family often walked out into the moonlight whether to a bonfire or to identify the stars, we looked to the heavens for the strength of light pushing through the overwhelming darkness. That's where I discovered shadows have colors. It's not a question of black or white. The night's light pulses with depth of perception. The effect of a super moon etched the following lines: "The full bonemeal moon spread luminously through the vast richness of colors found in the shadows. The darkness tingled. I stood alone, empty, and isolated from the marrow of life around me. Gazing again at the stars pulled questions echoing from the corners of my mind. Who else might be seeing the Raven and maybe thinking of me?" ( Shroud of Ice 4) A longing to be remembered, a deep calling to be seen, to feel loved pulls Gaspare to return home. He seeks forgiveness to define the shape of his existence within the darkness surrounding him. Longing sources through the shadows. What feels like loneliness is more like palpable shades within the shadows of Gaspare's life. The darkness cannot hold itself in the intense light of a super moon. Instead a silver sheen casts back what he thought was unseeable and reveals a beauty of silent grace among the conversations of shadows. It's in this darkness that he listens to the courage growing inside. What does he hear? The desire of freedom calling him to more. Last night, this super moon, the Beaver Moon as called by ancient people, glowed warmth in an early November night. My camera cannot capture the silver covering like a sheer snow laying on the ground. Only my eyes can see the moon's light creating depth of beauty. Unlike Gaspare, I did not sit alone. My husband and I walked out into the night, found a bench and sat together under the grace of this intense light. For a reason I have yet to understand, the vastness of a sky set against a super moon gives me more hope than the brightest, sunniest day. Maybe because I see and know I can simply be. Maybe the sense of graceful beauty secures in me a sense of strength in immense darkness. I do not look to the sun and wonder who else might be thinking of me. I look to the night sky and see the star Vega and think of my daughter 582 miles away and send a prayer to her. It is in the darkness that I look to the source of light and find grace.

Over 500 versions of the Cinderella fairytale have been found. Popelka is the Czech version of this story. Popelka is a pretty maiden surrounded by greedy stepsisters. She works her father's farm and doesn't desire more than the simple things in life. Her fairy godmother is an owl and she grants her three hazelnuts. In the three nuts, Popelka found three dresses - one to go to the ball, one to challenge the prince in a hunting match, and the last was a wedding dress. She found everything she needed to change her life. Last year, I harvested my first four little hazelnuts. This year my bushes produced about a dozen. None of the nuts contain any wishes, but they still bring satisfaction and anticipation. To open a hazelnut from the bush requires slowing down, peeling off the leaves, and removing the nut's shell for the meat inside. It's a process. Fall is my favorite season. The colors attract me. The cooling air calls me as I reach for a sweater. It's the clove of the seasons. It's a different kind of harvest that I am trying not to miss. I'm trying to slow down. Lately, fall has arrived dressed in incredibly busy times. The past few years, I allowed the wants and needs of work and commitments to suffocate my enjoyment of the changes around me. This year seemed no different. I heard a great expression that I am going to cultivate this autumn. "Want what you have and need what you want." I have a dozen hazelnuts. I am more than happy with my little harvest. I cannot really bake anything with them. I cannot satiate my hunger with so few. But I can want exactly the hazelnuts that I have and not a single one more. If more than the weather and amount of light is going to change, I need to nurture the will to want just what I have. This lesson of nature contains my three wishes and so many more.

If you said I held an acorn, you wouldn't be wrong, but you wouldn't be completely right. Some might say this is a shell holding the potential of a mighty oak tree. Some might say it is a nut, some might look at it and see a craft idea. Some might see a source of protein - the deer, squirrels, and wild hogs still eat what the Native Americans used to grind for flour. Some farmers might look at the abundance and together with other natural signs predict a heavy snow for the upcoming winter. To the scientist, it is classified as the seed belonging to the genus Quercus . To say it's just an acorn is to miss the entire point. If someone limited what I hold to one thing that they understood, then they will be secluded to a world of singular perspective. Truth like any diamond of value is found in the multifaceted sides that require us to work together to build understanding. In the classroom, during Socratic seminars, I never let a student stop at the answer, "It's relative to a person's perspective." This mode of thinking stems back to Modernism from the 1920s. The philosophical approach of each person holding the truth as they see it places us squarely in the center of I for individual or isolation. This is not the characteristic of a scholar seeking excellence. This is the empty statement of one who doesn't wish to be challenged or to put effort into listening. When all my children are home and we gather around the dinner table, we eventually start the topic of, "Remember when...." Invariably someone will say that is not how they remember whatever the event was. Each family member, though present at the same event, experienced a unique moment that shaped their perspective. The truth of what happened exists, but not in just one person's memory of the moment. As a family we need to listen to each other and try to understand where the other perspective sprouted from. Did it come from a moment of rejection or humiliation? Did the perspective come from a feeling of humor or being rewarded? The pursuit of what really happened should grow from a desire to love and know our family members better. What do I hold in my hand? I hold a moment after leaving the Farmers Market on a sunny Saturday. I had just met two former students - one recent and one from years ago, gotten a hug from a friend, met another coworker, and enjoyed trying to find peaches. The sun's dappled light danced through the leaves, which were still green. It was early September. When I looked down and spied the tiniest cap, thoughts of a fairy swelled my heart to believe I could still be a child again just for a moment. Compelled, I stopped to pick it up, admire the potential, and kept it safe like a secret promise between me and Autumn. I needed to be sure I didn't lose whatever it was that I held.

One of the themes of Shroud of Ice spins around the question are we enough. Behind every life changing decision lurks these words of doubt. We either answer with action or inaction. Here is a scene from Chapter 2 of Shroud of Ice . Gaspare is unable to find his courage to be more than his past defined for him. He is bound within the slavery not just of the copper mines, but within the walls of his own mind. The scene takes place under a heavy moon by the lake with his friend Haliam. The silence of the lake pulled our gaze out across the waters to the far edge. The wave’s lapping sounds blended with the frogs’ mating calls. Fear buzzed behind my eardrums. “Don’t you want to go home?” Haliam asked. Displaced anger threw down my reply. “Why? What’s there? There’s nothing left for me. Do you understand? Nothing . . . nuk  is what you say, right?  Nuk .” My sharp reply tasted like acid. No one missed me because no one had come. When my legs had felt like breaking on the mountain’s rocks, the only thing to pick me up had been the pull of the rope tied to another slave. No one came to help me. Why should I want to go home? They were better off. The old village cries of “cursed one” from my memory joined the fear buzzing—death had marked me. The flutter of a bat’s wings scuttled overhead. Smacking the mosquitos one last time, I shifted to leave. Haliam stopped me. “An old tale from my village tells of a great man who died and stood before the greatest god. The man thought his greatness enough to have earned passage to the god’s presence. The deity looked him over and commanded the dead man to show him his wounds. There were no scars, of course, because he hadn’t done anything great. The god sent him back till he found something worth fighting for.” Haliam let his words linger. A frog sang louder; puffing his chest, he repeated his call, desperate for a mate in the dark. “Where is that boy from the well who fell trying to give me food all those springs ago?” he asked. “That boy would want more than this place.” Scoffing, I turned away from him and the moon. My head shook. “That boy fell off a cliff and died,” I said. “I don’t believe that. I won’t. Only one with a heart of courage would have pushed through the crowd to help me. That courage cannot be gone. The heart of the eagle lies inside you, Gaspare,” Haliam said, making a fist and pounding his chest. “I failed. You never got my food,” I said. Haliam quickly reached for my shoulder. With the hoarsest whisper, he said, “I feasted on more than food. All those people, all that hostility and anger that surrounded me, were defeated each time I remembered your courage. I made the trek across mountains here because your kindness reminded me good still existed.” Haliam looked at me, willing that boy from the past at my village’s well to stand in my place.

We celebrate Thankful Thursday at my new school. We sit family style around a large table, a parent brings in food to share, and we enjoy being together. In a moment of silence as we begin to learn to be together and trust each other, someone will be prompted to share what they are thankful for. Something I am noticing in this act of saying thank you is the words are not natural. It must be taught. As a mother, I spent a lot of time focusing on say please and thank you. As my children grew, I prompted them to write thank you notes. Yet I am not sure this is enough to teach a heart to be thankful. Remembering to say thank you is good. Saying thank you communicates a seen appreciation of another. The simple gesture of noticing deepens a relationship in appreciation. Taking time to notice enhances our understanding of the goodness surrounding our decisions and trials of the day. "Take time to smell the roses" pushes this notion of awareness into the realm of action rather than simply being receptive to noticing. This depth of heart calls me to ponder if slowing down isn't the key to a grateful and grace filled heart; if slowing our moments isn't critical for the growth of enjoyment in our relationships. C.S. Lewis wrote, "The more often a man feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel." When I allow the stresses of my day to press down on me, I feel exhausted mentally, but there's more. The exhaustion seeps inside to my core, creating a sense of entrapment. A numbness comes from not seeing a break in the near future. It's in those times that I am retraining myself to notice tiny beauty around me. The sound of the neighbor child as she runs down her yard to greet me. She's the beauty of innocence and gladness. The bee that fell asleep in my rose. It's exhaustion reminds me of those still waters and green pastures that I will be led to by my Shepherd. The solitary cow next door grazing in a different direction from the rest of the herd, shows the strength in nature to not always do what is expected. Strength is beautiful and often awe-inspiring. When I do take the time to recognize and appreciate the little beauties in my path, I see gifts of love from the Keeper of my heart. Balance begins to enter into my chaos. Have I perfected this? Not even close. The world around is very loud, very angry, very demanding. But I find myself looking more for the gentle touch of love from my Father in heaven. The result is a feeling of being alive deep inside with a warm light. This little light of mine is something I am very thankful for.

This catch phrase for Shroud of Ice  lingers with me. What if the past isn't dead? What if it is just waiting to be remembered? So much surrounding Ötzi is filled with silent voices waiting for us to hear. He has taught us much about what we have forgotten. He moved the timeline back 1000 years from where we believed the Copper Era began. But I've said this before. What is it about Ötzi that calls to me? This picture is a frozen frame of the actual removal of Ötzi's mummy from the glacier back in 1991. I am intrigued by the way it appears the past is holding hands with the present. That is what I felt while pursuing this journey of telling his story. My original goal was to try writing a murder mystery. I figured with how old he was, no one really could tell me I was wrong. His is the oldest cold case to date. If we examine the facts, we know he had five different hemoglobin on his coat. That could have come from a battle, but it could also reveal that he was a messy eater. We know the path of his last 30 hours alive thanks to the mosses found in and on his body, but we cannot know why he chose to go the harder path over the mountain ridge. We know he suffered a debilitating injury to his right hand about four days before his murder. What appears to be a defensive wound from blocking the hit of a weapon broke to the bone in two different places. There was a lot of force in that hit. We know that he was out of resources with his weapons. He had unfinished arrows, an unfinished bow, three arrowheads on three broken or cut arrow shafts and a chipped knife meant he didn't have a way to defend himself except with the copper axe. But there is no way to know who hit him and who wanted him dead. One fact we do know is his body lies in repose on display for viewers to gaze at. He has been kept frozen to mimic the glacier that ensconced his last breath. He has been x-rayed and poked and sampled revealing amazing finds of his last supper, his approximate age of about 46, the fact that he might have been lactose intolerant, and had worms. Lyme's disease also seems to be an ailment he had together with a bad heart that would have collapsed on him if an arrow had taken him when it did. We know so many facts except his name or his story. Ötzi is not his name. It is derived from the Ötzal mountain range that he was found on. My desire was to restore dignity to this man. I gave him a name. I called him Gaspare. It is based on the semi-precious gemstone jasper that has been found in ancient priest robes. One theory is that Ötzi was a holy man of his village based on his axe and medicinal treatments he had with him. I based his life on another holy man that I know named Joseph from the Old Testament. Joseph was a dreamer of visions. His brothers hated him enough to try and kill him. Ötzi's murder is believed to have been a crime of passion, so I made this connection. I also gave him the gift of language, or one who can quickly pick up another language, a polyglot of sorts. Ötzi's language is extinct. There are some ideas of what it would have sounded like. What we do know because of him is that the trade routes were open. The copper from his axe came from over 350 miles to the west and amber found in the Baltic Sea region was uncovered at an archeological dig in his area. No flint rocks were naturally from his region either, so with trade came the need to communicate. Ötzi came a bit before the Indo-European language formalized. The gift of words is something I wanted this silent man to have. Most importantly though, I wanted him to have a story that reflects who we are as people. The more we learn of his time period, the more we realize he was much more advanced than we believed. An interactive display of the arrow embedded in Otzi's mummy. The real mystery is not in how he died, but how he lived. The conflicts of love and hate, dreams and sorrow are as timeless as humanity. We look to the stars and question or seek guidance. We pick ourselves up and try again. We desire justice, but crave mercy. People are people. A review of Shroud of Ice calls the story haunting. Yes, his story haunted my imagination.   As I descended his mountain, I felt the ending inside of me. I could see my solution as a whisper from beyond.  It  is my prayer that after the telling of his tale, he may truly rest in peace knowing someone listened. I cannot wait for you to read Shroud of Ice!

My son just brought a puppy home. Okay but what kept me from writing even before the puppy? Well, I have a lot to do, I’m not feeling it, the muses have left my side. I have no shortage of ideas for stories. I'm fascinated with the great tea race to India because of the tall masted ships. I ponder the idea of Vikings coming to Newfoundland and have the first 10 pages drafted. I think the women's suffrage movement in Virginia is filled with daring. My lack of working at my laptop has nothing to do with no idea what to write. So why do I avoid what brings me joy and makes me feel a rush of living purposefully? Today my writing group meets, so right on time yesterday I began contemplating excuses to ask for an extension. The puppy is a solid reason. I put it in the text as an option, hit send, and waited. Sure enough the first response came back with, “I’m fine either way.” I received the opening to postpone that I desired. But was not writing what I truly wanted? What is it about writing that I avoid? I dreamed of becoming an author. My first novel took 12 years to write. Most of that time was spent convincing myself I could and would actually write a book. The possibility existed that I wasn’t good enough for my dream. It sounds more significant to say I’m writing a book than to believe my story needed me. I just needed to show up, to believe I had the ability to bring the story to life, yet a decade worth of excuses got in the way. If I truly believe something, then I act without thinking. I don’t inspect a chair before sitting. I believe the chair will hold me and I act accordingly. So why can’t I believe in my writing? With three novels under my belt, I’m still making excuses to my writing group and myself. I’m not sure I’ve pondered the extent of my problem, but when I consider my excuses, they stem from distractions and no time. Kronos, the father of the Titans, devoured his children. Kronos, as time deified, was eating away through life’s limits of death. In this modern setting, time not only devours us, it is filled with so much noise we can’t remember what’s important to us let alone begin to imagine our dreams as a reality. With each day filled with the noise of burgeoning calendars and text messages of "I'm running a little late," our dreams die, sacrificed to time’s insidious intent to distract us from what we deeply desire. A story sitting inside is a little song. If I am going to write, I must carve out time to quiet my mind and schedule long enough to hear the melody. The characters exist inside my being waiting, longing to walk among the living. That is an honorable and noble act - to sacrifice a corner of my time to breathe in quiet and exhale through the written word. This is precisely why my writing group is meeting tonight at my house to accommodate the puppy. I don’t have anything new to share yet, but I’ve made a promise to get one page written, just one. That will be enough until the next time our writers group shows up on my calendar and the excuses begin again.