Portals in Glass

PATRICK J. WOOD, PUBLISHER

Author of new book Patinas of Life available in local bookstores.

Dear Reader,

When I was a boy, I imagined scenarios that nobody knew about. They lived inside snow globes.

I’d find them everywhere during the holidays—on my grandmother’s mantle, at the houses of my aunts and uncle’s, on shelves at friends’ homes.

Each one was a glass portal waiting to be opened. All I had to do was shake it. The moment the snow began to swirl, I was transported inside, at least my imagination was. Suddenly I wasn’t standing in someone’s living room anymore—I was walking down that tiny Victorian street, snow crunching under my boots. I was the visitor arriving at that little house with the wreath on the door. I was the caroler holding a lantern on those church steps. I was the traveler approaching that lone cabin in the woods, hoping for shelter from the storm.

At my grandparents’ house, there was a globe with a village square and a horse-drawn sleigh. I’d shake it and become the driver, racing through the snow to deliver an urgent message that would save Christmas for the whole town.

At my friend Timmy’s house, his family had a globe with a lighthouse keeper. I’d shake it and suddenly I was that keeper, guiding lost ships safely to harbor through a blizzard.

My aunt had one with a family building a snowman in their front yard. When I shook that globe, I became the oldest child, and my snow-globe siblings and I would work together, laughing and planning, figuring out how to build the tallest snowman the town had ever seen. We’d pack the snow just right, find the perfect stones for buttons, negotiate who got to place the carrot nose.

Every globe, every story, transported me somewhere different. Sometimes I’d shake the same globe multiple times, and the story would change completely.

The Victorian house adventure might shift from a grand party with musicians and dancing to a quiet family gathering where we’d solve a mystery about missing presents. The characters were never quite the same, and the adventures evolved with whatever was on my mind, whatever challenges I was facing in my own world.

The funny thing about those snow globe adventures? No matter how difficult the journey, by the time the snow settled at the bottom of the globe, everything had worked out. The message was delivered. The ships made it safely to shore. The snowman stood tall and proud. People found their way home.

And every time I visited a new house and discovered a new snow globe, it was like being handed a new adventure, a new world. Inside those swirling little worlds, a boy could be brave, could solve impossible problems, could make everything turn out right.

I haven’t shaken snow globes in years. But every holiday season, when I see one on someone’s shelf, I feel that old familiar pull. My hand wants to reach out, wants to shake it up, wants to see what adventure might be waiting inside.

And this time of year, I still believe that if we imagine it right, every story can have a happy ending.