Snow on the Ridgeline
First my apologies for not having written in two months.
During November 2005, our company was still stationed in Liberty Lake. I was well established on my habit of a daily lunchtime walk. Out there I used to walk around the block once. You are probably thinking, “That’s not very far.” It isn’t until you find out that in the industrial section of Liberty Lake; the blocks are approximately 0.5 miles long.
This one particular day in mid-November was a crystal clear, brisk cold day with a temperature in the mid teens. We had had a dusting of snow over night and mountains surrounding the valley had received substantially more. Looking around at the scenery, phrases started to come into my head. “There’s snow up on the ridgeline.” “Snow snakes race in the street.” “The geese are heading southward; their honk is all you hear.” I started forming a lyric. I remember stopping in at the Liberty Lake Internet Exchange building to ask for piece of paper and a pencil so I could write it down. (I now carry paper and pen in my jacket all the time.)
As I was forming this in my mind, my thoughts turned to my son Sean and my daughter Megan who presently live in Rhode Island. The last Christmas I was able to spend with them was in 1994. For some crazy reason deep in the back of my brain, I always have a hope that perhaps “this year” will be the year I get to spend Christmas with them. Of course, every year my hopes are dashed.
When I was back in New Jersey for my father’s funeral, I found out from my sister that Pop had the same hopes as I did. He would say to my sister, “You know Maureen; I just have this feeling that one day, there’s going to be a knock on the door and there will be Sean and Megan.” Of course, his dream was never realized either.
So as I was writing down my lyric, I injected those hopes. Here is where it stood at the end of that cold lunch hour:
There’s snow up on the ridgeline
The trees are mostly bare
Except for a few leaves
Hanging on here and there
The geese are heading southward
Their honk is all you hear
Despite my finest efforts
It just doesn’t appear
That I’ll see your smiling faces
Before the end of the year.
Flurries flutter to the ground
Your breath hangs in the air.
Across the frozen landscape
A train sounds off somewhere
And so my children far away
I’ll offer up a prayer
That perhaps a year from now
Or maybe by mid-year
We’ll finally be united
And share the joys and tears
I didn’t use all the lines, but I never throw anything away. Down at the bottom of the document I kept all the discards. It was saved on my hard drive and it stayed there until the following November. This would have been right after I had wrapped up production on the Celebrate Grace CD because I noted
There’s snow up on the ridgeline
Snow snakes race in the street
A wind sets my cheeks aglow
Ice crunches ‘neath my feet
Despite all my hopes and dreams
Confirming all my fears
Despite my finest efforts
It just doesn’t appear
That I’ll see your smiling faces
Before the end of the year.
Now for the bridge. I needed something to express sense of loss and longing, of past joys and present sorrow. I just started writing some free verse and afterwards massaged the rhyme.
I fall into a reverie
And dream of times gone by
Sitting ’round the Christmas tree
And laughing till we cryThe sights and smells of Christmas morn
The love of family
Rejoicing in a babe newborn
Whose death would set us freeI think about those far off days
And how the years fly by
My reverie is set ablaze
A tear comes to my eye
I placed the bridge between the second and third verses and once again, the piece sat idle for a another year. This past November, I dug it out again and recorded a simple version of it – just me and my guitar. I hope you enjoy it.
God bless and Merry Christmas,
Tom Whalen
Copyright © 2007 Thomas B. Whalen