It Is Only Now

Snow fell. School closed. Cheers from my children. The world outside our windows transformed by quiet white.

My husband stays home from work; he takes the girls sledding and on snow walks. Patches, our puppy, sticks his nose into the white fluff, barking, bounding with the same joy he exhibited the day he escaped from the White Whale and frolicked on the elementary school playground.

I sneak upstairs, closing the door behind me, to work on the new novel. I write with an assurance, a kind of faithful confidence that a breakthrough is forthcoming in my writing because of generous feedback from someone who knows this world of words and character and story.

At night, I am comfortably fatigued. The fire gives a warm glow to our family room. Chicken stew in the slow cooker smells of garlic and thyme. We’re all on the couch watching Downton Abbey. Deep red wine and hot chocolate and popcorn, and a moment I’d dreamed of: Ella and I bonding over Masterpiece Theatre.

In the dark night, ice and wind come, knocking out power. The house grows colder and colder. We escape in the White Whale to the land of luxury: electricity and internet and movies.

It is morning now. My computer sits on the hotel desk. It will not be touched today. Instead there will be a walk, hand in hand with my girls, to lunch, to a movie. A chance to make a memory.

And yet, I look at the desk, longing to be here alone, tackling the notes, wanting to continue the momentum started. And it is this, always, this continued balancing between my two loves: family and work.

It will not be solved today. The only solution is to be here, in the moment, without regard to tomorrow. For we don’t know if it will bring sleet or snow or warm Washington rain. Or this craft, finally conquered. It is only now.

Tess Hardwick is a mother and novelist. Her debut novel, Riversong, was the #1 Nook Book for a week in October. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her two daughters, her puppy Patches, and her husband, and blogs at Inspiration for Ordinary Life.