Snow.  Bad word this time of year.  The trees are tired of going naked, and the Earth wants to know what I’m doing in its dressing room between acts.  Sometimes I wonder as well when a harrowing immovable object melts out of the snow, or I nearly buy it in a 4-foot deep hidden crevasse carved by runoff and undetectable in the night.  Not to mention, the animals get a little bolder when I’m the only human out there at Elm Creek.  But the end days of winter are some of the best skiing, including transits up and down the lanes of the tubing hill and free-flight across half-mile slopes of crust snow from picturesque heights to slumbering reed beds.  Especially by starlight.

Night is the shadow of the Earth.  I stand on the Disneyesque blue trail at 3 a.m. knowing that the sun is shining on the other side of the world.  Its light is rising like drapes on the horizons all around me, but I can see none of it.  There is nothing in heaven for it to reflect off.  Except the nearly full moon.  And that chrome yellow orb is enough to reveal my surroundings as I slide along an archipelago of ice from island to island, here and there catching a ski on mud until I reach my holy of holies, the enduring snow fields of 2008 locked in by legions of trees.

Am having a hoot after discovering that if I lift the toes of my new ski boots, the grooved heel prints make perfect deer tracks.  I leave them circling parked cars and up steps leading right to the door of the chalet just to boggle people’s minds.  They closed the main hills March 17^th, but tonight almost a month later we are expecting 7-9 inches of snow.  Have skied over 180 times this year on about 130 skiable days.  Most days I ski the covered portions of the trail in a T-shirt, then go to the car for roller skis and cover a few more miles on dry asphalt.  Hang in there if you are anxiously awaiting a chance to get some flowers planted.  Saw flashes of green and a few buds today as the meadows prepare to burst forth and the creeks burble with excitement as they carry their elixir vitae to the seeds of sleeping rainbows (to quote my new column).  Some of the BEFORE and AFTER photos below highlight the contrasts, identified as follows:

March 27, 2008 -- red/white feathers at a favorite spot on a favorite anniversary. 

March 31, 2008 -- same general area four days later.

Black Eye #1 -- photo from 30-40 years ago after a water polo tournament.

Black Eye #2 -- same Sully, same bod, different black eye courtesy of skiing (my only injury this year).  It’s the left eye, and I didn’t think to take a picture until it was almost healed (more pictures on www.thomassullivanauthor.com).

Mark Manrique -- BEFORE becoming Dr. Foto (wearing customary breakfast tux)

Mark Manrique -- AFTER becoming Dr. Foto (clothes make the…er, man).

Crevasse -- one of the 4-foot-deep hazards of spring skiing.

Shotput Sully -- Dr. Foto (Mark Manrique) strikes again.

It’s been a month of kindnesses from some stunningly caring people.  Writing novels got a whole lot easier for me when Karen Wahrenberger of www.speechrecsolutions.com in New Hampshire took my order over the phone for a new dictation microphone.  The top-of-the-line Sennheiser ME3 was a bit rich for my budget, so I ordered a good mic at about a quarter of the price.  Karen, who I did not know, sent me the Sennheiser plus an adapter with the note: “Pay it forward!”  I will try to do exactly that, Karen.  This is why you have to celebrate life and people.  I’m also indebted to recent tributes given me at a site called The1000BestSpecialPeople.com .  About a year ago, Australian Grant Soosalu honored me with a nomination.  I believe that gift expires after a year, and before it does, I want to acknowledge the tributes added to that page from: Grant, Stevo, Jan, KS, Ed, David Niall Wilson, and Mark Lancaster.  They blow me away.  Also thank you one and all for the approximately 150 boosts given me on the site.

This month’s column over on StorytellersUnplugged.com covers one night in the life of an author.  With two of my three favs on American Idol already shot down, and winter and spring in a turf war, you’d think I’d be cleared for extra productivity, but for that the muse must cooperate.  Fat chance.  Check out SU 2008 04-16 PRIME BLOOPERS, THE GREATEST ROMANCE OF ALL TIME, AND THE SEEDS OF SLEEPING RAINBOWS.

Your comments on those probing new interview questions David Niall Wilson asked me are appreciated.  The interview and picture now have a permanent link: Interview-Sully.  Newsletters w/photos are archived on our website.  If you’re not getting this free monthly newsletter mailed directly to you, ask to be added to the list at: mn333mn@earthlink.net.  As always, this is a Blind Carbon Copy that does not reveal your address.  If you ever wish to stop receiving emails from me, please just drop me a note to that effect, and I’ll remove your address from the list.  And if you’d like to see more of my latest writing, please check out a free sample chapter from THE WATER WOLF at the website below.

One last.  As many of you know from my column subbing in a few days ago (April 13^th), Frank Wydra is fighting the toughest battle of his life and doing it in the style for which he is so much loved.  The outpouring of response for Flamingo Frank and that column are appreciated more than you can know.  Thanks for reading.  Live large, be real, and “pay it forward.”

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