A Backwards Glance - A Forward Gaze

A happy New Year! Grant that I
May bring no tear to any eye
When this New Year in time shall end
Let it be said I've played the friend,
Have lived and loved and labored here,
And made of it a happy year.
~Edgar Guest

It is December 29, time for reconciling last year's book and making next year's plan. I will not remember 2011 as a particularly remarkable year. It had some good days and some bad. In January, I traveled to Chicago with my sisters and Geraldine, and checked a visit to see Oprah, off my bucket list. In March, Merv and I spent a glorious week in Mexico. In May we buried our dear friend Percy. In June we went to the UK for sixteen days giving us a chance to connect with old friends and family. For the first months of the year, my business was on life-support while my unpaid board work consumed my time and life. My tenure on one board ended while the tensions on my other board increased. In the late spring my business took off once again - the long drought ended by a deluge of work for which I was extremely grateful. There has been a great deal of sadness in the lives of people around me. There have been too many funerals, too much grief, too much fear. My mom broke her hip and lived to see another year. She will be ninety next week. I had another cancer scare of my own and breathed a great sigh of relief when it turned out to be just a scare. And I took on a new study project that I'm not quite ready to talk about publicly just yet. The year was full. And I am grateful for every day.

But now the time has come to look ahead. Of course there is no way to know what the year will bring. I imagine there will be some good days and some bad days. I won't be making my usual resolutions again this year. I'd love to lose some weight. I'd love to get organized. But I won't resolve to do those things. I will try to do them. Again. I will or I won't succeed. But I won't start my year by setting myself up for failure. What I will resolve to do is to try and look at the world in a slightly different way this year. I'm going to strive to be open to all the world has to offer and to all the possibilities for the enrichment of my life. I'm going to try and pay attention to what the universe is telling me. 2012 - I'm jumping in with both feet.

Hair

Gimme a head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

- Lyrics from the song Hair

Merv outdid himself with tonight's holiday treat for the family. In addition to buying tickets for us all to see Hair at the Royal Alex theatre, he ordered a white stretch limousine to take us to dinner and then the theatre and then to return us home. It was quite an evening.

Hair is set in New York in 1967. It was an age of rebellion and unrest. The days of sit-ins and marches on Washington. The days of drugs, free love and rock and roll. The days of the Vietnam war, the draft in the U.S. and the haven Canada provided to draft dodgers. We had the soundtrack album to Hair and Cath and I played it endlessly until the vinyl was nearly worn out. We knew all the words to all the songs. Surprisingly, these 44 years later, I still did. But I was only twelve years old in 1967 and I didn't know what the story of Hair was about. I knew it was about the sexual revolution, hippies and drugs and I assumed it was about war protests and rebellion. I did know that in its day, it was very risque both for the language used and the on-stage nudity. I didn't know it would end with such sadness or touch so many nerves. Forty-four years later, it is still poignant, still relevant, still in so many regards true to our times. The music is still fun and still fresh. I really enjoyed it. Merv is going to have an awful time topping himself next year.

Bittersweet

"Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever." - Bess Streeter Aldrich

I have finished arranging the centerpiece flowers and am about to embark on making the trifle before I set the table. It is Christmas Eve, my favorite day of the year. The sun is shining in the ice blue sky. Christmas music is playing on the stereo and the guests will arrive in a few hours. I love this day.

The only melancholy part of today is that Geraldine's sister is expected to pass within the next few hours. It has been a long, hard struggle but she is at the very end now. The death of a loved one is always hard but to lose a wife, mother, daughter, sister on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, somehow seems to magnify the sorrow of the loss. My friend David, who practices Kaballah, reminded me yesterday that it is both Hanukkah and Christmas this week - a time of miracles. So I'm praying for healing for all who grieve in this holiday season and peace in the hearts of us all.

Merry Christmas.

Homecoming

"A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting."
- Abraham Maslow

The pea soup is simmering in the stockpot on top of the stove and his sheets are tumbling in the dryer. In just a few hours, Jacob will be home for the Christmas holidays. I'm excited.

As I hadn't seen him for four weeks, the longest time we've been apart in his life, I decided I couldn't wait until today and so I went to Guelph to take him out for lunch last Tuesday. We spent a few lovely hours over a leisurely lunch and then did a bit of Christmas shopping before we went back to Jacob's place where he resolved some troublesome computer problems I had been having. Parting that day was a little better than usual because I knew today he would be home. Before I left I asked him what he wanted me to have ready when he got here. He told me whatever I made would be fine but his roommate Abby told me to make pea soup. She said that Jacob often speaks about my pea soup and how much he loves it. So, pea soup it is.

The trees are up and the banister is decorated. Merv did the downstairs tree and I did the upstairs tree - almost. I didn't put the star on the top. I decided to wait for Jacob. He'll have the honor of placing the star this year and that seems right. My baby is coming home. Now it's Christmas.

Creating a Christmas

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,
for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away
like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.
The good you do for others is good you do yourself...
~Norman Wesley Brooks, "Let Every Day Be Christmas," 1976

For the past few years, my sisters and I have been adopting a family for Christmas through the Redwoods Shelter. Redwoods provides a safe place for women and children escaping domestic violence. Some of the Redwoods families live in the house for a period of time before being supported through the transition to their own safe housing. And each December, we receive the Christmas lists for one of those families. Shopping for the family is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. This year we have a mom and two young boys, ages 5 years and 9 years. Normally, the lists we get are very modest from both the mom and children, but this family is dreaming big and I'm so pleased about that. We got two lists for each family member - a "needs" list and a "wish" list. Of course we have no obligation to provide everything on either list but we certainly aim to fill the items on the "needs" lists and many of the items on the "wish" list and then add some unexpected surprises. In addition to these items, we shop all year long and grab the opportunities to buy things at good prices that would serve the other shelter families like toys and books, children's clothing and toiletries and luxury items for the moms.

In filling the lists this year, we have put together snowsuits for the boys and a gift card for the mom to select her own coat, hats and gloves, pajamas, a bathrobe and slippers, a luxury bath set, books, Hot Wheels, Lego, a magic set complete with two custom sewn magic capes (Nancy did that), a hockey stick and Maple Leaf's memorabilia, a soccer ball, clothes for the boys, jewelry for the mom (my own creations), sheets for all the beds, a toaster, cocoa pot and cups, a slow cooker, a DVD player and DVDs and some extra toys, puzzles and games for good measure. Apart from those things, we have five huge bags of "extras" for other families at Redwoods. My biggest problem is that I can't figure out how I'm going to get everything in my car to deliver it tomorrow evening.

When I go to bed on Christmas Eve, I will be thinking about our shelter family. I know for certain they've had a tough time. I hope when they wake up on Christmas morning, they will know that it's okay to dream big, good things can happen and there is still magic in the world. And I will send them my love, prayers and thanks for helping me rekindle the magic in my world.