Musings & Thoughts for Saturday, April 6, 2024, or: Winter Refuses to Leave Gracefully, but Reunion: Coda Still Moves Onward…One Scene at a Time

Late Morning/Midday, Saturday, April 6, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, folks. It’s a chilly and gray early spring day here in my corner of Eidelweiss District, which lies near the small town of Madison. Currently, the temperature is 40°F (4°C) under cloudy conditions. With the wind blowing from the north-northeast at 10 MPH (16 Km/H), it feels like it’s 34°F (1°C). Today’s forecast calls for light rain throughout the rest of the day. The high will be 43°F (6°C). Tonight, we can expect partly cloudy skies and a low of 30°F (-1°C).

The weather has been nasty here as of late. On Thursday and Friday we felt the effects of a strong nor’easter that dumped rain and lots of snow in this part of New England. We even lost electricity for a huge chunk of Thursday and into yesterday morning because a car hit a utility pole somewhere nearby and the power company had to shut down the grid so that could be repaired.  Then, not more than an hour after we got our juice back, a transformer exploded, so I went to bed early (before 10 PM on Thursday) cos…what else could I do with no electricity?

Thankfully, the storm system cleared the area by yesterday afternoon, and we’ve had no further outages – so far, anyway. There’s still a lot of snow on the ground, and the temperatures are low on this rainy day, so I’m sure there’s quite a bit of ice on the roads.

On Writing & Storytelling: Making Up for Lost Time

As you can well imagine, I wasn’t able to work on Reunion: Coda at all on Thursday. The power was out, and even though my backup laptop had 72% battery power left, I was not in the mood to write. I was too nervous about how long we’d be without power, and I can’t be in a creative mindset when I’m worried about such things as power outages and falling temperatures out here in rural New Hampshire.

After the power was restored, I wasn’t expecting to be at my creative best yesterday, but I decided to start writing Scene Two of Chapter 14. At best, I thought then, I’d write at least half a scene between 2 and 6 PM and then finish the rest today. At worst…maybe I’d just end up with a paragraph or two, and I’d wait until Monday, April 8, to write the balance of the scene. Either way, I would get something new added to the manuscript come what may.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been daydreaming about this part of Reunion: Coda for a while and the details of those dreams finally fixed themselves onto my brain, or if the stress from my first nor’easter revved up my creative mojo, but not only did I start Scene Two for Chapter 14…I finished it as well!

Wanna see an excerpt from the scene?

Here you go!

Maddie Comes Home
Friday, March 10, 2000

John F. Kennedy International Airport, Arrivals Terminal, 2:05 PM EST

I’m at JFK, the arrivals terminal humming with the energy of a city that never sleeps. It’s a Friday afternoon, and the place is buzzing like a nightclub, but instead of music and laughter, it’s filled with the sounds of greetings and goodbyes. I’m here waiting for Maddie, my heart racing a bit as I glance at the clock. Her flight, British Airways BA-175, was due at 1:45 PM, but it’s running 20 minutes late. Headwinds over the Atlantic, they said.

I taught my Intro to WWII class at Columbia this morning at 9:00, and Henry Townsend, bless him, arranged for a TA to cover my afternoon sessions. I rarely drive in Manhattan, but today I made an exception. I pulled my ’95 Acura out of the garage, where I shell out more than I’d care to admit each month, and hit the road around 10:30 AM. The traffic was a nightmare, made worse by a fender bender somewhere on FDR Drive, between midtown Manhattan and here.

I’ve been trying to distract myself with the day’s New York Times, but the headlines are just a blur. NASDAQ’s record high, a bomb in Sri Lanka killing 18—none of it registers. All I can think about is Maddie, jet lag, and whether she’ll be up for watching The English Patient tonight.

To kill time, I wandered into the duty-free and picked up the latest Tom Clancy paperback, The Bear and the Dragon. Now, I’m nursing my third cup of coffee from Starbucks, trying to lose myself in Clancy’s world of espionage and military fiction, but it’s no use.

Then, out of nowhere, I hear her voice, that British accent cutting through the noise, “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” I look up, and there she is. Maddie, in a red dress cinched with a black belt, knee-high black boots, and that wide-brimmed red hat she loves. She’s got a wheeled suitcase and a carry-on slung over her shoulder. She’s here, and suddenly, the wait is worth it.

The Clancy novel slips from my fingers, thudding against the Starbucks’ tiled floor, but I barely notice. I’m on my feet in an instant, my Indy fedora almost taking flight from the sudden movement. It doesn’t, though, and it ends up askew, covering my left eye. Maddie’s giggle is a silver bell in the airport’s cacophony. I can’t help but grin as I adjust the hat, channeling my inner Harrison Ford with a rakish tilt.

Time seems to stand still as we lock eyes. There’s so much we could say—mundane pleasantries, polite inquiries—but none of that matters now. We’re reading each other’s faces, searching for the stories written there since our last goodbye. Maddie’s beauty is as striking as ever, her heart-shaped face a canvas of soft contours and delicate lines. Her hazel eyes, vibrant even in her fatigue, are alive with the stories she’s yet to tell me. Chestnut waves frame her face, and her lips, oh her lips—they’re a perfect bow, the kind that would inspire poets and artists alike.

She looks every bit the English rose I remember, yet there’s a hint of weariness around her eyes—a subtle testament to the miles she’s crossed to get here. But when our gazes meet, all signs of tiredness seem to vanish, replaced by a spark that’s all too familiar.