One of my earliest heroes was once an ambulance driver in World War I.  Half a century before he charmed me and the world, he drove that vintage vehicle from human carnage to human carnage not with camouflage but with cartoons emblazoned on its sides.  To me he represented romantic idealism.  To keep one’s soul alive through the ugliest moments of life was something I admired.  He created realms I want to live in, airbrushed to perfection, simple with moral clarity, profound with passion and beauty.  His name was Walt Disney.  I even went out to Hollywood as a teenager to become an animator in his studios.  Fortunately for humankind, I never got to inflict my meager talent on that industry.  Fortunately for me, I have spent all the intervening years living my own romantic idealism, albeit pretty much alone.  And when, on a crystal and velvet blue night, I ski out beyond the final lamplight into the domain of the moon and the stars, there is that Disneyesque airbrushed world again.  Inevitably, the red arrows bound to my feet glide onto a certain broad trail filled with memories where the snow throbs white against sharply etched silhouettes and gray reed beds slope away to a frozen lake.  Time too seems frozen there, as if to enshrine the moment, and before I know it I am lost in the purple majesty and golden mists of a warmer afternoon in my life.  I inhale sharply to quell the burning in my chest, and my soul turns to smoke that I exhale into the frigid air.  It is impossible to describe the magnetism that holds me transfixed for a half-hour or more to that spot, or the sense of unfinished journey that accompanies me as I ski slowly back along my own tracks already interlaced with shadows as if to make them permanent.  Stations of the Cross...

It has been particularly cold here in Minnesota.  But then, according to recent research, happiness seems to be associated with cold places.  That explains my constant euphoria.  Still, at a minus 40 chill factor when I am skate skiing down a hill into the wind, all I can say is, “Thank God for global warming!” because any colder will make my posse freeze off and spitting will be like firing a deadly weapon.  Case in point:

It was 16 below and a bit windy, and I was wearing a wool hood ski mask all bunched up like a turban on top of my head when I skied off the heights of a sharp slope.  Blistering cold hit me and I decided to pull the mask down in mid-flight.  But the cut-away slot for the eyes wasn’t where it was supposed to be and a wool wall came down over my face as I careened toward the sharp u-curve at the bottom.  Shrewdly recognizing that this was more excitement than I needed, I began to wave my ski poles around while trying to rotate the ski mask in search of daylight, the gloves being trapped through the straps.  Did I mention, it wasn’t daylight to begin with?  It was night.  Lamplight was on the other side of the wool wall, though, and I couldn’t find that either.  But luck was with me, and I felt the terrain rise again on the other arm of the u-curve just as I found the eye slot.  Wasn’t even that close to the drop-away actually.  There’s something to be said for blind instinct.

However, my eyes were open very wide the other day when a pair of wolves crossed the trail.  Doesn’t sound credible this far south, and yes, I’m the same guy who saw a mountain lion cross his path while he was jogging, but the mountain lion turned out to be real, and if these weren’t real timber wolves, they were sheep in wolves’ clothing.   I see coyotes almost every time I ski, and these were full-muzzled, bushy-tailed big bro to coyotes.  Amazing what wild life turns up here in the northern ‘burbs of the Twin Cities.  A black bear, a fox in my back yard, herds of deer, and eagles must have anti-freeze for blood to soar and hunt as they do in this weather.

The legendary Eagles are soaring as well, in case you haven’t noticed.  “Long Road out of Eden,” released October 30, 2007, debuted at #1 on Billboard and has already gone Platinum 7 times.  It is also both the top selling album of all new recordings and the bestselling Album in 2007 by a group in the U.S. according to Nielsen’s 2007 year-end report.  And if I may segue to another musician friend familiar to my readers, Dr. Foto (Mark Manrique) who supplies the “doctored” photos in this newsletter (like the new one below), has some sterling notes of his own to hit.  Check out this link for his YouTube videos of three classic songs:  YouTube - Return to Me. Also included below are four pix from Elm Creek skiing, including one of deer at night.  Good news about pix on our web page too.  Web master Ed Picard is archiving the photos in the newsletters now, adding the old ones gradually as I get them to him (www.thomassullivanauthor.com).

Now maybe you think I’m just goldbricking out there in the wilderness at Elm Creek, but this month has not been all play and no work.  I assure you it is the fountainhead of what I write.  Case in point #2: this month’s column [THOMAS SULLIVAN: XANADU AND WALLS OF MIST | Storytellersunplugged ] over on StorytellersUnplugged.com was triggered by some new friends, basically high school seniors who work in the ski rental bunker and are inspiration and reassurance that the future of America is in good hands.  They are led by Art Petrakov (Comrade Slick– born in Russia) and Mike Nielsen, who keep me digging further into my brain and soul than I ever thought I would have to do again.  We exchange wisdom on topics ranging from all things literary to politics to history to pop culture to the cosmos and beyond, the difference being that their wisdom is budding and real while I have to make mine up.  They are incredible rock wall climbers as well, and I fully expect to come in from the cold some day and find Mike and Slick sitting on the ceiling playing chess.  So a late-night dash around the out trails, spouting poetry and philosophy under a bone-white moon, has to qualify as writer’s prep.  From there I go driving well into the a.m., bringing myself together or plugging the holes in my soul, and often writing thereafter until dawn.  It’s been an inspiring month.  No time for watching three-ring political debates on TV or voters carnival caucai.  My name is Sully and I approve of this message.

Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/