Late December

We are visiting my in laws’ lake house. It is a mild day in late December but the breeze is still chilly enough for me to keep my hood up. The shale crunches beneath my feet and the soft churning of waves hits the shore.

My husband is with me, and my children and niece are on the swing, their squeals and chatter filling the air. I actually prefer the lake in the colder months when the water is smooth and quiet, the boats retired for the season, the summer crowds no longer. There is a stillness that settles upon the water, a quietness in the surrounding woods. Earlier in the day, my husband and I saw a red fox on our run, its plume-like tail tipped with white.

My children and niece look for treasures. We find sea glass; some smooth, some still too rough. I throw the rough pieces back in the lake to be tumbled and ground, polished by the water. There is a crawfish picked apart by a bird, its claws and legs no longer attached to its body. My children disassemble sycamore seeds, the pods scattering in the wind like dandelions. The trees are bare, the bluff gray with a few evergreens scattered within. We find the deflated remains of the pumpkins that we rolled into the lake on Thanksgiving.

The water is low, exposing new parts of the shore. We walk where we’ve never walked before to a fallen tree that stretches into the water. Thick bands of ice hang off of the trunk and my children and niece climb the boughs, their boots getting wet. They name this place Ice Land.

I think of the waning year, of the year to come. Acceptance letters at my latest submission are rolling in but my inbox is empty. Last night I dreamed that they sent me a long and scathing rejection letter, but I know that places don’t take the time to do this. Most of my rejections are only silence. I think of my latest novel, still soft clay that needs to be formed and reworked. I wonder if I will finish it in the new year, wonder if I will ever get a yes on anything. 

These next few months are always the hardest. There are no flowers, no color, the air often too cold to be outside. But I do know that right now the sun is warm on my face, the water clear and calm. There may not be flowers but the January sun will be stronger and each day will be a bit brighter.