Christmas in Gloomyville

On the Kitsap peninsula outside Seattle, it was snow and ice, ice and snow, sleet and rain. The sky was mostly subtle shades of gray, so I renamed my daughter's house "Gloomyville." In actuality, it was a beautiful week--waking up to views of the Olympia mountains, seeing deer tracks in the snow, hoping for a sighting of the coyotes that live in the woods behind their house. But if I lived there I would have to have light therapy. It was just too easy to sit in front of the fire, watch movies, eat huge meals and suck down red wine. Go to the gym? That would require too many clothes and a slippery ride on black ice. Playing Candyland and Happy Hippos was much safer and warmer, even if I was in danger of being mistaken for one of the hippo game pieces by the end of the week. When I headed West, I thought I would write every day, check off the Skirt! to-do list for the February issue. But I didn't write anything, didn't think of work, didn't miss work, didn't want to go back to work. I finished last volume in His Dark Materials, slept like a 3-year-old, marked time by breakfast lattes, snow clouds moving over the mountains, 5 o'clock Prosecco, the Netflix movie of the night. Even the cross country flight was a mini vacation ...trapped in coach with my Blackberry turned off, I read all the way there and all the way home. My brain was in another time zone, my soul slapped awake. I was On the Road in my mind, headed west, leaving behind the path I wear down between home, work, grocery, gas station, Friday night drinks after work, Saturday errands, Sunday angst over the waning weekend. Flying over the U.S., I wanted to be literally on the road, driving from coast to coast, part of the lonely Grant Woods/Edward Hopper landscape/cityscape that America used to be. Or is that just a leftover romantic illusion/delusion? Maybe the only thing down there on the blue highways now is Walmart. But when I look out a plane window and see its shadow passing over the fields and winding roads below, I get the same hollow spacious feeling I used to have when the train went through my hometown late at night--the lighted windows, people going Somewhere, the train whistle as it came to our crossing--that urge for going that Tom Rush sang about.

"Shut up and fly," she said.

Tonight I went to a wedding and came home delightfully tipsy and slightly sad. Although it was sweet to see old friends and witness two people set off on what must seem like an endless road of possibility and passion, it made me very aware of my own mortality and my single-ness, my lone ranger life. I came home to a quiet house--not empty, because my house has its own daemon and it's a good one--but there was no one I chew over the events of the evening with and the silence seemed too big and weighty. I started wrapping Christmas presents and came across this glittery kitschy angel I bought on a whim, folded up in fragile tissue paper. Her Miss American Angel sash reads "Sweet Dreams" and her wings are gold and her moon-topped crown is silver and she looks concerned, thoughtful and attentive. It made me wish for a visitation from a guardian angel who could talk some sense into me:

"There are worse things than putting air in your own tires."

"Stop feeling guilty about the vibrator."

"Your path in life has been perfectly You."

"Admit it...reading in bed alone at 2am is delicious."

"Be brave, be bold, be Nikkiriffic."

The See of an Idea

On the way to work today I was thinking about the new year. I admire people who have long lists of goals they draw up by New Year's Eve, complete with steps to achieve the goals branching out and giving birth to yet more subsets of goals in a Franklin Covey kind of productive frenzy. I want to do that, but I'm so lazy and inattentive that I can't even finish the list, much less the goals. But this year I do have a strong urge to work toward something that is as yet unname-able. So I decided I need a theme for the coming year. I envision it as a street sign pointing the way into the new year. It would be made out of colorful flowers, papier mache birds, garlands and twinkling lights spelling out my theme. It would arch over the street and I'd walk under it into the new year. I was driving and thinking about this and waiting for my theme to emerge from the depths of my psyche and I kept getting an image of growth and trees and souls and creativity. All very inchoate. So imagine the synchronicitous surprise of walking in the office and finding a package with a colorful angel tied to it and this beautiful bronze/silver leather journal inside. There are no accidents, are there? How many times do I have to be reminded of this?

If I Were 3 Years Old Again...

* I would fingerpaint my way into adulthood.

* I would plant my feet and not be moved.

* I would resist being a good girl.

* I would talk back early and often.

* I would graduate from high school as early as I could, because it's the most boring and pointless institution ever invented.

* I wouldn't worry one single day about what They think of me.

* I would explore every corner of America.

* I wouldn't confuse my soul with my ego.

* I would to go to the movies more often.

* I would make friendship my career.

* I would learn to grow my own food.

* I would choose instead of being chosen.

Stop Being Small

The card I pulled from my Oblique Strategies box tonight read, "Trust in the you of now." For some reason, I've encountered swollen egos everywhere I've turned in the past few weeks, and whenever it happens, I feel myself start to shrink and shrivel and emotionally be-little myself. I become small in spirit and small-minded. Instead of remembering the ways I count, I count the ways I fail: I don't write as well as X; I'll never be as confident as Y; I'm not as likable as Z. What the Oblique Strategies card reminds me is that other people's egos and achievements aren't my business, that I need to refocus on what I love to do, not what I'm doing in comparison to others. Whenever I re-learn, re-live this lesson, I can feel my true Self (my daemon?) come circling back home, not lost, not flying in circles, not flapping its wings and getting nowhere. I get my bearings back, my soul's GPS, my true north.

The Smell of Peace

It's dark green and sharp and foresty. It says, lie down here and listen to the wind in the tops of the trees, look up and fall into the stars.

Tonight I came home to find a Peace Wreath on my porch. I have to admit that I love getting presents as much as my 4-year-old granddaughter does. What happened to make me forget that about myself and others? I promise in 2008 to be a surprise gifter for no reason at all. To send out-of-the-blue cards and presents, to leave them on door steps or bring them to friends on the spur of the moment. Because opening the brown cardboard box and having the evergreen sap-rich scent surge up and out into the living room, to fold back the tissue and read the card--made me unreasonably, seasonably happy. Of course, my next reaction was: "I don't deserve this," followed by "How can I repay this and top this?". And then I thought, "shut up and smell the wreath." The mantra of this month will be that it's more blessed to give than to receive, but I think learning to receive with love is just as important. Thank you thank you thank you.

Kuan Yin Blesses the Kitchen

Have mercy on this stove that was born before self-cleaning was invented and only has one rack. Have mercy on its owner who is impatient with recipes and directions. Have mercy on whatever lies behind the stove and I pray we never have to go there. Have mercy on the garbage disposal that clogs up for no reason and refuses to grind--may its rage be directed more usefully at lemon rinds and celery behinds. Have mercy on the microwave--it can't help being friends with fast and frozen food. Let it coexist peacefully with oven-roasted chicken and tagines. Have mercy on General Electric and Jack Welch...he can't help his hubris and hormones. Have mercy on Alec Baldwin who plays a General Electric executive on tv and who I sometimes hear when I'm moved to the top of the entertainment center at the whim of my owner. May his anger with his ex wife be abated or mediated by a Hollywood Kuan Yin. Have mercy on the kitchen renovation coming soon and may it not last too long and may the granite be the right color. Have mercy on everyone who eats my owner's cooking. She means well.

"Lovin' the Spin that I'm in..."

My daughter called me this weekend to tell me she thinks I suffer from ADHD, because I tend to go into a Spinout several times a week. It usually starts out with a task on my to-d0 list that I want to complete but in the course of that, I spin off into multiple other configurations. Say I want to organize my piles of Stuff into file folders. Simple, right? No! First I discover that I don't need to go Staples before I can even get started. Somehow I spin off into reading old love letters, carrying them into the kitchen, starting to unload the dishwasher, remembering I need to take an antidepressant, realizing I'm out, calling the pharmacy, leaving the house to pick up the prescription, pausing on the way to the car to deadhead a rose bush I left for dead months ago, veering into the back yard to hunt for clippers to do the job properly, pausing to unlock the irrigation box to reset the controls, realizing I left my debit card in the house, going in the back door to get it, seeing the half emptied dishwasher, detouring to finish the job, spotting a recipe I wanted to make, copying down the ingredients for a side trip to the grocery after I finish at the pharmacy...well, you get the picture. Nothing ever seems to get really completed. I always thought I was just lazy, so it comes as a pleasant surprise to think I could just take a pill and start to focus, get things done before a deadline looms, stop agonizing about the existential implications of every little task in front of me instead of just getting started on it. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry and in between I read some old love letters and think maybe I should consider red folders after all.