here's a health to all true lovers
The interesting and quite possibly lovely thing about 2009 is that, sitting here now with my gigantic mug of coffee and my fairy lights glimmering over the frosty window, I am not counting the moments until this year is gone and I am out of it. 2009 was full of ups and very deep downs, lots of snarls and tangley bits, times when I didn't feel in control of myself at all, and the nonsense of my bank account getting overdrawn twice (plus my horrible night at the bus station, where nothing traumatising happened, but the atmosphere of the place was just so dreadful that it took me an entire day to scour it out of my system), and the frustration of joblessness and lack of money and related issues. But there were no disasters, unlike previous years, and my depression seems, despite some of the downs, to be improving, rather than getting worse, which I have never really been able to say until now. I have plenty of regrets about this year, but I do not feel -- caged by it. I am ready for new things.
And anyway, this was the year of staying a week and a half with my Kyra in gorgeous Alaska (and the joy of air travel -- no one seems to love it as I do, but I love every little mad thing about airports and planes), and my family's two weeks in Cape Breton, with the cold, muddy, jubilee insanity of Stanfest, and then our Green Gables in the hills with the outdoor shower under a thousand stars and the fireflies over a low golden moon, and this was the year that I discovered Eva Ibbotson's delightfully rich and comfortable novels, and the year that my own Novel really started to go down deep, and the year I learnt that I can write songs, and even compose and sing them. It was also the Year of Buying Many Books, what with the Waldenbooks job giving me a) actual money and b) BOOK DISCOUNTS, which is why I have all of the Eva Ibbotson adult novels lined up on my bookshelf, and have bought dozens of other books cheaply online or at Goodwill or the used bookstore, and I am so pleased, because at last most of the books in my book closet belong wholly to me, and many of my favourite books now reside with me rather than in far-away libraries.
It was the year of small things -- perhaps I used up so much magic on Alaska (flying over the mountains with fires burning against the snow!) and Cape Breton that my birthday and Christmas had to be small, intimate, lovely things to keep the awesome from drying up, or something: but they were comfortable and right anyway. It was a year of better understanding myself and my God and my place in the world, although... that's not so very sorted out yet, methinks. So here's to 2010 (two-thousand-ten? twenty-ten? ONLY THE FUTURE KNOWS), to new life, to (I hope) a church in which I can grow, much more writing, and trying, as I do a little more every year, to live deeper and wider, with heart wide open and ready for stories to enter in.
♫ air & simple gifts - john williams (performed by yo-yo ma, anthony mcgill, gabriela montero, & itzhak perlman)
my quintessential song for hope and beginnings. the thread of "simple gifts" makes me cry with its elusive familiarity.
And anyway, this was the year of staying a week and a half with my Kyra in gorgeous Alaska (and the joy of air travel -- no one seems to love it as I do, but I love every little mad thing about airports and planes), and my family's two weeks in Cape Breton, with the cold, muddy, jubilee insanity of Stanfest, and then our Green Gables in the hills with the outdoor shower under a thousand stars and the fireflies over a low golden moon, and this was the year that I discovered Eva Ibbotson's delightfully rich and comfortable novels, and the year that my own Novel really started to go down deep, and the year I learnt that I can write songs, and even compose and sing them. It was also the Year of Buying Many Books, what with the Waldenbooks job giving me a) actual money and b) BOOK DISCOUNTS, which is why I have all of the Eva Ibbotson adult novels lined up on my bookshelf, and have bought dozens of other books cheaply online or at Goodwill or the used bookstore, and I am so pleased, because at last most of the books in my book closet belong wholly to me, and many of my favourite books now reside with me rather than in far-away libraries.
It was the year of small things -- perhaps I used up so much magic on Alaska (flying over the mountains with fires burning against the snow!) and Cape Breton that my birthday and Christmas had to be small, intimate, lovely things to keep the awesome from drying up, or something: but they were comfortable and right anyway. It was a year of better understanding myself and my God and my place in the world, although... that's not so very sorted out yet, methinks. So here's to 2010 (two-thousand-ten? twenty-ten? ONLY THE FUTURE KNOWS), to new life, to (I hope) a church in which I can grow, much more writing, and trying, as I do a little more every year, to live deeper and wider, with heart wide open and ready for stories to enter in.
♫ air & simple gifts - john williams (performed by yo-yo ma, anthony mcgill, gabriela montero, & itzhak perlman)
my quintessential song for hope and beginnings. the thread of "simple gifts" makes me cry with its elusive familiarity.