Unexpected!–Anne McAllister

What’s the saying about life happening while you’re making other plans?  I think that goes double in Montana!

My husband and I just spent 10 days back in Montana.  We get there a lot because there are grandkids there, and we own a house there, and while a good part of our life is still in the midwest, we seem to spend more and more of it in Montana.

I love it. But it does, sometimes, make me stop and blink.

Last Thursday, October 3rd, it snowed. This is not wholly unexpected, just slightly unseasonal.  That is, it would have been if it had been a little snow.  We got a little. My son, working in Laramie and trying to get home, got over a foot on his journey.  A friend, driving from Kansas, ran into over two feet of it in western South Dakota.

And now?

It’s all gone. 

Of course, tree limbs have gone with it, Cattle have died.  Accidents have happened. My cousin, inexperienced in life with snow, slipped on the ice beneath the leaves and wrenched his ankle and knee.

Plans that we made never happened.  Some bad things did.  But some good things did as well. One grandson and his grandpa built a snowman they never expected to build.  My cousin and I, with time on our hands because of his fall, got to spend hours discussing the copies of our grandfather’s diaries that he’d brought to me. 

Kids went sledding.  We had a fire in the fireplace.  Our son got home safely, albeit two days late.  If we’d remembered to pop popcorn, it would have been a snowstorm for the scrapbooks.

It served to remind me that life is at least half unexpected. We might try to figure out all the possible outcomes, but there are some possibilities that never even occur to us to consider. 

I’m starting a new book – a new venture entirely because it’s going to be an ebook.  Not long ago I wouldn’t have even thought about that possibility. It’s a little scary.  And exciting. And, like the unexpected snowstorm, it brings with it a lot of unknowns.  It also brings with it a few knowns – I’m going to be working with talented, creative people. I’m going to learn new tricks.  And I’m going to set it in Montana – and the hero is going to be a cowboy.

Oh, I’ve missed my cowboys!  I doubted that I’d ever got a chance to write them again. And now, here I am.  And here he is! 

Ah, the joys of the unexpected!