Boring post, take II, now with more awesome!
My life for the past month: wake up at 7 or 8am, leave at 8 or 9, start work at 9 or 10. Work until 6 or 10pm, drive an hour home, go to bed. This is why I have been dead to the world, because I am away from my house/the internet/a phone signal for up to 14 hours every day. I only have a week more of this, so it's all cool!
NOW THAT THAT IS OUT OF THE WAY.
Daniel and I are going to be road tripping down to Durham, North Carolina early this January to visit the inestimable Elizabeth Similey and Shira Pittle*! And I think it would be pretty awesome to see as many of our friends in that general area as possible. We already have plans to stop by Gordon in Cincinnati on the way there, and maybe Josh and my brothers in Maryland and DC on the way back. I don't think we'll have time/money to make it as far north as New York or as far south as South Carolina. Is there anyone on the East Coast** who wants us to try to stop by?
Night is falling on Holland. The snow (a pitiful two inches, compared to the snow in DC and elsewhere) is still falling in a gentle, useless way. The sunset tonight is in shades of greys, warm and cool, across the sky from over the dunes. The first iceburgs haven't started this far south quite yet. This time a year ago, we had almost two feet of snow on the ground and the ice went out from shore four hundred feet, all sharp points and dangerous valleys.
I let Pixel out on the roof a bit ago, her first experience with snow! She is a cat who loves water (so long as she can control how wet she gets), and she was utterly baffled by it. It stuck to her paws and tail and it tasted funny and it wasn't firm! She was also introduced face-to-face with a tree for the first time when we dragged one in last week. It baffled her.
It's perfect, a lovely tear-shaped blue spruce, now covered in little white lights and shiny red balls. We haven't had anything on the top for ten years. I remember, with the warm-colored fuzzy lenses of childhood, a bright many-pointed golden star, and later a porcelain angel with a pure face and a delicate dress. Right now, as a place-holder, we have a paper mache Sinter Claus my aunt made years ago. Hanging behind the tree, on the stair banister, are the three huge stockings for my brothers and me, hand knit white ones with green toes and heels and little holly leaves and berries around the top. When I get to thinking about it, my family really has one of those postcard perfect Christmas atmospheres, like you see in old Hollywood films and in saccharine Hallmark movies. We had it last year, even though we thought we were losing our house and would never be able to have it again. And we have it this year, even though the boxes under the tree are mostly for looks.
I don't remember when I stopped caring about Christmas presents. I think it was when I went away to college, but I think it really started after I came home from Scotland and all I cared about at all was how much I loved the people I was with, and how glad I was I had them. That remains one of my brightest memories. Netta, Gordon, Caitlin, Rookie, you brought me so much joy in those few days, that the thought of it acts like a little portable fire on cold days. I can warm my hands around it and it casts happy, yellow light on everything. Thank you all so much for it. I wish we weren't cast all over the world. I wish I could revisit those days.
I'm sorry, that waxed a little sugary for everyone else there. I have Garrison Keillor on in the background, singing with a pure soprano about the Mercy of God. Frankly, he could have been singing about the ingredients on a Coke can*** and I would have been weeping, because he's Garrison Keillor and I'm in one of those moods. Everything is red and gold and blue and white. I am with family that I haven't seen except for a few hours in a little over a year, and even though I wish I had a thousand long arms with which to hold everyone I wish was here a little closer to me, I am happy.
I love you.
*everything about this is exciting!
**or between Holland, Michigan and the east coast, rather?
*** My mother (and I) are both very easy to move to tears. My brothers thought it was hilarious that a coffee commercial or telephone commercial could set her off, and decided to experiment. They sat her in the kitchen and in moving voices read off the ingredients on the side of a can of soda. Laughing the whole time, my mom did, in fact, burst into tears.
NOW THAT THAT IS OUT OF THE WAY.
Daniel and I are going to be road tripping down to Durham, North Carolina early this January to visit the inestimable Elizabeth Similey and Shira Pittle*! And I think it would be pretty awesome to see as many of our friends in that general area as possible. We already have plans to stop by Gordon in Cincinnati on the way there, and maybe Josh and my brothers in Maryland and DC on the way back. I don't think we'll have time/money to make it as far north as New York or as far south as South Carolina. Is there anyone on the East Coast** who wants us to try to stop by?
Night is falling on Holland. The snow (a pitiful two inches, compared to the snow in DC and elsewhere) is still falling in a gentle, useless way. The sunset tonight is in shades of greys, warm and cool, across the sky from over the dunes. The first iceburgs haven't started this far south quite yet. This time a year ago, we had almost two feet of snow on the ground and the ice went out from shore four hundred feet, all sharp points and dangerous valleys.
I let Pixel out on the roof a bit ago, her first experience with snow! She is a cat who loves water (so long as she can control how wet she gets), and she was utterly baffled by it. It stuck to her paws and tail and it tasted funny and it wasn't firm! She was also introduced face-to-face with a tree for the first time when we dragged one in last week. It baffled her.
It's perfect, a lovely tear-shaped blue spruce, now covered in little white lights and shiny red balls. We haven't had anything on the top for ten years. I remember, with the warm-colored fuzzy lenses of childhood, a bright many-pointed golden star, and later a porcelain angel with a pure face and a delicate dress. Right now, as a place-holder, we have a paper mache Sinter Claus my aunt made years ago. Hanging behind the tree, on the stair banister, are the three huge stockings for my brothers and me, hand knit white ones with green toes and heels and little holly leaves and berries around the top. When I get to thinking about it, my family really has one of those postcard perfect Christmas atmospheres, like you see in old Hollywood films and in saccharine Hallmark movies. We had it last year, even though we thought we were losing our house and would never be able to have it again. And we have it this year, even though the boxes under the tree are mostly for looks.
I don't remember when I stopped caring about Christmas presents. I think it was when I went away to college, but I think it really started after I came home from Scotland and all I cared about at all was how much I loved the people I was with, and how glad I was I had them. That remains one of my brightest memories. Netta, Gordon, Caitlin, Rookie, you brought me so much joy in those few days, that the thought of it acts like a little portable fire on cold days. I can warm my hands around it and it casts happy, yellow light on everything. Thank you all so much for it. I wish we weren't cast all over the world. I wish I could revisit those days.
I'm sorry, that waxed a little sugary for everyone else there. I have Garrison Keillor on in the background, singing with a pure soprano about the Mercy of God. Frankly, he could have been singing about the ingredients on a Coke can*** and I would have been weeping, because he's Garrison Keillor and I'm in one of those moods. Everything is red and gold and blue and white. I am with family that I haven't seen except for a few hours in a little over a year, and even though I wish I had a thousand long arms with which to hold everyone I wish was here a little closer to me, I am happy.
I love you.
*everything about this is exciting!
**or between Holland, Michigan and the east coast, rather?
*** My mother (and I) are both very easy to move to tears. My brothers thought it was hilarious that a coffee commercial or telephone commercial could set her off, and decided to experiment. They sat her in the kitchen and in moving voices read off the ingredients on the side of a can of soda. Laughing the whole time, my mom did, in fact, burst into tears.