Christmas

My family has a rich tradition during th holidays.  Christmas Eve is almost always at my Nanny's (maternal grandmother) and because her four daughters all live in Salina, we have a houseful.  Good food, gifts for the children, great conversation, and the pure peace that comes from being surrounded by people you love.

Since my divorce, I have often felt separate from the joy of family functions.  Not because of anyone or nothing in my family--I am truly blessed to be a part of this wild and wonderful group--but I have felt alone even in the midst of all this joy simply because it is hard to accept that the partnership I was once half of no longer exists, and the older I get the more I need that alliance.  That feeling of it being us against the world.  I see that in my parents's marriage and in the beautiful family my brother and sister in law are building with my nieces Eva Olive and her 15 days old sister Ivy Elane.  

This Christmas, I did not go home.  Instead, I spent the holiday with the man in my life.  I've never had my own Christmas before, one for which I prepared the food, the guests came to my home, etc. And, with the exceptions of a deep cut to my left index finger trying to cut open a pomegranate for the cheesecake I made and a bizarre nosebleed that came on last night, it went off without a hitch.  

What I've realized this year is that being with the person I love makes me feel connected to the world and to the joy of the moment in ways I simply can't feel when we are apart.  I may not have had the houseful of relatives I've come to know over the years, but I am surrounded by love and that is, without hesitation, doubt, or exception, all I could ever ask for.

Love love love one another.  It is the only thing that matters.

Books; Baby; Boy

BOOKS
been reading like crazy over the last few months, in large part because I need to be taken out of my own life a little.  I have good friends, a job I love, people who support me, a wonderful family, but I find myself emotionally tapped out as the semester draws to a close and, to that end, I seek solace and solitude in books.

I've been reading for as long as I can remember, finding new worlds and new lives to prowl through, inhabit, wear.  When I learned to drive I didnt' know how to get anywhere in the town I grew up in because for years my nose had been too deeply buried in books to notice things like landmarks, directions,a nd street signs.

The run down of recent reads (the last 2-3 months) and my grading of them is as follows:

The Paris Wife, Paula McClain: A. Hemingway's 1st marriage ot Hadley Richardson.  Gorgeously written, captures rhythm and style and sadness of one of America's greatest writers while managing to have its own voice.

The Archivist, Martha Cooley: B+. The only reason this novel about an archivist specializing in the letters between Lucy Hale and T.S. E.iot isn't an A is the unnecessary middle third about the archivist's dead wife.  Boo.  His voice was so perfect, there was no need to introduce her story in that way.

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern: B-. There were elements of this that I absolutely loved, particulary the second person sections related to engaging with and encountering the circus, but the multiple plot lines and twisting chronology wasn't always compelling, and the love story was given away from the very beginning. 

Silver Linings Playbook, Matthew Quick: D.I hated this whiny man-boy protagonist from beginning to end.  I felt no empathy for him, no interest in his sad little parade towards mental health, and no desire to find out if he wound up okay or not.  Having been through a divorce and therapy myself, I found Quick's treatment of these issues to be superficial and monotone.

Reunion, Alan Lightman: B-.  This book was an A until the last 30 pages and then if fell apart.  Charles goes to his 30th high school reunion at a small men's liberal arts college, waxes philosophical about a girl he loved briefly as an undergrad, and has flashbacks to those days that are brilliant.  When the twist in that old relatopnship are revealed, however, they are neither beautifully written nor believable.  This had such possiblity, but the end of the novel made me want to burn the book.

The Group, Mary McCarthy: C.  I know why this book about 8 female friends from a prestigious women's college was controversial upon publication--frank sexual talk, backbiting, the truth aboutomen's competition with even their closes friends.  But, the scope was too grand the characters too interchangable for me to care.  I actually didn't finish this one.

An Invisible Sign of My Own, Aimee Bender: B. I love Bender's magical realism, and this story of a 19 year old woman thrown into a classroom as an emergency second grade math teacher is compelling, if not her best work.  The short story collection The Girl in the Flammable Skirt is better for my money.  But, this novel did make me want to know what happens next, and her relationships with her young students were dear and honest.

BABY
My sister-in-law is having my second niece today :)  Teryn and Brandon already have the ever fabulous Eva Olive who brought so much light and joy into my laugh it is staggering to imagine, and today baby number two arrives.  Eva has decided her new little sister shall be christened Twilight Sparkle or Sparkle Lipstick.  I am certain none of these names will appear on the birth certificate, but in the interim of knowing the official name: welcome to the world, Twilight Sparkle Lipstick :)

BOY
Well, man, really.  I have a good one. A great one, actually.  I have a lot of baggage from my marriage.  My ex is a good man who didn't know how to talk to me, how to give me the attention and affection I needed, how to love me as I need to be loved.  That doesn't make him a bad guy by any stretch, it just means we couldn't manage forever together.

But, the man I am with now, gives me every reason to believe that love can be the sustaining foundation beneath a person's feet that allows her to feel stronger, need less, and know more.  I am grateful every day, even for the roughest patches between us, because who we are once the storm passes is always so damn beautiful.

Once more unto the breach...

The past nearly five months have been full of down time, sadness, quiet introspection, silence, loneliness, and books.  There have, of course, been joyous moments, but tonight the quiet is creeping in, and I feel the need to settle in to it. The more I run from it, the more it comes back to haunt me anyway, so I'm going to give the beast a few words and hope it sloughs away for a while.

Friends I love have cancer. Women I love don't know they are worth more than the relationships they stay in. The man I love is beyond my reach in many ways. People I love have moved away. Students I believe in have dropped out. Decisions I've made regarding my financial future have blown up in my face. And let's not mention the lack of fitness this frame of mine exhibits.

In the immortal words of a positivity guide I saw on Etsy: shit's fucked.

I cannot think of a worse stretch of years.  I understand that being a human is hard, that life isn't meant to be sunshine and roses, that you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life. I get it. I just can't help but wonder when the good will come back around.

My job is as fulfilling as it is heartbreaking most days, but the crush of work has been nearly unbearable lately, and most of my students have no interest in learning anything. The majority of them want to show up, do the bare minimum, and be handed an A on a silver platter. When I suggest they work, read, learn, they scoff and tell me none of their other teachers cares this much, so what is my problem.  Indeed. What IS my problem?

I guess my problem is that I want the world to be good. I want the people I care for to be happy. I want the minds I encounter to be open and ready for new information. I want to see goodness in the world and to feel a deep sense of gratitude for my part in a universe that allows me to love this much. My problem is that I care more than nearly every one I know about almost everything.

And so at night, surrounded by books that serve as my most frequent companions these days, I am discovering a troubling truth about myself. I don't mind solace in the least, but I am not made for so much isolation. I need to share my life, my heart, my need to care. I need that, and yet I cannot seem to find a way to do it that doesn't potentially break my heart. And there it is, the fact we all want to avoid: vulnerability is the only real road to intimacy and connection, but being vulnerable can terrify us away from the very relationships that yield said intimacy and connection.

Tonight I say a prayer for all of us waiting on the sun, trying to believe in a tomorrow brighter than today, offering our open hands towards the sky that they may be filled with so much hope and promise.