Holiday this, that and thanks

There were a couple times in the last few days when I wanted to hop on the Facebook status bandwagon and utter a few sentences about gratitude.  Indeed, it is a pleasant fluke of the social network… that at least one day or the two or three leading up to and stepping away from it, our commentary is soaked with warm and toasty appreciation of what is good about life.

My head… and heart have been full of lots of details these last few days.  I haven’t had the impetus to focus them into a declaration of all that is great about the year drawing to a close.  Or merely the present bubble before heading into that December madness.  Only, here we are in December already switching gears to buy, buy, buy give me more than what I already have.  Or I have to buy this for someone else to make them happy.  There is definitely joy in that tradition on some level… but it breaks the spell of that warm and toasty appreciation.

Of course, I was one of those people this year.  I started playing Christmas music at some point around Veteran’s Day.  I leave up my twinkly lights all year round… so they aren’t really December specific to me.  But I did jump the gun on turning them on for ordinary days and not just the mandated retail holiday.

The meaning of the holidays changed in the last few years.  I lost my grandmother… and with her a commitment to tradition. Our family still gathers to celebrate, but without her the house is different (not in a bad way) and the little branches of our large family begin to start their own new traditions.  That is inevitable.  Sad and yet not sad.

 

Of course, I don’t have offspring or a spouse.  I do have two little nieces, though, who have altered the holiday to one where I found myself following them around the house instead of lingering at the dinner table with another glass of wine.  Someone asked me recently what I was going to buy them for Christmas.  I hadn’t thought about it much.  They are surrounded by so many toys, I know they don’t need another object to look at and toss aside when the gift bag is so much more alluring.  Nor do their parents need something else to have to pick up off the floor.  I want to say time.  But how does one package that up and put it under the tree?  But… I would like to hope… thirty some odd years down the road, that may be the one thing of which they have a vague memory as opposed to another Fisher Price toy.

Time is the gift I want to give to people.  My family.  My friends.  If that time includes something that has been mixed and baked in my kitchen and savored over a candlelit table… so much the better.  I was thinking about that.  How I don’t really stress myself out about buying people presents any more.  I don’t think it’s necessary.  I don’t want presents from anyone else.  I want presence.   At the dinner table where Christmases took place for 37 years of my life.  I offer that opportunity at least once a month throughout the year.  I put in the effort and the thought… much more than I ever would at a Target Black Sale Friday.  So I don’t stress out about the holiday or get freaked out if it creeps in before the turkey carcass is tossed out with the trash.  Because I take that advice from my favorite Sesame Street Christmas special and keep Christmas with me all through the year.  

But I seemed to have gotten myself on a tangent.  I did want to utter some declarations of appreciation for this present moment.  If for nothing else so I have a reference point in years to come.  I found my blog of this theme from four years ago a rather interesting perspective of how life changes… and how the things or people for which we are grateful in our present are not guaranteed for another present.

So, to round out this blog and the impending curtain call of 2013, here are 5 things for which I am truly grateful.  I’ve already alluded to most, but I will give each their own number.

1. I usually say family.  It is cliché, but this year I will spotlight Lily and Hannah.  There is a very strong likelihood they are the closest I will ever have to children of my own genetic makeup… so there is that very basic and impersonal fascination with the growing into features that I once possessed in some variation.  But the wonder with which they see the world is intoxicating.  As tedious as it is to go up and down the living room steps 8 or so times in a row, the mad delight of being able to understand the capability of one’s body to overcome something as intimidating as a stair is delicious.  Or the squeal of delight of opening a box of toys she sees every single week at Nana’s, but the sight of all those toys is a discovery of treasure.  We were all there once.  Willing to smile at the simplest accomplishments and appearance.  Being with them teaches me about the value of the present moment and all that is really good about it.

2. Supper Club.  I’m about to head into the fifth year of this gathering of friends.  This year the theme was a fun experiment in how we cooked and gathered throughout the 20^th century.  Through wars and depression and mass production and Pampered Chef parties.  It’s fun to try new things – I mean who knew an avocado was once called an alligator pear and was served in a cocktail glass with ketchup?  It’s also a chance to nurture friendships at the table.  Sometimes our conversations are clumsy.  Sometimes they linger until the candles are burnt to stubs that cannot be used again.  Each gathering is a different combination, a different energy… but always a reinforcement that we can connect better sitting across from one another as opposed to typing an emoticon onto an iPhone.

3. Writers.  My life is chock full of them.  Many are involved in the Worcester Writers Collaborative.  But it amazes me how many I have discovered in the last four years.  Even people I knew, but didn’t know they secretly had a book in them.  It is the last thing I expected to find when I decided to write a novel five years ago.  When I secretly worked to complete it and then took the leap to share it.  I had aspirations for literary success, but instead I’ve rewired my assessment of success.  I continue to write and shape what I think makes me a better writer.  But part of that is knowing people, seeing their story, the story they want to tell and can be the only one to tell.  There is a beauty well beyond syntax and grammar and wit in seeing someone take that leap to share a story, a very personal piece of themselves.  These people are my kindred, whether I have known them for a decade or a day.  I am very glad that writers are the people who have stepped onto my life’s path.

4. My wood stove.  This is my simple joy of the list.  And yet, a very great joy.  It provides warmth – both in the temperature sense and the softening of my heartstrings.  If I have a bad day and can come home to the flames curling around a couple logs, the day is no longer a bad day.  I miss it in the summer, but know it is the best comfort of the winter… and actually makes snow not that bad.  And nothing on Netflix is as captivating.

5.  The weird, winding, and circuitous road of life.  I will end 2013 by drawing to close a fantastic decade of living and working in the Boston area.  I moved to Worcester two years ago, but was able to maintain a half life in Boston through my job and the ability to still meet up with friends after work.  I am leaving my job the week before Christmas.  I have learned so much about running a business office… but more importantly the power and impact of using creativity to help fellow human beings.  I believe that is part of why I see writing the way I do now.  But also how I see theater… not to mention the basic importance of listening and seeing the world from another person’s perspective.  I am sad to leave behind many things – the basic little details like my view of the JP skyline at sunset, lunches at The Purple Cactus or coffee from City Feed, but certainly the many wonderful artists that are part of my working day and the family that is Freelance/Urban Improv.  However, I am beyond grateful that my return to Worcester will be an exciting new job.  In a twist of fate I am going back to museums full time.  It will be a lot of the business side of things as I do now, but I will weirdly enough be working in the same building as the armor with which I started my career.  Change is tough.  Change is heartbreaking.  But like any muscle, you get strength by breaking it.  I want to acknowledge the sad.  But the happy is more worthwhile and infinitely more productive.  I embrace what is to come.  I know it will have its own challenges… but as much as life is about appreciating the good things we have, it is also knowing how those good things equip us to take a leap into the chaos and find the things for which I can be grateful at the end of next November.

And should there be any reader other than my future self ruminating on my mind and heart at this current moment, I hope you relish in your present, the presence, and the possibility of the holiday season.  Light some candles at your dinner table.  Look across from you.  Listen.  Hear.  Smile.  Be here.  Now.