Happy New Year

A cat and her teddy - because
we all need to have a bit of a smile.

I'm pretty sure that there is nothing I could write here that would do 2016 justice.  There are bloggers far more talented than I who stand a much better chance of adequately summarizing the crash and burn roller coaster ride that was 2016.  If you were to travel back in time to December 31, 2015 and tell me where we would be on this day a year later...

...well the truth is I'm not sure how I'd react.  I might think you were fucking with me, but there would be a part of me that would want to believe you really did travel back in time to send me a message, and then I'd think about the consequences of what you'd just said...and how if you really did travel back than your prediction might also be true as well.   But I'd likely dismiss that as just fantasy because the possibility of that happening was so ludicrous.  And I'd go back to believing you were just some weirdo trying to mess with my head.

And then ten months and eight days later I'd have found out what you said was true.

I'm not sure my wonder of learning that time travel was real would have been enough to overcome the feelings of despair I faced in early November.  My own fear and that of my friends, neighbors and community members was far too present and besides, you Mr. or Ms. time traveler, are now long gone and we remain here, having to live with the outcome.  If I thought of you at all, it would probably have been with resentment.

But maybe at some point I'd have started to wonder why you came back to New Year's Eve 2015, and why, of all people, did you choose to speak to me?  Did you do so because I could make a difference?  Or maybe something went wrong?  I don't know how this time travel thing works.  You could have meant to appear at the door of some great hero of might and media who would save us all, but for whatever reason you appeared to me.

And if it wasn't a mistake, just what the hell was I supposed to do about it?  I mean you are from the future - you must have known I'd have dismissed your claims.   Was that it?  Was I not supposed to figure it out until now?  Is there something I'm supposed to do?

I'd go over ever word you said to me in our encounter for some hint of what my next step was supposed to be.  I'd probably bring in a few friends who, though skeptical, love the idea of a puzzle and so help me to figure out the solution.  And then...somehow, we'd have a crazy adventure, with many trials and, only after almost losing everything, we'd save the day?

I'm not sure I'd wish that were the case.  I don't know how I would react to such an unfolding of events.  To have the burden of saving the world resting squarely on my shoulders.  The responsibility of being that sort of hero seems far too overwhelming.

But here we are, all of us, being called upon to be heroes.  Because the fate of the world, or at least those we love, really does rest with all of us.  We have to make sure that decency, love, equality, truth, remain something that is still alive in our hearts, our homes and our neighborhoods.

Together, we need to express our outrage and our fears.  We need to stand up to shout and sit to listen.  We must hold each other up and provide each other with space for rest.  We must make sure our fellow humans are fed, sheltered and warm.  We must try to be the people we imagine heroes to be.

I wish there was a singular hero, someone to come set things right.  There is instead just us.  Us.  And the responsibility isn't any less, though it is, thankfully, shared.

New Moon

I did an entire month of blogging daily and then...stopped for nearly a month.

When I finished that last post in November I felt like I could have written daily for another 30 days.  It had become habit, or so I thought. Instead a day, two days, a week tick tokked by without a single blog post.

I could give you 50 reasons why, okay maybe 10 or 5...

1.  I'm processing a mess of old shit that keeps cycling back into my life.  You know that sort of stuff that you know you will likely have to deal with for the rest of your life and the only solace seems to be that it gets just a tiny bit easier to face every time.

2. Reason number one triggered a deeepressssive episooooode which left me shuffling through mental goo for a solid three weeks.  It took me the first two to figure let go of the "Oh, I can manage this.  Nothing to see here," attitude and I finally sought help...and YAY, therapy!

3. It's winter.  It's dark by like 4:30 and my brain seems to be on the same cycle as the sun.

4. I've had a couple of weeks where I've had no real obligations other than the day jobs and feeding the cat.  It has been rather nice.  The days where I have had a thought about maybe writing a blog post it was quickly followed by the thought, "Well, maybe later today...or not ever."

5. I'm really, really, really freaking tired.  So I've been giving myself permission to stop doing things when I have used up the small amount of energy I seem to have right now.

Today though I wanted to write. The new moon seemed as good a day as any to start clickety clacking words out again.  So here I am.  Hello, how are you?

I suppose you can expect an end of the year post soon.

Day 30: A word...or four

It is the last day of NaBloPoMo and I'll be using the final prompt of the month for today's post:

"Have you chosen a word of the year for yourself for 2017? What is it? If not, what words would you consider?"

A couple of years ago I set an intention for the year.  I don't recall what it was.  I might have done it at the beginning of 2016, but unless I wrote it in my journal (which I'm too lazy to get up and retrieve from its shelf), I don't recall that either.  Maybe a word, one simple word, will be easier than a full on intention.

What words would I consider for 2017?

Hope comes to mind first.  I think we are going to need it.  I think we will need to remind ourselves that somewhere ahead of us in this dark tunnel is a light.  I think we will need to remember that there is an generation coming up whose values are more progressive and open than any before.   We will make progress.

Work.  Work because there is going to be so much of it that must be done.  I expect difficult times; that we will need to take a stand over and over and over again.  I expect moments of exhaustion, but the work will be done because there really isn't any other option.

Community.  Do I need to explain this one?  I can say this for the election results, it has brought people together.  I have seen and experienced friends reaching out to each other in concrete ways (you know, beyond the usual social media likes and virtual hugs).  I sent of a few dozen holiday cards this week, something I've not done in years, because I wanted to connect in a more real way.  We will need to continue to come together, to support one another, and to love one another.

Finally, I'd pick joy, because even in the toughest of times we need to celebrate the high moments. We need to share cake on birthdays, spontaneous picnics and potluck dinners (yes, my joy often involves food).  Even gloomy old me has to smile once in a while.

Hope. Work. Community. Joy.

There are my words for 2017.  Somehow I think this coming year's words will be more difficult to forget.

Day 29: One to go...

Tomorrow will mark the end of this year's NaBloPoMo.  Assuming that I write a post tomorrow, it will be the first time I've successfully completed it in the month of November when the rest of the blogosphere is participating. I have usually done it in the month of December when I was on break from school.

I enjoy blogging.  Writing has always been one of my primary tools for processing emotions, change, and significant life events and this month was full of such events.  On the upside this made for a lot of available blog fodder and I rarely found myself drawing a blank as to what to write about. In fact I was more likely to have a need to write about something I didn't want to yet share, than I was to have a desire to share and found I had no topic to write about.

This month my blog contained far more personal emotional expression than it usually does.  This was, I think, a good exercise for me because I often tend to keep painful things close - usually out of shame, embarrassment or simply not wanting to seem a bother.  But the events of the past several weeks were overwhelming and I actually found myself unable to contain them.  I was grateful to have this forum as well as my friends and family as support.

I discovered too that my writing did not benefit just me.  Several people shared their feelings on what I wrote.  Through comments, emails and a few face to face conversations, people shared what resonated with them and expressed that my experience helped them in some way.  They felt a little more connected, a little less alone.

I can't really ask for a better compliment than that.  Connection and understanding are things we all need and if this blog provides some of that in even a small way it is worth the time and effort I put into it.

I've one more post to go.  Thank you for taking the time to read these posts, for sharing them and commenting on them.  Thank you for connecting.

Peace.

Day 28: Unfinished

This image is of a doily that I started to make during the last couple of weeks of my grandmother's life.  I would find someone to give me a ride to the nursing home she was in and I'd sit beside her bed and crochet. Sometimes it was a couple of hours, other times it was a whole afternoon or evening.

She was on a fairly large amount of medication and so while she was communicative she often talked to people who were not there or addressed me by another name.  Sometimes she would go through the motions of doing things with her hands and when I asked what she was doing she'd tell me she was knitting or washing the dinner dishes.

The last few nights I visited she was unconscious.  I continued to work on the doily.  It was a complicated one with sheaves of wheat in the pattern.  It was meant to line a bread basket.  The pattern book had been her mother's or maybe her aunt's.  She'd given it to me years before along with crochet hooks and a tatting kit that had been her mum's.

I was still working on it the day she died though I didn't crochet during my visit.  I just sat next to the bed holding her hand.  She woke for a bit and the nurse asked if I wanted to speak to her.  I did and so I went to the other side of the bed where she was looking.  Her eyes were unfocused due to the medication but the nurse asked if she could see me and if she knew who I was.  She said my name.  I smiled and told her I loved her.

Her eyes closed and she went back to sleep.  Soon after I received a text that my ride was waiting downstairs.  I kissed her hand and told her I'd return the next day.

I can't say if I knew that visit would be the last one because she was in a place where any visit might be the last, but I was not surprised when the call came the next day telling me she'd died.

The doily still sits unfinished in bag tucked at the bottom of my project basket.  There will be a day that I sit down, find my place in the pattern and finish the project.  I'll probably have a dinner party just so I can make and serve biscuits in a doily lined bowl.

And I'll probably tell the story of how the doily came to be, and how much I loved my grandmother.

There are days, like today, that I miss her so very much.

Day 27: Letting Go

Today's post will be short.

This morning I came across this article on the Psychology Today website. It is about how we, as children, develop patterns and habits of behavior that will shape who we are and how we relate to the world for decades to come.

It also discusses why, even when those patterns and habits are self destructive, we have such a difficult time letting go of them.  It explains that one of the most terrifying things you can do is to choose to change, even when it means starting over from scratch.

Even if it means not even being all that sure who you are when you strip all of those patterns and habits away.

It is frightening.  But it is, I think, worth it if it means truly knowing one's self.

I am in that process, the one of letting go of those patterns and habits that, until now, defined who I was.  It is frightening and sometimes leaves me paralyzed with indecisiveness as I have to navigate new ways of decision making.  But as I let go of each little bit of who I thought I was, I find another tiny piece of who I am.

Day 26: Holiday Cards

Holiday Stamps - USPS

I have never been regular about sending out holiday cards.  Some years I spent hours on end crafting homemade cards to send off to family and friends.  And others, well, I had a list of excuses as to why I didn't want to handle that particular chore...

...I didn't have time to do handmade cards and if it was just going to be a card off the shelf why bother?
...Even if I bought cards off the shelf I just don't have to time to track down all of those addresses, write the cards, stamp them and then mail them.
...No one does this any more.  I mean why not just let the tradition die out?
...Oh look now it's just two weeks before the holidays, maybe I could send New Year's cards instead.
...oh...Happy New Year, guess I'll try again next year.

This year on the day before Thanksgiving I found myself standing in front of a very small display of holiday cards at the drug store.  I had gone in to look for a light bulb when I saw the holiday decorations on display and wondered if they might have boxes of cards.  It had been how many years since I sent them out regularly?  Three?  Four?  Maybe five...these days most folks send ecards, if they send anything at all, and I'm just as guilty.

I thought of how nice it was to open the mailbox and see something other than a bill there.  An envelope with a handwritten address; a concrete, solid representation of my being in someone's thoughts.  I wanted the people I cared about to have that moment where they would know someone paused in their day to let them know they were thought of kindly.

I didn't buy the most expensive box, or even the prettiest cards, but I bought a box that I thought would have enough cards to send to everyone who might be on my list.  I'd not made the list yet so 24 cards seemed appropriate but when I began to write out my list this morning I quickly realized 24 would not even be close.  I went to Reny's to buy another box and on my way also stopped to purchase stamps.

I spent much of this evening writing them out.   I admit, at first as I sat looking at my list of names, I questioned the wisdom of doing it. The list was not short and that was so much writing.  But I dug out my good pen, poured a glass of wine and set upon my task.  As I began to write, crossing each name off the list as the address was penned on the envelope, it felt less and less like a chore.

I found the process to be a bit meditative as I looked at the next name on the list, brought the image of the person to mind, often recalling some memory of them, and wrote a short personal message in their card.  It was enjoyable to think of the people I love and cherish.

I managed to get about halfway through my list and hope to finish the rest tomorrow so that I can walk them all to the mailbox on Monday morning.

I don't expect many cards back, if any at all.  It is a tradition that seems to be fading, and it has been years since I sent them out myself.  But that doesn't matter, what mattered to me was doing some small thing to create connection with people who are important to me.

And this year connection seems extra important.