Writer's Life

This weekend wasn't about writing, so neither is today's blog.

I'm still tagging it as writer's life, because this is life, too. When we returned from our whirlwind party weekend last night, I caught up on blog reading. I noticed several people bemoaning that they weren't recovering from the holidays fast enough. Here we are, ove two weeks into 2011 and they haven't ramped up like they thought they would. People have flus and colds. It's dark and cold. Day jobs have no trouble ramping up.

It's easy to think that only actual typing away is writing. Of course, the big trap for writers is only talking and thinking about writing and not doing it. We've all encountered people who say they always thought they'd like to write a book. Many of them never will.

We know that. We used to be those people. Until we finally got our acts together and starting WRITING instead of talking about it.

So the fear eternally chases us, that we'll revert. That we'll lose the oomph to stick it out in the chair.

But there's also life.

We celebrated belated Christmas in Denver on Friday night, with our 2 1/2 year old grandson, Tobiah (that's powdered sugar from Donettes on his mouth), and our new 2 1/2 month old granddaughter, Aerro.

She looks like an Anne Geddes baby. Alas that I am no Anne Geddes.

Saturday was my colleague Val's wedding. Our widely scattered work team flew in from New Hampshire, Florida and Nebraska, to stay at my mom's house in Denver. We went out for brunch on Saturday morning (there, Laurie, it's documented!) and met up with another colleague who lives in Castle Rock. With six of us, brunch took a long time. We had a few hours to kill and they wanted to see some sights.

So we tooled around my old neighborhood. I showed them my favorite art and architecture around the Denver Tech Center, like Harlequin Plaza, where I'd hang with my very first love. Places even David had never seen, because we never seem to have time to burn when we're visiting. We drove around Cherry Creek State Park and over the top of the reservoir, to prove to them there really is a big lake there. I told them how, when I was a kid, the only road across was that little two-lane along the top of the dam. My mom used to hate driving it, with so much traffic on such a narrow road. Now six to eight lanes of I-225 bustle below.

No one else was on the reservoir road.

We hung by the fire a bit, then piled into the car to head to Loveland for Val's wedding. There was a baby, there, too.

We stayed up late, drank a lot of wine and laughed until our sides were splitting.

Sunday morning we bustled everyone out for pick-ups and airport appointments.

David and I drove back to Santa Fe and I reflected on how fun it was to have a weekend party with my friends in my mom's house. Those who've followed this blog for a while know that my mom has been prepping the house to sell it, after nearly 40 years. Our last couple of visits have been melancholy, full of sorting through things and memories. Lots of letting go.

So there's a synchronicity to how this happened. I revisited some places I wouldn't have thought to. I have memories full of joy, babies and friends.

The writer's life doesn't get better than this.

Sea Change

Our big storm finally released its grip, with roaring winds all night, leaving the sky clear and frigid this morning.

So, here we are, saying good-bye to 2010 already. Tomorrow the decorations come down. I'll clean the house and start the year a new. Fresh slate, carrying forward the best of last year and none of the worst.

I'll try, anyway.

I talked yesterday about the temptation to make plans for big changes in the new year. It feels like a natural demarcation between old and new. And, hell, everyone else is doing it, right?

I'm starting one new thing for the new year. Tomorrow will see the launch of a new blog I'm participating in, The Word Whores. Our credo comes from Moliere:

"Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money."

I'm delighted to be in such amazing company, with six other smart, witty, imaginative and supportive women - all of whom I count as friends, as well as sister writers. Believe me, we all want to do it for money.

But this is a small change in the pattern of my life. I'm adding one blog-post a week. Finite, simple. I cringe when I see people resolving to lose weight, exercise more, write more and fix their love life. Yes, these are all wonderful things to do, but it's TOO MUCH. The goals are vague. What does more mean? How much weight? What does a good love life consist of?

The problem is, if the goals are vague, then they're doomed to failure. Because you can never reach "more." There's always "more" out there. It's like always jam tomorrow.

The success gurus will tell you to keep your goals specific and attainable. There are good reasons for that.

I've long been a fan of tesseract theory. No - you don't have to know math for this. It's the idea that the pattern of large things reflects the pattern of its components. Thus the shape of a mountain range echoes the shape of a piece of gravel. A grown person reflects the shape of an embryo. If I want my life to look a particular way, then I try to make each day reflect those priorities. It occurred to me a few years ago that if I wanted my life to be writer's life, then I might need to spend more than five percent of my day writing.

(Of course, we all turn out to be champion sleepers in the end, but that's to be expected.)

This kind of change didn't happen between 12/31 and 1/1. The pattern of my days has morphed gradually over the years, a slow and creeping conversion. A sea change, if you will.

The term "sea change" comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest (one of my favorites), from Ariel's song to Ferdinand:

Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

For those not well-versed in translating Bard-speak, Ariel is describing Ferdinand's father's corpse lying on the bottom of the ocean, slowly accreting the minerals of the water, until his skeleton becomes part of the coral.

The sea changes things, takes them in and makes them its own over time.

I borrowed this rant on the phrase from The Word Detective:

Unfortunately, as "sea change" has gained more popularity lately, its meaning has often been diluted and trivialized ("Gavin believes that this update indicates a sea change for the software and web applications...," TechRadar.com). In the ultimate insult to the Bard, "sea change" has been harnessed as bizspeak ("Business is in the midst of a sea change when it comes to staffing and retaining superior talent," New York Times), and I'm sure that somewhere out there right now a trucking company is promising a "sea change in package delivery." Full fathom five them all, I say.

To me, this reflects our modern philosophy of get it done yesterday. A "sea change" is no longer a long, slow conversion. It happens overnight, according to the business types. Thus we expect our lives to change as quickly.

I know this is one of my periodic rants and I won't bring it up again for a while, but this is my plea. Yes, absolutely, make those positive changes in your life. You can do that. You can make your life what you want it to be.

But take your time. Make small changes. Take baby steps. Allow for things to happen in their own time. Cast your grains of sand into the ocean and let them become pearls.

Start small. The universe will make it big for you. That's how it works.

Happy 2011!

Wonderful Christmas

So, my stepsister, Hope, told me that they tell the boys if they don't behave, they'll turn up on my blog.

I think that makes me the Bloggyman.

But no one is bad on Christmas. Therefore, here is everyone on Christmas morning, enjoying Santa's bounty. Except for Hope and Galen, who were in the kitchen making mimosas, like the lovely hosts they are. And David, who must have been standing next to me, always by my side.

Christmas was lovely and wonderful. I cooked and baked a whole bunch. We saw family we rarely see and met little Tabitha for the first time.
Time flew by and I can't really tell you what I filled it with. I wasn't on the interwebs much and, after a couple of days, didn't turn on my computer at all. It feels like a slow unwind from my usual life of keeping up. My days are full the way I like them to be, but I run a pretty good pace to do it. To get the blog post done, to get my writing done, to do my day job, to read the blogs and books I try to keep pace with.

At first, it's hard to relax, to let go of the keeping up. Then, when I do, I let go of everything it seems. One world falls away and only the immediate becomes real.

We writers talk about living in our heads, in other worlds. A lot of the time I'm thinking about what I'm writing, about ideas for the blog or dream-thinking about whatever story I'm immersed in. Over Christmas, I didn't at all. I think this is as much a part of the writers life as any other - the letting go of it for a space of time.

Now I'm back and trying to keep the ramp-up slow and gentle. There go the important emails answered. Bank accounts checked and reconciled. Here's a blog post. Now I'll work on Sapphire. Later I'll cruise the information galaxies of Facebook, Twitter and the Blogosphere.

But for now I'll pour another cup of tea from the fabulous cat teapot Hope gave me and gaze out the window.

Happy Holidays, indeed.

Fast Times

We're closing in on the final stretch of Christmas here. Presents have been acquired and wrapped. Today we'll ship the final lot - and just to Front Range folks, so don't panic. The big party went swimmingly Saturday night.

Both kitties love to hang out under the Christmas tree. And maybe chew on the ribbons a little bit. They consider themselves a gift to us.

So, today is the last fast day before the major feast. When I posted about our weekly fasts back in October, in the comments conversation that followed, I promised to report back in another eight weeks. I'm a bit past that now, but it's been a busy blogging time.

I look forward to the fast days at this point. It sounds bizarre, most likely, but the break is such a welcome resetting of my system that I get excited for how good I'll feel. For example, the treat onslaught has started. Last Wednesday the first food package arrived. I've had peppermint brownies and homemade candies. I made sugar cookies.

(They turned out so pretty I have to immortalize them here.)


Saturday night I drank champagne and nibbled on all sorts of lovely things. David and I woke up early Sunday starving and went out to breakfast. Country ham with a biscuit and gravy was just the thing for my mild hangover. We ended up eating lunch out, too, since we were in town shopping. Margaritas, live music and prime rib sandwich made it very fun.

Now I know I'm entering the uber-party. We're meeting friends for drinks and dinner tomorrow night. Then pre-Christmas Eve dinner out at a lovely restaurant, Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day dinner and Boxing Day tea. It will all be wonderful and I intend to completely indulge. Then next Monday, we'll fast again. Cleanse our systems and return to baseline.

It's interesting to me how many religions and philosophies incorporate an element of fasting. And usually the fasting precedes the feast. For some it's a sacrifice in honor of ancestors who suffered. Sometimes it's meant to be a deliberate discomfort, to remind you to think about philosophical questions. It can also be a symbolic preparation for the feast. Part of what makes a feast such a joy is the contrast to starvation and suffering.

So I'm fasting today. I'll take some time to reflect on how full and rich my life is.

And the cookies will still be there tomorrow.

Deadlines, Lifelines and the Test of Personality

"Still Life: Snow on Luminarias"

or

It's snowing!!!

Okay, I know a lot of you out there have had way more than enough of the stuff, or have been drowning in rain, but we've had an unseasonably mild and dry winter so far. I'm a Colorado girl from way back and I like a little snow with my Christmas. We might even get heavy snow.

We're snow-globe socked-in and I'm chortling with glee.

Perhaps I should break out into a little mash-up of snow songs. Don't worry - I'll lip synch.

I hit a personal best on the treadmill this morning: 1.45 miles in 20 minutes. Yeah, all the athletic people just snickered. I know it's not much. But going that fast pushed my heart rate up over 170, which is pretty high. I'll have to stay at this level for a while to try to condition it down. I'd like to get up to 2 miles in 20 minutes, which is the military conditioning threshold. We'll see. As I've likely mentioned before, running is not my forte.

But I've been working hard at it, gradually improving, shedding body fat by incremental percentages. When I realized I would cross this barrier while running this morning, something odd popped into my head. Something about the thought that it's taken me a couple of years to get my conditioning at least this good made me remember a conversation with a friend about writing.

She had done what a surprising number of people do: decided to write a book, sell it and become a successful author. She'd quit her job and given herself one year to succeed.

This also falls under the "after all, it's only genre-writing, it's not like it's hard" umbrella.

When she had not sold in the year - indeed, when she hadn't really completed a full manuscript, instead constantly revisiting the first three chapters in response to critique - she asked me how long I'd given myself.

The question surprised me. It had never occurred to me to impose a deadline on my work that way. In some ways, it would be like me saying that if I can't run 2 miles in 20 minutes by next December, I'll quit running. I suppose at some point in the future I'll be too decrepit to make that goal. Though that image is kind of amusing to contemplate.

"Just help me out of this wheelchair and onto the treadmill - I'll be fine!"

For those who know me, this is actually a plausible scenario.

At any rate, unlike ballerinas and football players, writers have no natural retirement age. If we keep our minds sharp, we can keep writing on our deathbeds. Many have.

My friend was shocked when I said that I gave myself as long as it takes. But then, she and I have very different ways of looking at the world.

The subject of personality has been making the rounds of our online community lately. Patrick Alan summed it up yesterday on his blog. It's fun to look at our astrological influences or the slightly more scientific personality assessment of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®), which is interestingly built on Jungian theory.

I come out as an INTJ, which is apparently a small group. It means I'm an Introvert, Intuitive, Thinker, Judger. The other ends of these are extrovert, sensing, feeling and perceiving. It's apparently unusual for a person who prefers intuition to rely on thinking instead of feeling. And it's odd for an introvert to use judgment instead of perception, because it focuses on outer instead of inner.

That's me: an odd duck.

But it's useful to me to look at the summation for INTJ:

For INTJs the dominant force in their lives is their attention to the inner world of possibilities, symbols, abstractions, images, and thoughts. Insight in conjunction with logical analysis is the essence of their approach to the world; they think systemically. Ideas are the substance of life for INTJs and they have a driving need to understand, to know, and to demonstrate competence in their areas of interest. INTJs inherently trust their insights, and with their task-orientation will work intensely to make their visions into realities.

In some ways, it was a revelation to me to read this. "A driving need to understand, to know, and to demonstrate competence in their areas of interest" is where I live. Why do I want to succeed as a novelist when I've arguably already succeeded as a writer, particularly as an essayist? Because I have a driving need to demonstrate competence in my area of interest. For me, the rider on this is that it really doesn't matter to me how long it takes.

I don't know that I'd call running on the treadmill an area of interest, but this undoubtedly plays in there, too. My vision of me, sleek as a gazelle running, if not like the wind, then like a brisk breeze.

Remember I've got that rich inner world going here.

Apparently most of us writers tend to be introverts, which is why we're happy sitting alone, writing, in the first place. Patrick Alan says he's an ENFP, which makes me wonder how he does it. I notice that, though we're opposites in three of four categories, we're both intuitives. I suspect most writers are.

So, do you know your MBTI? And has it helped you understand anything about the way you work?

How Lovely Are Thy Branches

Last night I decorated the Christmas tree.

And by "I," I do mean me. David helps me get the tree and get it in the stand, but that's really all. This year I didn't mind at all.

When I was young, the Christmas tree was a huge part of our holiday. Acquiring the tree usually involved traipsing to multiple lots to find the perfect tree, often in bitter cold, followed by Mexican food. Leo would set up the tree and put on the lights. It was always his job, though my mom often complained he didn't do it right. Then he'd fix them and go watch TV. And she fixed them again.

Then my mom and I decorated the tree. Since I was a baby, she's given me an ornament every year. The first is a clay Santa my dad made me before he died. After that, they're all from her. I have the dates marked on them and it's always been part of the ritual to unwrap them and lay them out in order. I put the Santa from my dad at the top and spiral down the tree.

I have so many images over the years of doing this. When I was very young, there were only a few, but it felt like a pile of treasure. I remember the years I received each one and added it to its place of honor in the center of the tree. There's the Betsy Ross ornament from 1976, followed by a pink polka-dotted cat the next year, to commemorate the loss of the family cat that had been older than I.

It's become like the name game over the years. You know the ice-breaker, where one person says their name, and the next person says the first person's name plus their own, and so on. The game wraps around to the first person who has to recite them all in order. The names from early on are easiest, because they've been repeated so many times; it's the later ones that stump you.

Now I'm up to somewhere around 60 ornaments. (No, I'm not that old - a lot of them are pairs). The ones from my early years are so familiar. I have forty overlapping images of unwrapping them every year. The newer ones carry less emotional weight. A couple have not stood the test of time. One got chewed on by our border collie. Another I keep gluing and it insists on coming apart.

It used to be that I tried to make David help me trim the tree. Or worse, I tried to get him to enjoy it. In our early years together, I would cry because he so clearly didn't care. He'd help, but the act held no romance for him. All those little ornaments carried no weight for him. He looks at them, nods and smiles. But it's just a Christmas tree ornament to him. My stepkids, too, never got into decorating the tree. They were just as happy to see it done without them.

David and I enjoy a lot of harmony, so it's marked that I got a bit snarly every year that he didn't share this with me. This year, though, he's deep in finals. I really wanted to get the tree done last night and he has two finals today. So I decorated the tree while he studied.

I also drank champagne, which adds to any occasion.

I felt my usual nostalgia, unwrapping the ornaments. I hate that the one got chewed up. (Yes, I keep it with the others.) I had to glue a couple. One might be finally and irretrievably beyond gluing, but he's part of a pair, so there's another to represent that year.

Maybe because I could let go of David participating, I enjoyed it more this time. It occurred to me, as I was gluing, that some of these ornaments were never intended to last forty years. And that it's okay to let them go. Things change. I like decorating the tree and it's okay to enjoy it by myself. The ornaments are not a museum collection that must be preserved at all costs. They mean something to me and really no one else but my mother and that's okay.

I'm told I'm not good at letting things go. And that it's likely because my father died when I was so young. I tend to cling to things that represent the past, wanting them to last forever.

I think I'm getting better at this. Letting go feels good.

And the tree is so beautiful, just the way it is.

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Seven

This is how we feel, getting to the final day of Calorie-Free Christmas. I did a little recap yesterday, if you need one.

And before we get much farther, I've also posted today at the FFP Blog about loving your baby novel and fretting about its future.

But now, with no further ado:

#7 Theater - full surround experience

You could argue that yesterday's topic, the books of Christmas, involve every sense because the imagination kicks in. But there's something about the TV shows of our youth, the Christmas movies, the ballets and concerts that just wrap you up and transport you.

My mom commented yesterday that my stepdad's family loves A Christmas Story. In honor of that family, who are taking me and David in for Christmas this year, I've put Ralphie at the top. It's one of those brilliantly funny movie that you can watch every year and laugh hysterically at all the same parts. We know it so well, we start giggling even before the gag plays out.

Then there's the other end of the spectrum - the gloriously divine. My grandmother used to take me to see the Nutcracker Ballet at Christmas. We'd go down to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, have lunch and shop around Larimer Square. There's something about the ballet, too, that just glistens. All those flowing tutus and graceful swaying. It feels like peace, love and joy.

This picture is from the University of the Pacific's production, which is sadly already over. Isn't it lovely, though? Most communities stage some version of the Nutcracker or a concert of The Messiah.

Then there's always the old TV shows. If you're like me, you remember the TV line-up leading up to Christmas. When would they broadcast Rudolf? Or the Peanuts Christmas Special? Sometimes you lucked into seeing a favorite, other times you missed them. But having them reappear felt like family members coming to visit after a year away and kissing you on the cheek.

So I'll leave you with a big hug and a grumpy Merry Christmas from my favorite curmudgeonly uncle, the Heat Miser.

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Six

We're down to our last two days of adventures in celebrating Christmas that don't involve chowing down.

To recap, last Monday we explored the world of scent with #1 Body Butter: all the scent with none of the fat.

Tuesday, Day 2 added flavor to scent with Tea: warm, sweet, spicy and good for you.

On Day 3, we added in emotion, with the joyful anticipation of an advent calendar.

Day 4 was all about the visual, with the indulgence in the pretty and shiny and the week finished out with Day 5, the sounds of music.

So, here we are, a new week, Day 6 and onto one of my very most favorite topics.

#6 Books: a world of pleasure.

Like with the music, I have my collection of Christmas-themed books that I put away with the decorations. Every year I bring them out again, like old friends.

One of my favorites is A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. I have this very version, in fact, though mine has a few more thumbprints. My high-school drama teacher used to read this aloud every year, often on the last day of class before break. If you've never read it, it's well worth it. Written in 1954, it hearkens even farther back to the poet's childhood, with a lyrical, nostalgic retelling of a simpler, less-commercial time. Here's a taste:

All the Christmases roll down toward the
two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon
bundling down the sky that was our street;
and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged,
fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the
snow and bring out whatever I can find.
In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued
ball of holidays resting at the rim of the
carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero
and the firemen.

If you prefer something funny, another old favorite is Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Because it's about a church Christmas pageant, it's considerably more church-y, but it's also tears-running-down-your-cheeks funny with all the things that go wrong. In the end the message is about hypocrisy and play-acting compared to truly generous acts. I remember my stepdad, Leo, reading this aloud to us and how he'd have to stop to just laugh. It's a good memory.

I should give you a taste of that, too. This is how it opens:

The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse.

The toolhouse burned right down to the ground, and I think that surprised the Herdmans. They set fire to things all the time, but that was the first time they managed to burn down a whole building.

There are other books, of course. A Christmas Carol is standard, but the story has been replicated in so many ways that it sometimes feels tired to me. Still, it's worth it to read the original tale if you never have.

So now I'm curious - what am I missing? Any wonderful Christmas books that are part of your holiday tradition?

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Five

Okay, you know what's coming today, our fifth day of exploring ways to celebrate the holidays that don't necessarily involve pumping on the calories.

#5 Music: there's more out there than Rudolf and chestnuts

Yeah I know - the music thing is a double-edged thing this time of year. We're shopping for Halloween costumes and some squeaky children's chorus is singing Frosty the Snowman. Whoever decided that what we all most want at Christmas time is to listen to children not our own sing songs designed to go with cartoons, well... if it weren't the season of peace and joy, we'd have to kill them.

The music is another way to make this season special. I keep my Christmas cds in the storage bins with the decorations, so they come out together. Now I have a Christmas playlist on my iPod that I have unchecked for most of the year - with 233 songs in it.

I like to seek out the unusual, the old songs. One of my favorites is Dido's Christmas Day. I embedded it here, in case you'd like to listen while you read.



Some of my favorite albums are The Chieftains' Bells of Dublin, which has some great old song like The Wren in the Furze, and Christmas in Rome, which is, not surprisingly, considerably more Catholic. I love Enya's Silent Night Christmas EP, but didn't know about the album I posted here until I searched for the EP (to no avail). I immediately downloaded And Winter Came - lovely. Annie Lennox also just came out with a Christmas Cornucopia, which bears her inimitable style.

Some fun collections include the Barenaked Ladies Barenaked for the Holidays (it has a couple of lovely Hanukkah songs, too) and the Squirrel Nut Zippers Christmas Caravan. David is fond of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Christmas Time Again. For more traditional Celtic songs, check out Jean Redpath's Still the Night or Thistle & Shamrock's Christmas Ceilidh. The compilations often lead me to terrific discoveries like Stuart McLean, a Canadian radio show host. He tells stories about Dave, who owns a record store. "Dave Cooks a Turkey" and "Polly Anderson's Christmas Party" are two of the most hysterical stories I've ever heard. You'd have to get his Christmas Concert cds to hear them, but here's a shorter one, just for you (from that same album).

Enjoy!

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Four

Yesterday we celebrated the joys of advent calendars.

(Though I noted that many of you manage to sneak in a few calories by adding chocolate to anticipation.)

Today is all about the visual.

#4 Decorations: lights, glitter, glitz and glam

Let's face it "Christmas" decorating pulls a lot more from the holiday's pagan roots than from the religious holiday. We're facing the darkest days of the year, the longest nights, the weak and slanting day time sun. Thus the lights!

The holiday provides so many opportunities to add light and sparkle to our lives. Wear something glittery. Or a lot of things glittery. Bright colors with shimmering fabrics. I'll usually get a little something special to wear for each Christmas. Maybe a new sweater with rhinestone buttons or a pretty blouse. Sometimes just a silk scarf to glam things up.

There are so many ways to use light now to decorate, too. Here in Santa Fe, the farolitas are popular. Some people call them luminarias, but those are actually small bonfires. The kind in the bags with little candles are farolitas and, if you're like me and 99% of Santa Fe, you get the electric kind, sometimes called electrolitas.

A traditional name.

I haven't regaled you with the tales of me spending four consecutive days on our roof, tying down those little fuckers. (Another traditional name.) But it's worth it. One neighbor said our house looks like a castle. Five other people have stopped me to say how great it looks. It gives me a thrill of pleasure to see the lights, to hear that other people like them, too.

My way of staving off the dark.
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Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Three

For the last two days, we've played with scent and then scent plus flavor. For Day 3 of our adventures in calorie-free delights, I'd like to move into a more ephemeral sense. This sense is part thought, part emotion. It's what enables us as intelligent beings to plan for the future.

Anticipation.

#3 Advent Calendars: an exercise in daily joy

Remember that feeling when we were kids, of the building excitement for Christmas? How it seemed that the days dragged by and that the clock ticked ever more slowly, that magical day seeming to grow farther away not closer. Each preparation, while fun, seemed a torment of waiting. Picking out the tree, spending an evening decorating it, helping to wrap gifts, baking cookies. Every moment filled us with just a bit more excitement, a dollop more of anticipation until, by Christmas morning, we were fair to bursting with energy.

(Could have been all the fudge and sugar cookies, too.)

I used to have paper advent calendars that my mom would tape to the glass back patio door. Every morning before school, I could open a new numbered window and see a little picture. As the month progressed, more windows stood open, showing color and a growing scene. Folding open those little cardboard tabs made every day just a bit brighter. Of course, they also made the kind with little chocolates behind the tabs, but that's *not* what we're going for here.

The modern version of the advent calendar just got a little better. My favorite electronic greeting card company, Jacquie Lawson came out with an electronic Advent Calendar this year. And yes, I got it for myself and a bunch of my friends.

Every morning the swirling snow globe appears on my desktop, waiting for me when I start up the computer. Because computers are magic, it knows what day it is and encourages me to open a new window in the village. Then a little scene with music plays.

I love this company because of their beautiful images. Also, because they're Brits, they have what to Americans is a more old-fashioned take on Christmas. It's lovely and refreshing. Here's their card of the month, if you'd like to see their stuff in action. Fair warning: if you're reading this post after December 2010, then it's likely not to be a Christmas card. But as I add this it's a tree-decorating sugar-plum fairy.



The calendar started on December 1, but you can always have a little catching-up orgy of fun.

Enjoy building the anticipation.

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day Two

Welcome to Day Two of our adventure in exploring calorie-free ways to evoke the holiday spirit.

Yesterday I talked about the realm of scent. How lotions and body scrubs can evoke that special celebratory feeling. You may have seen my old friend, Kev, asking if this really works. He's a rare person who has no sense of smell. He thought that for people who can smell, scent only makes you hungrier. This can be true. However, I've found that indulging in the scent of something delicious is satisfying in itself. Some of this might tie into breaking those habits of emotional eating, like I've described with fasting. Just because something smells desirable doesn't mean you eat it. But enjoy the lovely scents nonetheless.

So today we add a layer of taste to the mix. How to enjoy flavor without calories (or manufactured chemicals with disconcerting FDA histories)?

Tea: warm, sweet, spicy and good for you

Tea is a wonderful thing. It's warm. The range of scents and flavors vary all over the spectrum. You can drink all you like without a single calorie and, if you choose carefully, they're even good for you. The best part is, you can add in some festive glassware for that extra celebratory touch.

Let's face it - half the fun of Starbucks at holiday time is getting the festive red cup. It's silly and yet it makes us happy to see them. And those special flavors they have only for the holidays? Oh yes. I saw the ripple across twitter when people announced the pumpkin-spice lattes were out. And now those ginger-spice lattes and black-cherry mochas. It's clever marketing because having those flavors only at this time of year makes them special. That's entirely the trick of creating your own celebratory treat.

Sadly, those ginger spice lattes are not sugar-free. And for me, now that I'm staying away from milk and from caffeine - that doesn't leave much in the cup.

So, I'm indulging in tea. Pick a special mug for Christmas. Something that evokes the season for you. A few years back I gave my mom these great metallic mugs that look like Christmas tree ornaments. I still regret not getting some for myself. But there are lots of pretty mugs and fabulous tea pots. I like to brew my tea in a ceramic pot that I keep on my desk for easy refilling.

While shopping with my mom and Hope, I discovered Teavana. Fair warning: Teavana is quite "too." The tea is expensive and it comes with specific instructions on what temperature to steep it at and for exactly how long. This is so not me. I boil the water. I throw the tea in an infuser, throw it all in the tea pot and it sits on my desk that way all morning. No doubt the lovely and precise sales lady who explained the instructions to me would be wringing her perfectly manicured hands in anguish.

I'm just saying - don't let that stop you.

They got me on this blend of White Ayurvedic Chai and Samurai Chai Mate. The latter does have caffeine, but I can control the amount by how much I add to the infuser. Ah, the scent, the warm sweet taste. It's like being in a tea house in Europe with an antique book while snow falls outside.

Or at least, how I imagine that would be.

There's lots of easy tea choices. The site that provided the picture above seems to have good information. And Damn Fine Tea, which is run by some friends of mine, has a special holiday blend this year. (No, they didn't give me tea to say this, but they should!) It's also as simple, though, as plucking a box of tea off the grocery store shelf. Peppermint, cinnamon, cloves. Pick the spice that makes you feel special. Cozy up to your festive mug and sip. Let the brew transport you.

There's a reason writers love tea.

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays - Day One

Today marks a bit of a departure from theme.

Okay - who am I kidding? Here in the land of cats and New Mexico weather, I'm forever departing from theme. Call me eclectic, if you're feeling generous.

So, as you may or may not know, I used to write essays for magazines a fair amount. I didn't consciously stop doing it, but I started writing novels and got, well, fatally distracted. Then, about a week ago, I had a great idea for a magazine article, but I no longer have any of my old contacts. Besides, print magazines plan issues about six months in advance. I thought maybe I could find an online magazine that runs stuff faster, but they don't really like internet submissions, so they make it difficult.

I decided just to run my article here:

Seven Calorie-Free Ways to Enjoy the Holidays

And by holidays, I mean Christmas. I'm sorry if you don't celebrate Christmas - it's what I know. That's what this is about, too. Christmas tends to be a time of excess. Lots of feasting and treats. I've blogged before about Emotional Eating. Traditional holidays can be terrible for emotional eating because a huge part of the fun is the food, the special treats, parties, alluringly decorated sweets and savory dishes. All singing the siren song of enjoy, celebrate, indulge.

As of today, I'm still ten more pounds than the upper limit of my BMI. I need to lose this weight for my health. I so cannot afford to go the other direction with my weight, after all of the hard work that let me lose twenty pounds of body fat so far.

No, I’m not going to offer tips on healthy holiday eating. I’m not sure such a thing exists. And the whole “eat before you go to the party” advice is all well and good, but not much for, well, partying.

After all, where is the fun in that?

Instead, I’m offering celebratory alternatives. The holidays offer so many ways to indulge ourselves, to enjoy the scents, sights and sounds of the season – all completely calorie-free. Here's one of my favorite ways to make that emotional connection to celebrating the holiday:

#1 Body Butter: all the scent with none of the fat

So much of the joy of holiday treats reaches out on the scent. Pies fresh from the oven, the warm redolence of a cinnamon roll, the sweet allure of a ginger spice latte. It's well-documented that smell is the most certain way to evoke a memory also. Those warm and happy childhood memories of biting the head off a gingerbread man? They ride in on those lovely spicy smells. A good bath oil, body scrub or lotion can give you the same delighted feeling. One of my favorites is The Body Shop’s Body Butter. If you don't want to put butter in your body, try putting it on your body. They have seasonal scents like Spiced Vanilla and Pumpkin Pie. Bath and Body Works also has a nice Warm Vanilla Sugar scent. I’ll often buy a matching scrub and butter set to use just during the holiday season. All day long I can smell those lovely scents and enjoy my secret celebration.

I wanted to include pretty pictures, but The Body Shop seems to have gone minimalist.

Tune in tomorrow for Day #2. What could it be???

Joyous Hogmanay

I'm working this week.

Which is significant, because many of you are not and I'm beginning to feel like it's against nature to be working now.

And no, it's not a Christian thing. It's a pagan thing, really.

When we visited Scotland a few years ago, we discovered the joy of hogmanay. We left the US on Christmas day and arrived on the morning after in Scotland. Boxing Day in the UK. Because we'd entered the zone that is Hogmanay, we discovered that many shops, galleries and what have you, were not open for most of our ten-day visit. Because Scotland pretty much shuts down business and parties through the dark days of the turning of the year.

"It's Hogmanay," people would say with a shrug, then offer us another drink.

When I asked what it meant, people would inevitably reply "New Year," which was clearly not the case. They used it to mean the whole stretch of time from before Christmas to just after the New Year. And when I pressed them for which languague "hogmanay" came from and how it meant "New Year," they couldn't say.

So I looked it up.

There are many theories about the derivation of the word "Hogmanay". The Scandinavian word for the feast preceding Yule was "Hoggo-nott" while the Flemish words (many have come into Scots) "hoog min dag" means "great love day". Hogmanay could also be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon, Haleg monath, Holy Month, or the Gaelic, oge maidne, new morning. But the most likely source seems to be the French. "Homme est né" or "Man is born" while in France the last day of the year when gifts were exchanged was "aguillaneuf" while in Normandy presents given at that time were "hoguignetes". Take your pick! (From the Rampant Scotland website, which is really great.)

What it really means? "The time of year when you don't work, you hang at home and eat and drink a whole bunch." There's an unabashed laziness to Hogmanay in Scotland that becomes joyous.

And more than a little pagan.

We stumbled upon the torchlight parade in Ediborough. Enthusiastic marchers thrust torches into our hands and we walked from Edinborough castle all the way to the Burns monument where they, I kid you not, set fire to wicker effigies of what appeared to be a Viking ship and a bear/dragon. (If you scroll down on the link above, you'll see another pic of the parade, much like ours.) This site at least freely acknowledges that these are pagan festivities, though the Scots we asked tended to fob it off or deny it.

Scotland is dark this time of year. This is sunrise at 9am precisely. If you're looking at, say ruins, you'll want to wrap that up by 3pm or so, or you won't see a damn thing.

Fortunately, there's always a warm and cheerful pub nearby, with someone to hand you a drink and a cheerful urging to just enjoy Hogmanay.

Merry Christmas

I'm glad it's not just me.

This morning the family left again and tonight I caught up on the interwebs. My favorite blogs? All posted last on December 22. (Of course, my last was December 19, but Sunday is usually my day off and then Monday was crazyish. Then my routine went to hell with all the rest of us unfashionable types who still celebrate Christmas.)

Amusingly enough, even a Jewish blogger I like, who last posted to the 'net a reminder of the things she hates to hear during Christmas, last blogged on December 22.

When I was a little girl, I totally bought the Christmas schtick.

Of course, I also believed in fairies and unicorns and, really, on certain levels, still do. Look, here I am writing novels about them. I believed that Christmas was a magical night. A night of peace an joy. It's a sign of my naivete, perhaps, or just of my blissful upbringing, that I was thoroughly and completely shocked to discover that, not only did not everyone in the world experience peace and joy on Christmas, that even bad things could happen on that day.

And, no, it had nothing to do with Jesus for me. Really.

My Jewish blogger says that it's nonsense to say that Christmas isn't a religious holiday, because only Christians celebrate it.

Full disclosure: Yes, I come from an Irish Catholic family. I consider this part of my racial heritage. I know those ideas shape me. I also know that my ancestry is full of pagan witches who reconfigured their celebrations to fall under the Church's radar. I know what I believe in, my spiritual convictions and my private rituals. I've studied Catholicism. Along with Judaism, Islam, Taoism, many and varied other philosophies, mystical and shamanic practices.

Please: do not tell me what my religion is.

Yes. I celebrate Christmas. Unfashionably, I love Christmas. I'm sorry that so many people feel it's foisted upon them. That it's not their holiday. That it's materialistic, shallow, meaningless, creates unrealizable expectations and grinds down everyone who can't possibly meet some ideal.

I hate that the Christmas season becomes that to anyone.

I suppose, in my idealistic heart, in that place that still has room for unicorns and fairies, that I wish there could be one night that we all celebrate joy and love.

I know -- it sounds stupid.

That's what it is for me. For the days around Christmas, I drop it all. I decorate. Anything that's bright and sparkly is good. I make food for feasting. I buy gifts for the people I love. For me, it's all about finding something special for them. Something to show I know who they are and what they enjoy.

This year, it was all about the table. Laurie and I spotted the concept in Princeton; I took a photo; she sent me some of the basics. The table was truly beautiful.

If I could make it beautiful for everyone, I would.

I know I can't.

All I ask? Just let me love it a little longer.

Diana

I’m a calendar purist. I’ve already mentioned that and probably will again. I can see that blogging will probably only heighten my tendency to track the movements of the earth and sun, each day spinning in and out, both creating and following oscillations of warmth and light.

Following my mother’s tradition, and her mother before her, I take all Christmas decorations down on New Year’s Day. By New Year’s Night, everything is dark. Almost severe in its starkness. And I find I like it, just as much as I liked the garlands, lights and ribbons. My home is a blank slate for the coming year. (Yes, those of you who’ve seen my home are chortling away at the idea that I’d call my wild collection of art and tchotchkes a blank slate, but you get the idea.)

So today is January 2 and it’s all down. I turn the year around, from what was to what will be. Which reminds me of a piece I wrote for a compilation with my writers group, the Silver Sage Writers Alliance, now defunct. There were twelve of us and we collaborated with an artist who created books at the university. We each took the month of our birth and wrote a piece about it. He created images to go with what we wrote. However, two of us were born in August and no one in December. Since the other August gal said she couldn’t possibly imagine writing about any other month, I took dark December and wrote this:

I drape my house liberally with white lights to stave off the dark nights. My celebration of Christmas takes root less from Catholic breeding than from pagan solstice ghosts. At the nadir of the year, I turn my eyes from the morning gloom and the afternoon dark and festoon my home with swathes of gold, ribbons of light, splashes of color. Giving gifts echoes that thrill. Each surprise a nest of potential pleasure. Boxes burst open and release something new. A quiver for my man. A bow for my son. Choosing well, I draw the sweet grey recurve, standing firmly rooted. The string singing beneath my fingers, I am Diana. Huntress, moon lover. Wild and free. Arrows of light fly from my hands. I reach out and turn the year around, back into light, back into life.

The pages of the book were made from the paper the artist’s students created. I saw many of them, hanging on lines to dry. But the grant also dried up and the project was never completed. There is no art book. Of the twelve of us, two are dead – and not the oldest either – six have moved, and one has not been heard from in years.

Auld lange syne. Raise a cup to the old. Turn it around and toast the new.