On the Snow Globe Fantasy of an Idyllic Creative Life
And why you shouldn’t wait for it…
I can’t lie, I love snow globes. Their perfect, glass-encased realms, their self-contained micro-realities where nothing can or will go wrong.
Skaters on ponds, tobogganers on slopes, carol singers in the snow — all cradled safely within in a frosty, flawless world. And should you turn the key to start a whirling blizzard, nothing inside will be disturbed. Because in the world of the snow globe, storms bring music box melodies, not wreckage.
Maybe I find them so beguiling because I’ve been wanting my own snow globe life for the longest time — by which I mean a blissfully safe space to create. One uninterrupted by jobs or bills or worries, where I can just write and dream in perfect peace and quiet. And in my heart, I’ve seen this ideal as my ‘real life’ and everything else as a kind of tedious lead up period.
Here’s how that life of mine would look — imagine that you are holding a snow globe in your hand right now. Feel the weight of it. Inside is a lovely little house by a lake. Now press your nose close to the glass and find the attic window. Can you see me at that window, writing on an old-fashioned typewriter? Now shake the snow globe as hard as you like, hold it upside down, create the biggest blizzard ever — it doesn’t matter, nothing…
