Sunday, December 28, 2014

Happy Things #3

Another post about random things that make my days good things to be in. I'm looking forward to having so many of these posts I lose track of the installment numbers.

1. Hats.

United States Public Domain.

I could totally rock this look. Perhaps not as well as Garbo, but I could rock it. I would have loved living in these times, just for the hats.


2. The Tominator.


A few weeks ago I said to him, "You know, I believe I could commit cold-blooded murder and you would be steadfastly convinced I had a damned good reason." His reply: "Yep." There are no words for that kind of unconditional love and backing. And, he thinks I look amazing in hats.

3. Grinching.



I bitch about various aspects of the holiday season, including the commercialism ("Christmas, it seems, doesn't come from a store"), the supposed "War on Christmas" (honestly...why can't everybody just let everybody celebrate how and what they want to?), and holiday homesickness, but it's all good. I spent an hour listening to The Lost Christmas Eve by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and wrapping presents and enjoying my pretty little improv tree. and everything was all better. Christmas is Christmas no matter where you are and what you have, as long as you keep your heart open.

4. Rhinos.



Many years ago, someone gave me a stuffed rhino as a gag gift, the story behind which is salacious and not suitable for sharing as it could be used against me. Someone else gave me another, and then I got another, and then people began thinking I collected rhinos, so that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It felt more like rhinos were collecting me. This is how totem animals announce themselves, and Rhino has much to teach me. At last count, I have over 125 rhinos, from stuffed to carved to ceramic to key rings to Hot Wheels rhinos to wind-up toys to...you name it. I have not purchased a single one of them; they were all gifts. They're all my favorite but this is one of my favorite favorites, a Christmas gift past from one of the best bosses in the world.

5. Maps.

Maybe I should have been a cartographer. I can entertain myself for hours with a road atlas, a globe, or just a street map of a strange city. I roll the names of cities and avenues off my tongue. I daydream about getting there and being there. Maps are groovy.

Used under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

East Side Story


The Tominator and Dream Girl and I crossed Lake Washington to Bellevue to catch the Snowflake Lane celebration. I've heard people say it's the best in the country, and I can see why.







The streets and the performers are dressed to the nines. Happy holiday music plays and live toy soldiers keep the beat.






The Wintergarden has a huge, breathtaking tree.


At 7 p.m., more soldiers block the street off to make way for the Jingle Belles dancers. It's infectious; the crowd is dancing and laughing while snowflakes glow and the snow machine fills the air. One of the things we learned is to get there early so you can get a good spot; otherwise it's as futile as watching a parade when you're short. Sorry; no pictures of the dancers.


We also learned that eating is a good thing to do early. When we were there, the wait was two hours at each of the restaurants we checked. You won't go hungry, though; there are street vendors and walking a few blocks we found Subway, pizza and noodle places, a Thai restaurant.


The show is free, and so is parking in three different garages just for the occasion. Dress warmly. Baby, it's cold outside. Afterward we warmed up with peppermint coffee and hot chocolate and freshly baked pie.


Happy Holidays!


***
Photo credit:
The Tominator, Dream Girl and I are my pics.
All others appear courtesy of Kathleen Leavitt Cragun, used under Creative Commons license.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...new style.

Westlake Square
Since Thanksgiving I've enjoyed watching lights and decorations go up around the city. Since things have calmed down after finals week I've wanted to write a holiday post. I sat down with the intention of writing a happy Christmas post but honestly - I'm having a hard time doing it. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I don't want to force feelings I don't have, either.

Things were supposed to be a lot different after moving to Seattle. I expected the first year to be a little rough and unsettled. I expected that the first year celebrating the holidays away from home would be strange. I was right on both counts, but I'd also expected that by this time, our second Christmas in the Pacific Northwest, I'd be settled into my new job, making good money, debts paid off. I'd expected we would have moved up from a small apartment into another house, with room to spread out, and would have been able to return to Nevada to get the rest of our belongings out of storage. I'd expected that the Tominator would be feeling great, that we'd have established some new holiday traditions for ourselves, that Dream Girl would have found her niche.

Sparkly morning sidewalk.
The first year was not just rough; it was hell. The job I moved up here to take was nothing short of horror and my life has swerved into a direction I'd never seen coming. I'm still in a small apartment. Most of our possessions are still stored in Nevada, including all of the Christmas things I've amassed over the years - the tree ornaments with accompanying memories, the special advent calendar, the handmade stockings. We have not, in fact, been able to spend Christmas Eve in a cabin on Mt. Rainier, warming up with hot cocoa after a rousing snowball fight. I haven't seen my mom and sibs in almost two years and it's been almost a year since I've hugged Monster. I never knew how awful homesickness can be. Girl Scout camp did not prepare me for this.

It is so easy, right now, to miss my old life. My House, with all of My Stuff. The smell of my sister's house when we arrived to exchange gifts and eat the best dinner ever - and the holiday rolls! Hugs from Mom, that aren't like any other hugs in the world. My brother, my nieces, Ordinarily Megan, all the rest. Monster laughing at me getting tipsy on Christmas wine. The dusting of snow on the ground, maybe. If it felt like it. The party at my last job there, with people I'd come to think of as family.

But there's always a flipside. Don't forget the flipside. How many times have I loved the B side? How cool is Janus?

We have had to downsize our giving drastically, limiting gifts to one apiece from each of us to the others. It takes a lot more thought and effort and a lot less money that way, and the gifts are actually better. We make a trip downtown to do our minimal shopping together, enjoying the lights and the scrumptious store window displays, stopping for a hot drink and a sweet treat. I think this year we may check out Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, with its ice skaters and live toy soldiers. Even if the Tominator does win the sweepstakes, I don't think we'll ever get back on the silly spending merry-go-round.

Dream Girl is indeed finding a niche. She loves her school, she has made some good friends, connected with a local live theater, and been trained as a barista. I am given to understand that being trained as a barista in Seattle is like graduating from the Ivy League of coffee schools. My little bundle of eccentricity is flourishing.

The Great Recession pushed me into something I've been wanting to do for decades - earn my college degree. Seattle's schools are stellar. I am learning fascinating things (even Sadistics...er, Statistics), and I'd forgotten how much I love the academic atmosphere. I will be sitting pretty for a rewarding new career when I'm done.

And there is the Tominator, my Prince Charming. In the sea-level altitude and mild coastal temperatures, he can move around largely without pain, and he can breathe. Breathing simply cannot be overrated. It's wonderful to see him feeling better than he has in years. His happiness while stringing colored lights around our balcony is infectious.

I can look out my window and see Yule trees, all year round, alive with birds and squirrels. Holiday lights in the Big City are spectacular. I have a fireplace for hanging stockings and enjoying hot cider.

But still.

When I was a little girl we would all gather around the upright grand piano. My mom would play and my dad would sing, and he sounded exactly like Perry Como. This one was his favorite, and mine too:



I'm feeling better now, but I won't stop missing people. Keep the memories coming. With the Solstice comes the return of the Sun and a lightness to carry us out of this winter hibernation.

Merry Yule, Blessed Bodhi Day, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, -- and Happy Newtonmas (or just "enjoy winter!") for the atheists!

Monday, December 1, 2014

A thousand words are worth a picture.

I've been a blogger for a few months now.

I love it.

Of course, I've gotten sidetracked, as usual. I am the Queen of Digression. I've not gotten too far with one of the projects for which I originally started this blog, which was for pieces I did for Open, Sesame, a website and learning program for Goddess and Earth-based spirituality. But I've started on it, and I can't do it all at once, even if I wanted to, which I don't, so it's all good. I've finished The Sun, and Quartz is about ready, so you'll start seeing some things on the Big Rocks (our solar system) and Small Rocks (just rocks) pages pretty soon.

Decades ago when I was a senior in high school, a creative writing teacher gave me an F on a short story because she just didn't like it. I protested to the school counselor, an awesome guy who had always had my rebellious, misfit little back, who got my back again and pleaded my case with the teacher. Just because you don't like the story doesn't mean it's not well-written, he argued. The teacher grudgingly gave me the A the counselor insisted I deserved, probably to shut us both up. I accepted my A and promptly dropped the class, which gave me an extra hour or two every day to smoke dope and sleep and hang out with my equally delinquent boyfriend, so I considered it a good trade. For years after that I entertained fantasies of mailing that teacher an autographed copy of my Pulitzer Prize-winning book, but I didn't write much. I made the mistake of letting one person's opinion matter.

A few years after that a different writing teacher who was a pleasure to learn from told me that if you want to be a writer, just be one. Just write. That's what writers do. Of course being a professional writer is a whole nother story; it's tough to find people who want to give you money for what you write. But if you don't sweat that part, if you want to be a writer, then just be one already. It only took me, oh, 25 years to take that piece of advice. I made the mistake of waiting to be perfect.

I had read interviews with successful authors who laughed about their large collections of rejection notices. I decided that no proper writer didn't have such a collection, and proceeded to start a collection of my own. I also read that many of them drank rather a lot (you're my hero, Papa Hemingway), and accordingly started drinking when I wrote. But wine didn't help* and I let the rejection slips get to me. I made the mistake of believing those rejections meant I wrote badly.

Then one of my husbands (it's not like I collect them, there have only been three, and I can't believe I just said that) read what I had asked him not to, part of a short story collection I was working on. He saw a romantic scene I had written and jumped to the conclusion that I was having an affair. That led to a nuclear fight that very nearly ended the marriage right then. With the exception of academic or technical pieces written for school or work, for the next 25 years I refused to show a word of what I wrote to anyone. I made the mistake of letting myself be stifled.

Time goes by. You learn a thing or two about how life works, and get the first glimmering that you still know nothing. You get more comfortable with yourself, and you stop giving a rat's fanny what other people think, and you realize that, generally speaking, you can do anything you want to if you're willing to just do it. I also learned that can be the hard part.

Now I'm letting myself be imperfect. I don't care about collections, I don't care about F's and I don't care if you like me. I mean, I would like it if you like me, but it's not the end of my world if you don't. I've unstifled myself.

For the first time since I was a teenager, I carry a little notebook around with me again, to keep those sudden flashes from disappearing. If I'm ever hit by a bus, anyone who reads what's scribbled in that notebook will think I escaped from the asylum.

I have discovered that it's fun to write about whatever I want to write about and not about what I think might please other people, or at least not offend. I do want to entertain people, or make them think, but that's not necessary. I might have a regular readership of 10 people, including my mom, and if it never grows, I'm cool with that. The important thing is that I'm writing. And as far as being nice goes, Anne LaMott put it succinctly: "If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better."

I have discovered that making a conscious decision to write about life as I move through it invites me to see the world very differently from what I'm used to. It's fun to rant about the peeves, but I've also been given a great many moments to pause when I see the beauty all around, for which I haven't even found words yet. I suspect there may be no words, at least not that I'm capable of finding. I didn't anticipate that and if that's what writing does, I'm grateful. And while I make no claims to any skill as a photographer, I've discovered it's fun to carry a camera to try to capture both the beauty and ugliness that move me as I go through my day. It's intriguing how often I capture an image that just happens to go with something I'm writing. I love synchronicity.

I also see that I have a stride to hit that I haven't yet. I'm pinballing around from one thing to another, looking for my voice. I've learned that voice is something no writer just has; it must be discovered and developed. I'm glad I've finally started on that.

I entered the text from this blog so far into the generator thingie at Wordle, to see what kind of picture my words make:


I like it. I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves and expands.

Thank you for being with me so far. I hope you'll stay. I also hope you'll let me know what you like on this site, so I can try to produce more of it.

*Except that a glass of Chilean red is helping right now. And I still have my collection of rejection notices to fall back on.