This post is dedicated to my brother, partly because it centers around the events of his 21st birthday, but mostly because we were each other's first guardians.
Well, I was his first guardian--aside from our parents--and have always been protective of my little brother; he's not so little anymore, but I'm still protective. He, on the other hand, was the first person to understand that I dislike being "guarded," and so to watch out for me without trying to save me from anything. He is always observing me and thinking about me (and his younger sisters) and, because we have been partners in crime since 8 or 9 months before his birth, we destroy all other teams when we are paired at Cranium. (These days he's crushing all of us at the Man Game, but that's as it should be, I suppose.)
Anyway, as a result of all this, combined with his love for art and special effects, it's not so surprising that it was his idea to start our grown-up tradition of going to see animated movies for each of our birthdays. We've seen "Tangled," "The Muppets," "Arthur Christmas," and most recently (yesterday) "Rise oftheGuardians."
OK everyone, listen up: WATCH THIS MOVIE. It's so good.
I know that I'm a sucker for this kind of touchy-feely, "good things in the universe" business, but I think everyone can benefit from a dose of that stuff every now and then. This movie features Santa (Alec Baldwin), the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher), and the Sandman, brought together by the Man in the Moon--all the guardians of our childhood, our innocence, our capacity for joy and wonderment, our ability to dream and to believe in anything of consequence.
And when fear starts closing in and extinguishing all these lights from the world--a topic I could almost write a thesis on--the Man in the Moon appoints another Guardian: Jack Frost (Chris Pine), the Guardian of Fun.
For me, jaded beyond reason this Christmas season, the Rise of the Guardians actually did save me from totally succumbing to cynicism. It reminded me of the true significance of holidays and rites of passage. Not that I had completely forgotten, but the older I get, and the more immersed in an individualistic, dog-eat-dog societal routine, the more profound and necessary these messages appear to me. The more I need movies like "Love Actually" and, now, "Rise of the Guardians."
But really, we are each other's guardians in the day-to-day. It falls to us to remind each other of our innocence and joy and dreams, year-round. My brother, for example, is the Sandman (and not just because he conked out on the couch halfway through "Back to the Future" on Friday night). He is the Sandman because he is utilitarian in his communication, and he creates art out of nothing, like dreams out of sand. He reminds me of the weight of details, the importance of paying attention to them and remembering them, every day.
Happy birthday, bro. And everyone else: happy new year. May your 2013s be full of wonder.
Welp, as you may have noticed, the world didn't exactly end last week.
(I'm still not convinced that there isn't a missing pin somewhere in the scaffolding of the universe, that is causing the whole thing to sort of slide gradually into complete disarray... But it looks like the Mayan calendar ending was more of a technical issue and not a cosmic one.)
So that left us to the shopping we put off in case the world were to end, to the stuffing our faces with all the food we were bummed to think we might never get to eat again, to the going back to the same old taking things for granted in absence of a definitive moment when they might be ripped away.
Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas.
For me, this Christmas felt like my first real adult Christmas. Here's why:
1. I woke up in my own house, and had to leave to go "home for Christmas." Obviously this isn't the first year I've done that, but let's be real: being a college kid home for the holidays is a TOTALLY different animal than living up the road and coming back to open presents and eat and then going back home to sleep in your own bed again.
2. Along those same lines, I've never been a holiday family hopper until this year. If you're not familiar with this term, I might have made it up. Basically, Jason and I had joint invitations to at least 3 different places on Christmas day, presents to open and/or food to eat at each of them. This belly-full day brimming with sometimes conflicting expectations and extra people to consider was a new thing for me, and certainly a learning experience that I'll have to remember when coordinating Christmas 2013. (Do we have any foretold apocalypses between now and then? Maybe just a surprise rapture here or there?) Plus, our Christmas dinner table had 11 people squeezed around it, and each of them was a part of our "immediate" family.
3. Somehow I've never experienced the Christmas Gift-Giving Competition until this year. I think this must be how adults make Christmas into a game, after we lose the excitement of Christmas. I guess the plus side of having multiple Christmases is increased chances of "winning Christmas"? If you don't win at one, there's always the hope of House & Family #2 to boost your personal odds.
To be slightly less cynical, it is nice to give a gift that hits the spot for somebody else, because honestly there isn't much stuff I still need in my life. And, it's a materialistic way to show new people that you have been paying attention, and/or to get brownie points with key players...
(I didn't say it was NOT cynical, I just said it was LESS.)
4. My sister asked me if I wanted to go shopping on Black Friday, and I said it sounded like my worst nightmare. Been there, done that. I would go nowhere near the mall on the day after Thanksgiving. I think I actually managed to steer clear of that place through the whole Christmas season; I made a point of it. I did end up doing some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve, but I have vowed to avoid it until 2013 and so far I'm succeeding. Knock on wood. I did almost all my shopping online this year, and even had most of it in hand by December 15.
I understand that this level of forethought will be almost certainly short-lived, if my parents are any indication of later adulthood, post-marriage and -children. But for now I'm basking in my uncommitted young adulthood.
5. Also speaking of making Christmas fun after toys, and now that I'm out of college my win list has become populated with a new kind of toy: kitchen appliances. So far I've got a toaster oven and a blender, plus an adorable lunch bag that puts me securely in the running for cutest lunch bag at work, a colander, adjustable measuring spoon, cookbooks, coasters, mugs, and a gorgeous wooden fruit bowl. I am SO set for 2013: The Year of Smoothies & Slow-Cooked Meals. Can't wait to get started.
6. And last for now, my Christmas CD of choice (one of 2 I can stand at all) is a $6.99 Classic Soft Rock Christmas album from Walgreens that includes hits by Elton John, Kenny Loggins, Hall & Oates, and Carly Simon. My other 2 bearable picks are something by Straight No Chaser, and... Well, that's it. A hit here or there from the Biebs or Mariah Carey, and a few of the musicians and songs featured on NPR. I've tried on a few occasions this season to listen to Christmas music, to no avail. It pretty much makes me want to gag.
Maybe since it's been the only thing playing anywhere, and on my favorite radio station, since Halloween.
Merry Christmas, friends, and welcome again to adulthood. (If you're still a kid, disregard this message. Thanks for reading!) The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future swirl around us as we speak.
There have been some very difficult conversations being had over the past few days. Come to think of it, it's been a big year for tough conversations: The presidential election was one of the most exhausting "conversations" I can recall, and brought up all kinds of broiling, touchy subjects. You know, everything we're "not supposed to talk about" - religion, politics, personal health, the works. And right after the election, our reps launched into "fiscal cliff negotiations," if you can call them negotiations. From where I'm sitting there doesn't seem to be much negotiating going on at all.
But I'm not talking about those kinds of difficult conversations, as you might have guessed. Since last Friday, December 14, 2012, I don't know many people who have really been able to erase that sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs. I feel sadness settling heavily into my diaphragm, my intestines, the nape of my neck.
There is nothing I can say that will make this better. Nothing anyone can say. But still, I think it's important to talk about what happened in Newtown, Conn., and to talk about what is happening to the greater community that we all share with them.
On Friday, when I heard about the shooting, I texted my sisters. Not to talk about anything. All I sent was:
<3
My mind was blank for most of that day. I wanted to share space silently with other people, since the air felt too heavy for any words to penetrate anyway. I wanted to be around people I love, people I would rather take a bullet for than live without.
On Saturday I called a friend from college and we talked for a few minutes, not wanting to speak aloud what had happened 24 hours before, but unable to avoid that void weighing down our minds and our hearts. (Incidentally, she was the one who told me that the Hebrew word for mind and heart is the same. I don't remember the word, but I understand why it is the same.) She said she is having a hard time accepting all the horrible things that happen to people. For her, this year, the biggest blow has been cancer. It has sprung up around her over and over and over again, too close to be coincidence. To me, this has seemed a year of suicides. A colleague of mine has been particularly struck by the endless chain of shootings and violence in our area. And then, of course, there are the Hurricane Sandys and Bopha typhoons of our meteorological present. All of these things and others hammer away at us, merciless.
In high school I got really into Dead Poets' Society and from there I fell in love with a few of the dead poets, Thoreau in particular. He wrote about the personal responsibility to exist fully on this earth, and in society where possible. Back then I had memorized a quote from Walden about sucking the marrow out of life... But the one that has stuck with me more through thick and thin is one I didn't memorize, and it's from Civil Disobedience:
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
To me the incessant hammering of tragedy these days is the cry that comes from a growing inability to contain this desperation. Although we try to silence it by increasing our standard of living, by buying new gadgets and suing everyone who blinks in our direction and medicating ourselves into oblivion, our desperation is not quiet anymore. And I think the earth is crying too.
I wish I had an answer to this cry. I wish it could be soothed with something as relatively simple as better gun control or a perfect balance of revenue with expenses. I wish I thought there was an answer that is within our power to find, but I can't help but feel right now some kind of apocalpyse closing in on us. I can't say yet if it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I suspect, or if our imperfect reality is finally caving in on itself; but it sure feels like something pretty dark is happening. And I hope, as many newscasters have been saying, that we are finally ready to recognize that there are some serious conversations that need to be had.
And let them start with "I love you." Let those be the first ones we have. Whether the world is about to end or just the year, let us say the things we have been afraid to say to the people we care most deeply about. And let this remind us what power comes from community and from working for its good.
A friend told me about a text her mother sent: "I'm sorry for bringing you children into a world where such terrible things happen." I know she's not the only one who thinks this. But my response, after a pang of guilty empathy, was to repeat a conversation from the last episode of Castle where Esposito says to Ryan,
"The world's always falling apart, bro. Since the beginning of time.
But having kids, making a family - that's what keeps it together."
There have been a few events this year that tore the words from my tongue and even from my chest. I know that I am one of the lucky ones who has covers to burrow under and people who will let me bury my face in their necks, but the fact that this is any comfort at all - the fact that moments of pain and moments of beauty follow so quickly after one another - give me hope that there is an answer, somewhere, if we can work long and steady enough to find it.
While you and I put our minds/hearts to the question, know that we are not alone. People everywhere are working on it as we speak - on NPR, for example, which played a beautiful story called Would A Good God Allow Such Evil? Because I am my father's daughter, I latched onto the section called "A World Both Beautiful and Shattered," which finishes with the following quote:
"I have a responsibility as a human being...to look at what's
broken in the world, to mend it and then...to be a partner with
God in completing the work of creation which is incomplete."
I'm doing my best, but the beautiful/shattering thing about it is that no matter how close we come to getting it right, it's still incomplete. But maybe that's the point.
2012 in review, the good, the bad, and the...whatever
I officially declare the holiday season in full swing. It happened kind of fast for me; first I was waiting "patiently" for my birthday and Thanksgiving weekend, and then suddenly November was over. And then suddenly we're barreling into part II of December and the light at the end of the tunnel of things to do is somewhere vaguely in the middle of January (assuming the world doesn't end on December 21).
Speaking of the impending apocalypse, I'm obsessed with it. I have always had a thing for apocalypse movies (except those of the zombie variety) and I love to track the cultural psychology defining the vessel of human destruction each time a new one comes out. For example, I've been watching a decent amount of suspense movies from 2003-ish and the common plot thread is computers becoming too smart and trying to assume authoritative control over American society. Now, 9 years later, we've just given in to being controlled by technology and have turned our terror to slow scorching/drowning via climate change.
Back to the latest apocalypse, which is cloaked in the mystery of a forecaster extinguished by the very ancestors of we who will suffer the rapture... As I flipped through the month of December in my planner (which I am excited to replace in just a few short weeks) I discovered that I already have a plan for the apocalypse. Apparently there is no out, either. I have committed, in capital letters, to spend my last night on earth at Applebee's with my roommates. Drinking our regular drinks and eating half-price appetizers.
In other parts of the country, friends of mine are hosting apocalypse parties where they will collect nonperishable food items that, in the event this whole end-of-the-world thing turns out to be a hoax, will be donated to the food bank. My mom asked me if I would be free for a dinner with some family friends on that evening, and I said, "No, Mom, I'll be celebrating the apocalypse DUH."
There are many things to celebrate these days, though, and many less morbid than mass oblivion. As you may recall, I have been looking forward to the Spirit of Christmas in Old New Castle, an annual event on the second Saturday in December (i.e. the day before yesterday). On Friday night, though, while I was at an Eric Hutchinson concert (!!!) I got the following text message from my friend Annie: "Hi, crazy question- any interest in going to NYC tmrw?"
Guess how much I miss text messages like that in my routine, responsible, adult life. SO MUCH.
She told me the next day that I was the only person she could think of in Wilmington who would even consider doing something so wild. We ended up deciding between the holiday tour of New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and after being made to see reason we settled on Philly's Christmas Village and that city's Macy's lights show.
love park at christmastime
We spent the day checking out different crafts from all over the world, watching German-American heritage groups performing traditional dance, finding our birth moons (here's my really awesome birth moon), eating German food and drinking hot spiced wine. We also got talking about how we can cruise on spontaneous, exciting events far longer in the sunny summer months than in the cold dark of winter. We decided to link up and help each other keep things fresh (and keep popping vitamin D) until the sun comes out again. THE LESSON: Having a partner in crime makes this a much less daunting task.
I'm still cruising on the concert Friday night and having the most awkward possible meeting with Eric Hutchinson on Friday night in order to get the new album autographed (see photo). Concertgoing is not a hobby of mine, but I've seen Eric Hutchinson live twice and it never gets old. Plus, all Jason and I have wanted to listen to this weekend is the new album. Check it out: Moving Up Living Down. It's excellent.
And I'm still cruising on Saturday's excursion and the warm, sparkly holiday spirit of the lights and the wine and tradition. Plus, we were counting Santas from Philly's annual Running Of The Santas pub crawl... which got me SO EXCITED for Wilmo's Santa Crawl pub loop next Saturday.
As if I don't have enough of a cloud cushion to cruise on, Annie and I made brunch plans for Sunday that turned into an all-day hot spiced wine pumpkin pancake homemade granola extravaganza. It's been rainy and foggy and damp and cold here, and no snow on the horizon, but it really turns the world around when you have good people to share it with.
Keep an eye out for:
- our fambly Christmas card, complete with all THREE roomies and BOTH cats
- holiday finances inspired by a fellow post-grad blog and my dwindling bank account
- a cookie exchange
- the Santa Crawl
- Longwood Gardens
- holiday food and drink and the long-promised pumpkin beer post which I SWEAR really is in the making!,
- my brother's 21st birthday
- AND gatherings of good people (siblings, grandparents, friends, other people's families, etc.) through the holiday season.
Stay on the bright side of this holiday season, friends. I wish you love and happiness this season.
I'm not good at being from anywhere, and I'm not good at being a regular. I'm not good at showing interest in people I might get to know, even though disinterest couldn't be farther from the truth (at least in many cases).
This is probably a result of some stunted attachment mechanism as far as my social development goes, and on a deep-seated psychological level a result of a strange juxtaposition of fears: namely, the fear of perpetual insecurity confronted by the fear of perpetual routine.
I won't go into this too much, but to make a long story short I will venture that this Battle Clash of the Fears has been the driving force in my life on all sorts of different levels. It is what keeps me from stillness. It creates such energy in my core and as some of us managed not to hear until earlier this week at work, "things in motion stay in motion."
So, since I am simultaneously battling both nesting instincts and nomadic instincts, I am not good at being a local. Being a local requires staying in one place.
There may be hope for me yet, though, because staying in one place requires dedication to the idea of staying in one place long enough to become a community fixture. And although I still feel that irrepressible fight-or-flight urge from time to time, I am at least putting a lot of energy into fostering my commitment to staying somewhere.
This morning was a great testament to my efforts. I got up at the crack of 7:40 to take my car to my (formerly local) mechanic. D & J is located 5 minutes, if that, from my parents' house, and these guys have been taking stellar care of my car for over a year now. I always look forward to shooting the breeze when I go there: we've talked about beer, theater, traditions, friends, travel, and books, to name a few. These are strikingly well-balanced, two-sided conversations. I aspire to be as nonchalant about social interaction as these guys are. Plus, I'm fairly certain they are Car Whisperers.
Revved up the now-purring Bizz III and swung by to pick up my mom for Delaware Writers' monthly breakfast. It's at the Panera also 5 minutes from my parents' house, and less than 10 minutes from my house. I like Panera (they have pumpkin spice lattes to die for in the fall) but it's not technically a local business, so it doesn't get a real shoutout.
Yes, I am a bit discriminatory on this. You may know that the day after Black Friday has been named Small Business Saturday (by American Express, ironically). I don't know that I have ever actually celebrated this holiday; I avoid crowds and mainstream things at all costs. But I'm glad that it exists. Plus, I just learned this week about National Small Business Weekend: the first Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of every month. Hey...that's THIS weekend! I don't get the impression that it has really taken off, but it will be interesting to see how the whole thing unfolds.
I'm going to divulge one of my priceless secrets to all of you: Clara's Foolproof Method of Immersing Herself in Every New Place Ever. (And take my word on this, because this is one thing I excel at beyond all others.)
Start doing everything you can think of to do, starting with touristy things if you have to. (For example, I started on the Visit Wilmington website.) It may be helpful to make a list (because I have already forgotten scores of places I meant to check out, that I haven't yet). If this list starts to grow at exponential rates, do not be alarmed; this is normal. The more places you go, the more places you find out about or stumble upon or notice that you also must add to your list. I warn you, this may be one list that never ends.
Patronize local businesses. This will get you quickly up to speed with important local issues, with the way people know each other and the way people do business. Plus, you just get invested in the community where you now live, because you are putting your dollars into it. A third added benefit of this is that you can choose to become a regular patron of these places, and the people who own and work there start to recognize you and know you, and they start to trust you. It may not go beyond that, but it never hurts to build that cred and rapport.
Join groups. You might stumble upon these groups at your favorite businesses, at the gym, at places you like. You can also do Twitter, Facebook, or web searches or try Meetup, which hasn't done a whole lot for me but has been a lifesaver for a lot of people I know.
OK, so it's not a grand, dangerous DaVinci Code-type secret. But still. I promise you, it works. And if I had to boil it down into one bite-sized, 3-syllable masterpiece it would be simply this:
Leave your house.
Easy peasy.
So, Mutti and I headed to Panera and sat down in the meeting room with other area writers. This is her third meeting, and my second, with this tirelessly interesting crowd, and we have met and spoken to different people every time. It's inspiring and incredibly motivational.
It is December 1, but it's 51 degrees and sunny. As usual, I walked here (to the library), and stopped at Papa's Italian Market around the corner from my house for a piece of tomato pie.
QUESTION: Is tomato pie a Delaware thing? Our informal poll at work says yes. This is the second, more widespread informal poll. Let me know in the comments if you eat it where you're from/where you are now.
So I am walking through my neighborhood to my local library (a phrase which always reminds me of PBS), eating tomato pie, and I get this sense of almost belonging. I savor this in moments since it seems to much to hope for to ever take that for granted: belonging.
