ramblin’ ’round

New Year’s is coming. I tried to write about being curled in the dark at the Solstice, but I left the post hanging in my draft file.

It’s raining, pouring. Now it rains in December, November, October. No doubt it will rain in January. There are lots of nights when the temps drop into the teens and single digits; and yes, there are snowstorms and cancellations and hazardous driving conditions. I’m curled in my cold house, layers of clothing as if I lived in a stone castle. When did I start to dress like an old person?

This should all be snow. I hate this rain every year now. We all know it’s wrong, at least those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s and remember a snowy winter and never saw rain from October ’til April.

Some of the curling inward this year is because I am still struggling with injury—sprains, strains, arthritis; an unknown and un-diagnosible protrusion on my L clavicle. I can’t move as well as I’d like so I curl up. I am not depressed though. I am cheerful and well-rested for the most part.

I’ve thought of writing a post chronicling all the cool things I was privileged to do this year and maybe I still will. The music, the dances, the museums. I am surrounded by art and culture and I get to go to the ocean a fair bit.

I am also thinking I will do a post about resolutions.

Here’s a Calder from the Cleveland Museum of Art which we visited on a rare Thanksgiving jaunt to Ohio.

Once when we were in New York, the kids were still very young, we saw a Calder in one of the rooms at whichever museum (MOMA? MMA?) and we blew on it. You are not allowed to make the Calder move by blowing on it and we were chided by the museum attendant. It was the definition of irony.

Such whimsy and fun:

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i do not think it will snow

My Ohio friends say snow snow snow, but I don’t think it will come our way. I’ve been telling you this for a while now. I can believe in the Solstice and the return of the light, but I can’t believe in snow.

I looked up a recent post and an image had disappeared from it. Was it my own photo or a photo from the web? I don’t know, but I’ll add something back.

I started watching Downton Abbey and I like it a lot. I am in love with all of the good characters; and though I see my humanity in each, I hate all the bad ones.

When I was growing up and we spent Christmas in Canada with our very best family friends, we did celebrate Boxing Day. No one in the US had heard of Boxing Day yet.

We would walk and walk on their 50 acres, we would drink and eat and play games and laze about the house. This was my Christmas for many years after the age of 7.

I am going to submit some more poems starting this week including at least one manuscript. I’ve been on hiatus but the rejections still trickle in. The one online poetry journal that accepted a poem seems to be out-of-commission, but I can’t know for sure until I hear something further. It’s been a couple of months since my submission was accepted and now, POOF!, even their website lies fallow….

After this post, I will post a poem in a separate post. Until then (in a few minutes!), please enjoy this musical interlude:

This is from Saturday night’s concert in Montague.

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Christmas Mix

Christmas can be a mixed bag for a girl like me, a half-Jew brought up by a couple of atheists. So much history can be boiled down into my feelings and experiences of this season of holidays.

The first time I celebrated a real Christmas was when I was 4 years old in Germany. I think they still put live candles on the trees, but I can’t be sure. What I remember most clearly are oranges, nuts and a nutcracker, and a whole fish in aspic. You hear me tell of it here and there, in a poem or so.

There is no snow and I am convinced it will never snow again in New England. I think Paul will have to mow the lawn in January and I think the cat will never be rid of fleas because it will never freeze deeply enough ever again.

What we do know is that the light is coming back. That’s what we know and we know it and know it and know it. And it doesn’t mean we all have to be happy, so don’t fall into that trap of manufactured bullshit. You are allowed to mope and be sad and angry and have a crappy time. You are, you really are. And if you are lucky, you will get to spend that time of yourself with the people you love. That’s all. Food and family and a bit of warmth and light. If not family, the friends who stand in as family. If you are having a hard time generating your own light, steal it from someone else and don’t feel bad about it. They are giving it away because they have enough.

We went to hear Tim and Peter and Zoe on Saturday night at The Montague Book Mill. I can’t say that Christmas songs are my favorite thing in the world, but it’s a magical space and I was glad to be there.

I’ll just post some song now, not even one that the little trio played last night.

I was driving my kid to her dance group yesterday morning and I heard this song on the radio. First I thought, oh no, a country song with all the Christmas clichés. But did I find myself crying by the end? Oh, yes, oh yes I did.

I’d take this honesty and heartfelt emotion over your Bing Crosby Baby-Jesus-With-The-Blue-Eyes any day. Any day.

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Thankful Thursday–wool installation, wool, silk long johns, new cat, and advent calender photo update

Above is a photo of some of the sheep at my daughter’s school. You can’t really tell, but behind them (and all around their enclosure) is wool embedded into the chicken wire fence. It is an installation by a local artist, Nancy Milliken, called Walling In. All the while it was going up onto the fence I thought, “hmmm…..now isn’t that interesting and not altogether attractive?” But I will tell you: I drive from the south side of Bay Rd (the road that used to take folks from points west to the Bay, in Boston) and as the road bends, the fence is fully visible as it spills down the hill. It’s beautiful. I love it.

You’ll find a better photo of the whole fence on Nancy Milliken’s website. You’ll also find a photo of a rooster from the school. This rooster. Isn’t he pretty?

Look at the chicken wire up close:

You know I don’t love wool. I used to not be able to wear it at all–the itching and coarseness. When we moved to the Pioneer Valley, it was almost sacrilege not to wear wool, let alone to not like it. Try taking that a step further from the bubble of the Pioneer Valley into the even smaller community that is our local Waldorf school. Wool in our Waldorf school is to clothing like manna is to food. It’s practically heaven-sent and good for anything that ails you. In fact, it is probably edible in some form or another, just ask the Handwork-slash-Ag Arts teacher. I used to hate wool. I sort of still do. Slowly, over the last 11 years, my body seems to have adjusted to it a little: I can wear some wool-blend socks, as long as the percent of wool isn’t too high. I can wear my wool coat because it has a thick polar-fleece lining. I cannot wear a wool scarf directly next to my skin, even the Smartwool kind. I do have a lovely pink and black polka-dot hat that is merino wool and I can wear that.

Maybe it doesn’t matter so much, all of this wool. It’s the Solstice, December 22, and it’s raining in New England. I am sure up in the hill towns and in the mountains there is some snow. Rain in December. What happened to our climate? You probably don’t need wool in New England until January nowadays.

Silk is the other natural fiber one must acquaint oneself with in New England. My initial reaction when told I must wear silks in the winters here was to turn my nose up. The nerve! Me, who was somewhat “tactile defensive” as a child (they just told you to behave or slapped you when I was a kid, no such thing as tactile defensive). I remember a particular episode when I had to wear tights and how I screamed my head off in protest. I did eventually learn to wear silk long underwear and I fell in love with the warmth and softness and the not-overwhelming level of heat that they keep in (unlike a lot of synthetics which can make me too warm unless I’m outside and not moving).

I love new kitty SO MUCH:

Here is the latest photo of the advent calender:

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