New newness

Happy new year to all. As I empty the crumbs from my keyboard while my bowel expands and contracts from overuse I feel positive and quite vibrant despite two weeks of bodily abuse. Even though I felt crabby and forlorn yesterday, bored even, by my limited existence, this morning I am renewed. I have dismantled the Christmas tree and tucked away neatly all the little decorations and this activity has strengthened me even more. Managing ones own chaos is so very good for the soul. Things are not perfect, were they ever? It doesn't matter. I am to forge ahead, keeping busy, keeping it light, keeping it real as they say. I like the new year, sappy as that is. The clean slate, fresh page, new notebookness of it is inspiring.

It's Here!

Jesus, if it isn't Christmas again. Next to school and summer break, Christmas is my daughters absolute favorite time of year and while I am not prone to overdoing things I try to make it as special as possible for her.  She would have us get a tree directly after Thanksgiving but my waspish reserve dictates we must wait until around the 20th of December. Now that she is older and busier we have to be flexible and look for opportunities to fit it all in. We got the tree on Friday afternoon, we trooped next door to my neighbors personal tree lot and sawed one down with his permission, of course. We decorated it Saturday morning whiling away the time before Pearl's dad came to get her for a weekend visit. As we decorated we talk about the decorations. Where they came from or who made them, which are our favorites and why. We talk about the approach to decorating the tree, the logistics and physics of it. I was not one of those parents who let my kid decorate the tree so this comes up in conversation too. I can't help myself, aesthetics are important to me and yes I am a control freak. Christmas is going to be a bit thinner this year but we'll have fun anyway repeating the old standards and introducing a few new tricks. I'm grateful for my kid, my husband and my improving mental health.

My Way

Christmas is looming on the horizon. I get near daily reminders from my young protege that the countdown is on, the expectations building. I used to be into buying gifts, long ago in a land called Los Angeles when plastic filled my wallet. I recall distinctly staring into my medicine cabinet at 5 or 6 matching bottles branded perfectly for my particular demographic, cleanser, toner, moisturizer, fixatives. I felt completely complete staring at those frosted bottles with their signature grey tops. I had graduated from the green kind and would soon be onto the next iteration but something happened and I stopped consuming, stopped feeding that internal emptiness with stuff. The cards got paid off and the accounts were closed. I feel no ill will toward the consumer society that surrounds me, my lack of consumption is not a political act I just don't want to buy stuff for the sake of buying stuff. My budgets are pretty tight lately and so I can't rationalize a spending balloon at a time of year when I need things like heating fuel and warm sox. I look around my studio and house and I have mountains of supplies waiting to be put to good use, an excess of raw materials. I like giving gifts and I like making things and I like to keep my hands and brain busy when the nights grow long. This year I have decided to embroider some small pieces for the people on my list who I know already have more stuff than they could extract quickly from a burning house. I do like Christmas and one of the things I like best about it is decorating the tree, hanging all the ornaments that various people have given me over the years. I unwrap them carefully one-by-one from the tissue beds where they have been laying dormant waiting to spark my memory with warm thoughts about their origins. This year as I have done in the past I set about creating those memories for others and in the process I feel full and warm and I am pretty sure that's a valid experience for this time of year.

Here's a finished piece that has already found a home next door with my good friend. She was quite pleased with it and I was too. Mission accomplished.