Nostalgia and New Years

We spent a quiet Christmas at home, the boys, Tom, me, and my parents. It was cold but snowless. Everyone seemed interested in staying in their pajamas and in the house for as long as possible each day, and for the most part we did.

Movies were huge this holiday season, both at home and in the theaters. We watched Roman Holiday, The Circus (Charlie Chaplin silent film from 1928- have you seen it? Priceless.), the original Star Wars trilogy, and the original Murder On the Orient Express, and went out to see The Last Jedi once again and also The Post (that one sans kids). I highly recommend all of them.

We took the kids to a local restaurant to hear the senior chamber chorus from their school sing carols and to eat big burgers and plates of fries at the bar. Dad made many lemon pies, and we ate all of them.

Yesterday it snowed, and yesterday Mom and Dad left, and yesterday I started taking down our Christmas decorations, and today I feel terribly blue. Even my stomach is in revolt. The physical push and pull of emotion and fatigue and goodbyes to all that, I suppose.

For many, the end of the year, the turn of a season, the closing of any given chapter can be fraught. I can never anticipate how I'll feel during times of change; no one is always happy or a trigger. Last New Year's I felt festive and bright. This evening I feel heavy and sludgy. I am trying to roll with it, but such is not my forte.

Even with all the good, this year has also been dreadful in ways. The devolution of so much of our country -norms, what unity remained, decency, our standing in the world, our "president"- weighs heavily on my shoulders and my heart. So many people died this year, so much of the natural world was harmed. Some of my closest friends have children with mighty challenges. My sister and her family are far away, my parents too, really, and I feel that disconnect so deeply at times. I am getting gray hair and wrinkles that concealer doesn't much hide. I don't look young anymore.

And while all of that can be managed most of the time, sometimes it feels none of it can. Sometimes the yoyo of acceptance and positivity suddenly speeds back with ferocity and force and wallops you in the face and soul. It's annoying really. It's like when your phone battery is doing fine and then suddenly plummets into the red zone, and you're like WTF because of course you don't have a charger handy and you need to be able to receive a call and also send a few emails before you pick up your kids because even though they're older, you still can't count on uninterrupted time until they're asleep that night and now that's so much later than it used to be and maybe you can't even stay up that long. 

I'm really peevish about my hair and skin right now. I know that sounds so shallow, and it bugs me because I want to feel zen about aging and fight the stupid Hollywood establishment that imposes ridiculously impossible standards on the acceptable ways women should look as they age. Which is to say that they look as if they are not aging. But it's hard to suddenly look on the outside a way that doesn't match, or at least present, the way I feel (wish to feel) on the inside. 

Which is why I bought an expensive facial peel and mask at Whole Foods last night after speaking briefly to the male employee who may or may not have known what he was saying to me during a trip there for hummus and mayo. Desperation will drive you to the inner aisles, people. 

The yoyo is also swinging back to the point of its arc at which the kids need to return to school, routine needs to become routine again, and at least one of Oliver's enormous box creations has got to make it to the recycling bin. I feel like we live in a boxopolis. I don't want to live in a boxopolis. I don't want to quash his creativity either, but he is the laziest, worst cleaner-upper ever which is to say he cries and doesn't do it unless I threaten to take dessert away, and I mean really, aren't we past that now? 

And yet, as I push it all away, I pull it back to me, just like that yoyo. I am thankful that I don't exercise excessively anymore, that I eat what I want when I want, that my children love me so much and I them, that they are so creative and cool and dear and fun, that they like to relax in pjs as much as Tom and I do.

I am furious and heartbroken about the state of our country, but I am proud to resist in all the ways I can and do. I am grateful to have realized my strengths and to continually improve at overcoming worries and doing it all anyway.

If you are feeling nostalgic tonight, or sad, or pissed, or tired, or worried, or old, I am sending you a hug and a cozy pair of socks. If you're feeling festive and youthful and happy and full, I am so happy for you. I'm going to let myself feel what I'm feeling, and I guess that's growth right there. We have a fire to light, and nachos to make, and boys to tuck in, and T said he'd do a puzzle with me tonight, so there's that. 

Force be with us as 2018 rolls in.

It's been forever: memorial service, a salon, a protest

Gosh, y'all, I've never gone this long without posting here. Not while sick or abroad or in the weeds of any sort have I missed more than 4-5 days. But so goes life, and there you have it.

We're renovating our kitchen so have been mired in plans, and the boys finished school last Friday, and I went to New York on Sunday for Peter's memorial service and returned first thing Monday, and Christmas is a'coming, and on Saturday Jack asked with the most darling sincerity, "Mom, can you take me to the salon so I can get a new hair style?" and the orthodontist and this horrid tax bill and resistance, and a new venture, and so on.

I am deeply thankful to have been able to return to New York for Peter's tribute. I got to stay with my dear friend of nearly twenty years, Shawn, and time with dear old friends you don't see often enough is the absolute spice of life. 

Fourteen people shared their memories of Peter: how he'd believed in and supported them; how he'd changed their lives; how he was a rock, a touchpoint, the reason to stop and smell the flowers while running across a bustling campus. I know that I met Peter just when I needed to, at a time when I wavered internally, unsure of so much. He was a strong, funny, wise guidepost who kept me anchored and forward looking, even when I didn't know it. It was a gift to sit and listen to all who offered their reminiscences to us, a gift to hug Peter's wife and say thank you, a gift to see former colleagues and friends, a short moment to breathe and simply be present, with and for friends. 

This morning I spent two hours with a remarkable young woman. I have just opened the doors to a new business, an editorial consulting company of my own. I seek to help others make their written work shine. From college and graduate school essays to resumes and manuscripts, I am an eager partner and absolutely love the work. More about all of this soon.

After our work, I took Jack to the orthodontist to get new brackets and Christmas-themed rubber bands before heading on to my hair stylist for my big boy's first trip to the salon. 

Tom has cut both boys' hair for all these years. Jack has never been to a barber, and Oliver has just twice. When Jack said to me the other day, "I love that Dad cuts my hair, but I have had this do forever, and I just want something more me, with some lift," I both nearly died over the darlingness of it all and felt happy to make an appointment with Michael.

As I knew he would, Michael listened to Jack's vague vision with such seriousness. Then, he began. And now, my boy is thrilled. He has stood a little taller all day and he has reapplied his "product" with admirable restraint. I thought Oliver might want a trim after all this, but no. No amount of pride and preening from Jack could get Ol before hair scissors.

After an hour's rest, the boys and I crafted signs for tonight's protest at the White House, Caroling for Impeachment. My good friend, Karen, and a friend of hers, Emily of The Handmaid Coalition, were co-sponsoring the event with March On. Karen rewrote classic Hanukkah and Christmas songs with a decidedly #resistance slant, Emily brought handmaid costumes, and March On advertised and organized.

We marched, sang, and delivered post cards with messages of good tidings and swift impeachment. It was a great way to combat feelings of horror and fury over the current tax "bill" and general devolution of our democracy and also a great way to teach democracy in action: one cannot take it for granted, and using our voices to gather and protest is absolutely our Constitutional right!

It was a gorgeous evening, and the White House looked so beautiful. I felt sad that such ugliness lives inside, but my hope is not gone, and I guess that's something. 

Dominoes, New York, Hamilton, Virginia

I'm telling y'all what. The men are falling like dominoes. If this rate keeps up, we'll be a matriarchal country sooner than not. (Hear, hear). Who's next? Santa? It's disgusting. And yet what might chafe most is the fact that while many men are (finally) paying for their gross misdeeds, a sick perp who happens to be "president" has not. Is not. Is now saying maybe that "Grab 'em by the pussy" tape wasn't true. Y'all know where this is going. 

America is in the deepest of shit. No other way to put it. From the tax "plan" to assaults on healthcare. reproductive rights, and the media; from the anti-science jokers burning the EPA and our environment in a coal-fired oven to the lifting of regulations on murdering elephants and shipping their heads back to the US (yeah, I know that one's on hold, but please) so small-d**ked men can feel manly; from an education secretary who is stunningly ignorant about education to a slimy guy with an even slimier wife who like to fondle OUR money, we are screwed. The poor will get poorer, all but the wealthiest will get unhealthier and less educated, our reputation is plummeting down the toilet, our air and water will become increasingly sick, and the divisions between "red" and "blue" will become more and more petrified.

In other news, New York. I just love New York, and that is grand because I'm going twice in the next month. Yee-howdy!

Tomorrow, I'm pulling Jack from school early, so that he and I can get to the Big Apple in time for his birthday present: Hamilton. His birthday was in July, but because Hamilton, this is the soonest I could get tickets. It works out beautifully because he has no school on Friday which buys us a whole extra day in the city, AND New York at Christmastime is hard to beat.

We're going to see the Rockefeller Center tree and get dessert after the show tomorrow night and on Friday we plan to spend hours (literally) sciencing our faces off at the Hayden Planetarium and Natural History Museum. God, we'll just be rolling in facts. From this country's founding to what we now know about space and avian flight and human senses, I look forward to coating ourselves in a thick crust of truth. Ooh, mama, we'll be breaded cutlet bulwarks against the stupidity tainting the land. 

Then to meet a friend and then to dinner at The Spotted Pig. On Saturday, we're having brunch with one of my favorite people and fitting in all last-minute desires before hopping our bus home at 4. 

It is going to be grand. 

Also, my niece. Is she not divine??