And a Happy New Year

Austin sunset

I missed posting yesterday. We drove to Austin for a visit with dear friends and they invited us to stay for dinner and we did. We sat and talked and laughed while Max played with his very best friend and it was a perfect way to ring out 2010.

Somehow, the end of this year has gifted me with a lovely sense of calm and well-being. I think it bodes well for the year to come.

Instead of resolutions this year, I am thinking about what I want more of in my life and what I want less of. I want more nights like last night. I want more peace. I want to trust in this calm center no matter what storms blow in.

I want less stress and perhaps, less internet.

What do you want more of in the coming year? What do you want less of?

Gifts

I received some wonderful, thoughtful gifts this holiday. Here is one of my favorites, my new kitchen timer.

My old timer died several months ago. (Frank would argue that the old timer still works - it just doesn't make any sound when your time is up. This is fine, if you are looking at the display when the time is up, but not much help when you are down the hall folding towels.)

I've been using my iPod touch as a timer but I live in constant fear of sloshing something on it and ruining it and then I would never run again because running without listening to R.E.M. or Rhett Miller is just no fun at all.

I love my new kitchen timer. Thanks, Santa!

Ten

We celebrated Max's tenth birthday yesterday with presents and a magical chocolate cake.

It was a landmark, the double-digit birthday and Max approached it with his unique combination of bravado and a tender heart. It helped that his grandmother was here to celebrate with us.

Sane Holiday

One of the things I figured out this year about keeping my cool and not spiraling out of control was this: keep it simple, especially in the kitchen.

I come from the land of a thousand holiday side dishes. In the past, I have spent almost all of christmas day in the kitchen. By the time dinner was on the table I would be frazzled, resentful and exhausted.

This year I kept the meal very simple, meat, potatoes, veg, rolls, dessert, wine. When Max said he really wanted refrigerated crescent rolls, I said sure, no holiday bread baking for me! I made both desserts the afternoon before.

So on christmas day I got to play and skateboard with Max and knit with my mom. When we sat down to dinner, I felt happy and grateful.

My new holiday rule: don't martyr yourself in the kitchen.

I May Have

I may have just experienced the sanest, most peaceful holiday of my entire adult life but I'm too tired to tell you about it tonight. Come back tomorrow.

Merry Christmas

We are christmasing like crazy over here and this may be the only chance I have to wish you a wonderful, peaceful holiday.

Merry Christmas, my friends.

In the Spirit

Some notes from today:

Turns out if you are patient and kind sales people really appreciate it.

The guy in line in front of me who asked a lot of questions about the beer I was buying was kind of flirting with me.

Max tried flan at dinner tonight.

Soccer balls can and will break windows.

I cry at all the wrong moments during How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

"pinned to the now

by the soft roar of what I love"

The list of movies I need to add to my netflix queue is now more than a page long.

A Santa gift was lost and then miraculously found at my sister's house.

Right now, at this very minute, I can hear Max rocking in the rocking chair while he reads a book we raced to the library to pick up before they closed at 6pm.

I may be beginning to believe in magic again.

Things I'm Grateful For

• Having my mother here for the holidays
• Getting in and out of the pediatrician's office in record time this morning
• Two doses of antibiotic and Max is already feeling better
• Lunch with my cousin's daughter (is she my great-cousin?) and her beautiful little boys
• My niece, Lauren, is okay
• My funky little family

The Kindness of Strangers

Dear Every Single Person Who Was Kind and Patient and Helpful to my Mother Today as She Flew from Portland to San Diego to San Antonio:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Love,

Laura

This is the Day or Holiday Lament

This is the day I lost it.

This is the day when I suffered through everything with a clenched heart.

This is the day when I stormed and slammed.

This is the day when there were tears all day long, just behind my eyes.

This is the day of the lump in the throat.

This is the day of the stiff jaw, the fake-out smile.

This is the day of tremble, of frustration, and I am done.

I will do what I can, where I am, with what I have and I will do it with a glad heart and next year, I swear to you, I will do things differently.

totally unrelated photo of Max that I just happen to love - he's fierce

Sunday

Max has a cold so our day consisted of a little bit of this

a little bit of that

and one more holiday tradition.

One of our holiday traditions is making these no-bake haystack cookies.

Perfectly Imperfect

Max was a bit of a perfectionist when he was smaller. He needed things to be just so, or he'd get frustrated and angry. He has, I believe, overcome a good deal of his need for things to be perfect. He's a sloppier, messier and happier child. So when his gingerbread man arrived on his desk at the christmas party with its leg broken off, Max just rolled with it.

Max's Gingerbread Man of Imperfection

Adventures in Shopping

My contribution to Max's class holiday party was to be 9 toys, something small in the $1-2 range, bingo prizes for the boys in the class. Someone else was assigned the "girl toys."

I decided, after a little discussion with Max, to go to the "party store" and pick up some bouncy balls for the boys. So, as I pulled into the store parking lot today, I was musing about what color bouncy balls and what size balls I would get. I didn't even notice that mine was the only car in the lot. It was early, I thought, the store had just opened.

It wasn't until I was standing directly in front of the door that I noticed, the store was gone. The building was totally empty. I just stood there with my hand on the door, looking through the windows in disbelief. My heart started to beat a little faster as I read the smallish sign announcing that they'd be happy to meet my party needs at the store located way the hell out in loopland with the freeway and the traffic and the 30 minutes to get out there and 30 minutes back.

I panicked a little. I may have actually stomped my foot.

Trudging back to the car I remembered that the last time we were in the big box toy store (for a Lego event) they had a dollar toy area near the front of the store. It was just a few blocks away. Surely I could find something there.

So, I was off to the big box toy store and as you might imagine the dollar toy area was completely picked over. Lots of empty bins and there were two items they had nine of, pink beaded bracelets and plastic handcuffs.

I seriously considered the handcuffs.

After a fruitless trip to the back of the store in search of bouncy balls, (I was so enamored of the bouncy ball idea - it was hard to give it up) I literally stumbled upon the perfect thing. A small plastic travel game similar to Connect Four. There were exactly nine of them on the shelf. I bought them all.

The lesson here, I guess, is don't get too attached to your original idea or you might miss the perfect thing right in front of you, or always have a stash of bouncy balls just in case, or only volunteer to bring cookies.

This Day

This day just got away from me. But that's not really unusual - it happens all the time, for a lot of different reasons.

What is unusual is the reason this day slipped through my fingers so quickly and here it is: I had a amazing brainstorm of a poem idea today and I spent every spare moment here at my desk, fleshing it out.

It is a great idea, a run around the house with my hair on fire kind of idea and I'm going to go work on it right now.

My Day

I spent most of this day dealing with unpleasantness, stressful, jaw-clenching stuff, I did not want to deal with. Still, it had to be done and with a really tight jaw and a lot of deep breathing, I got through it all.

I tried to remember that I was lucky to have the resources to be able to deal with this problem. That what I had to slog through this morning did not have to define my day, but it did for the most part.

When the dust settled, all I could think was, my day! My beautiful day, gone! I am almost convinced I would have written the best poem of my life, the break-through poem, if only I could have spent this morning at my desk like I planned.

I would love to tell you how I managed to turn things around. All I know is this: I kept breathing - a lot of slow deep breaths. I remembered to eat lunch and drink tall glasses of water. I washed my face and picked up Max from school and listened intently to every single thing that was good about his day.

I just kept moving forward, doing the things that needed to be done and eventually, I was sitting at the table knitting while Max was doing his homework, and I felt the last of this morning's unpleasantness lift from my shoulders and fly away.

My day, my beautiful day.

Random Monday Things

• Max has a cello concert tonight and he is wearing tie. My heart may explode from motherly pride - he looks so darn cute.
• My sister is sick. (I hope you're feeling better, Boots.)
• I am seriously considering one of those single cup coffee robots. Suggestions? Thoughts?
• My friend, Wendy, was in my dream last night and it was really wonderful to see her, even if it was just in a dream.
• I am drinking a beer before the cello concert. I feel slightly guilty about that.
• I am currently reading five different books.
• I am working very hard at being a more compassionate person.

O Christmas Tree

We picked out a tree yesterday

even though it was about 75 degrees.

Somehow, we ended up with the biggest, tallest tree we've ever had.

You are Here

For the first time since I started blogging, I didn’t even attempt NaBloPoMo this year. I knew that with things being so hit or miss over here I would just be setting myself up to fail. I also knew that the circumstances that are keeping me from posting here were not going to miraculously disappear for a month. So I keep wanting to write here, longing for it actually. I want to write here but I don’t really know how to talk about where I am right now.

And then, Karen, who has been doing her own back and forth dance on her blog, decided to blog every day for the month of December, and I’ve decided to keep her company – starting today.

Something has been happening with me over the last few months. I am hanging out with some new, wise women online. I’ve been looking at my life with new eyes. I’m meditating and journaling a lot. I am working hard to be present when it matters most.

Winter is beginning here and it always engenders a kind of panic in me. Maybe it is the onslaught of the holidays, maybe it is leftover from my lean grad school days in Maine when I worried so much about being cold. Whatever it is, it has gripped me with new force this year, thus the meditating and journaling.

I was stunned to realize this week that for all my lip service to authenticity and vulnerability, I find being vulnerable almost unbearably painful. I am tearful. I cry easily these days. But of this I am certain: something inside me is softening, cracking open, making way for something new. It is very uncomfortable but it is filling me with hope.

Personal transformation and change are hard to describe. It all sounds very woo woo and I don’t feel like I have the right vocabulary or the authority (if I’m being honest) to talk about it.

As the darkest days of the year approach, as I stumble through advent and headlong into the holidays, I’m going to try and write honestly about these things here.