Thoughts for the New Year

Hello, Reader. What are you doing today?

Here in the Peninsula Town, we are cleaning the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em. Husband is swabbing the decks. I'm tending to the galley (although, obviously, I've just snuck off to write this post), and the cabin boys and girl have been ordered to tidy their quarters. Aye, aye, sir!

The close intersection of our big cleaning day and the turn of the year reminds me of something Jane Hirshfield spoke of at the reading I attended earlier this fall. She told the audience that each year at New Year's she cleans, or attempts to clean, every surface and object in her house. As she explained it, this is an annual ritual observed by Buddhists. She said that, although she has been doing this for many years, each year she always finds something that she has never cleaned before.

I find this idea fascinating: just to touch each and every surface and object that form the space one calls home... and to find places, spaces, things, that one has never touched... and then, to touch them for the first time.

I imagine that within the context of a healthy dose of Buddhist detachment, this ritual cleaning is very life-giving. However, trust me: here at the good ship Rack 'Em and Stack 'Em, under the overhang of Catholic guilt, we are attempting no such feat.

Still, I have ritual on the mind. Ritual, perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European re(i), "to count, number" via the Latin for rite, "religious observance or ceremony, custom, usage."

The holidays are rife with ritual. Even now the masses are going through the ritual contemplation of New Year's resolutions, no? Well, not me. I'm not much one for resolutions this year -- probably because of the way all my best-laid plans and goals for 2011 were cleansed away by Moving to California. This year, I'm thinking: I might exercise more, or I might not. I might eat more veggies, or I might not. I might put a chapbook together, or I might not (I pause here to offer extra credit for anyone who can tell me where this phrase comes from: "Might go to Yale. Might not.") As for New Year's rituals, we don't have any hard and fast ones around here. Sometimes we cook a nice dinner, then the kids complain about it and hardly eat, then we all go to bed. Sometimes not.

As I look to 2012, I'm thinking only

persist

natural bridge at Santa Cruz

shape and be shaped

pacific beach

stay on your path, the one you were made for

Skyline hike

keep things in perspective

redwoods

And, although I don't have a photo of it, the sign I caught sight of at a coffeeshop I drove by yesterday (and although I just had to get up from my desk, go into my bedroom, and lock the door to get it, and although someone has been hanging on that locked door crying "Mommeeeeee! Mommeeee! Mommeeeee!" for the last 10 minutes),


relax, you have plenty of time


Happy 2012, Reader.

(P.S. etymology info here)

Wordless Wednesday: In Which a Lot Can Happen in a Year

then

now

Wordless Wednesday: In the Foothills

Wordless Wednesday: Finally Fall

Wordless Wednesday: Pacific Afternoon

Wordless Wednesday: Juxtapositions: Airplane, Spider, Bougainvillea

Wordless Wednesday: First Cloudy Day (Does this mean it's Fall?)

Wordless Wednesday: Fault Line

(Yes, it's That Fault)

Sunday Words: from 'Orchard'

"I saw the first pear
as it fell—
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:
you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees. "


--from 'Orchard' by H.D.

Wordless Wednesday: Hope

Wordless Wednesday: 40 Degrees

Wordless Wednesday: Not To Be Dramatic, But, 'Bleak Mid-winter' Anyone?

Praise For My Winter Coat

In and around South-of-the-River, even the grown-ups have really warm winter coats, snow pants, and Serious Boots.

Husband likes to tease me about my winter coat.  He calls it "The Yeti."

Ok, so what? is my retort.  Like most stay-at-home moms of young children, I didn't choose my winter coat (which five years ago replaced my last winter coat, known as The Purple People Eater, that I had worn since 1990) because it was gorgeous or stylish.  I chose it because it was (1) warm, and (2) on sale for $19.99 at the Lands' End outlet.  I didn't actually seek out the Yeti fringe, it just happened to come with the Yeti fringe.  I am not in love with the Yeti fringe.  In fact, most of the time I unzip it from my hood because, yes, it is a removable Yeti fringe.  But I will say this for the Yeti fringe: it serves a purpose when there are, oh, say, seventeen inches of snow falling and 40 mile an hour winds.

Note my dry, smiling face.  Note my glasses, sans water droplets.  So, I say to Husband, you can tease me for my Yeti fringe all you want, but it keeps my face dry and out of the wind.  So there.

As for my snow pants, they do not have a Yeti fringe and there is really not very much good to say about them.  For one thing, they're turquoise.  To me, "turquoise" says it all and there's no need to go on.  But again, they did not require any significant outlay of wampum, and they keep me warm and dry.

And here are the Serious Boots (yes, with a glimpse of the, okay, I'll admit it, embarrassing, snowpants):

And here are some photos of us amidst Mama Nature's grand display:

First pass with the recently purchased (whew!) snow blower, 10:00 a.m.

Um, I'm not sure what's with all the tongues.

"When I was a girl, we had to walk home uphill both ways in six feet of snow!"

3rd pass, 4:00 p.m.

Catching the wake.

Still standing.

Wordless Wednesday: O Come Thou Dayspring

Wordless Wednesday: I'm Just Not Ready For This

Wordless Wednesday: What a Difference a Week Makes

Wordless Wednesday: Suburban Sunset

Gratitude Journal: Turning of the Year Edition

Over at Drew's blog, it's Thankful Thursday.  Every Thursday, she (and others) take a few minutes to think about and share what they're thankful for.  I am a big fan of taking time to step off the hamster wheel to focus on the small and not-so-small blessings in life.  Here's what I'm grateful for today:

~For my new mailbox, built by my dad and installed last weekend by my dad and Husband.  Our old one was leaning, leaning, leaning down into the street.  A little more lean each month.  Also, it had a bad habit of hanging around with its mouth wide open.  Couldn't seem to keep it closed.  The new mailbox is handsome and sturdy and keeps its mouth closed when it should, just like the men who built and installed it.  It makes my house feel a little more like my house.  Thanks, Pop.

~For comfortable shoes.  For shoes that are so comfortable, they all but erase my completely irrational longing for ballet flats that work for arthritic feet.

~For absentee ballots.  And actual ballots.  For secret ballots.  For the voting machine in Sidney Township where I first voted.  For the memory of pulling all those little levers down.  For the freedom to say, this one, not that one, this one, not that one.  For the (sometimes cold) comfort of freedom and the power of one vote, even when things don't turn out the way you hoped they would.

~For the silvering beauty of November.  For prairie grasses in their feathery prime.  For gunmetal grey clouds.  For the bent and wretched beauty of the bare oak tree.  For sunset at 4:52 p.m.  For a time of year that tells us to stop, look around, find beauty in sparseness and in waiting.

~For almost forgetting to put the marjoram in the split pea soup, and then NOT forgetting to put the marjoram in the split pea soup.  For split pea soup.  For the fact that everyone in my family likes split pea soup.  For an enormous honeycrisp apple from King's to serve with the split pea soup (Hello, easy side dish.  And while I'm on the topic, for all easy side dishes including: grapes, canned pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, olives, pickles, applesauce, cottage cheese, baby carrots, and sliced cucumber.  But I digress).

~For my heated mattress pad.  For central heat, warm socks, and a polarfleece bathrobe.  Yes, for warmth.

~For full moons, crescent moons, Harvest moons and Hunter's moons.  For waxing and waning moons.  For Jupiter, southwest of the moon.  Also, for Orion hanging low in the sky, bidding us goodbye for the winter.

~For every single day with my kids.  Amen, amen, amen.

I hope there are many small and not-so-small things that you are grateful for today.

Wordless Wednesday: In Case You Haven't Listened to 'Autumn' Yet This Year

here's a link

Gratitude Journal: Indian Summer Edition

Asters

gratitude   n.   appreciation of kindness; thankfulness

from the Latin gratus 'pleasing, thankful'

~

Today I am grateful...

~for Indian summer.  Beautiful warm days, blue skies and sunshine.  Dark, cool nights.  Half-moon through the trees.  No furnace running, no long underwear, no snow boots, snow pants, hats or mittens.

~for mums and asters and beautiful fall leaves (even though they are mostly on the ground now).

~for an unplanned morning at home, sans enfants.  May I submit that even a headache can be a good thing?  I woke up with one, canceled my plans for the day, put the boys on the bus, sent the girl to nursery.  I am grateful for a quiet morning, nowhere to go, nothing to do.

~for small signposts along the way on the parenthood path.  Little hints every now and then that maybe we're doing a few things right.  Specifically, school conference reports that include phrases like: "he is kind to everyone," "he's such a happy kid," "he works hard and loves to learn."

~for teachers, the work-horses of our schools.

~for friends who help without being asked.  Especially for the one (you know who you are) who picked up my special order at the coop yesterday, then came over and helped put away a big load of groceries.


What are you grateful for today?