Dropping Balls and Dread

New Year’s Eve has just never been high on my list of holidays. It isn’t a proper holiday like July 4th or Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving, on which even though we may be celebrating based on an artificially contrived date (or a Pagan ritual) we are actually commemorating something. All we are recognizing on New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s day, for that matter, is the fact that humans created a calendar with an arbitrary number of days, after making up the whole “day” thing to begin with, and that after 365 or 366 of those artificial units of measure have passed, we start counting again. No signing, no dying, no rising, and no Pilgrims and Indians. It seems to me that celebrating New Year’s Eve is very much like celebrating crossing the state line into Indiana, or the fact that the Ramen noodles cook perfectly after 3 minutes. Why not have big parties celebrating the Winter Solstice, when something interesting and dramatic is actually happening in the physical world?

I would not object to the whole idea of New Year’s Eve were it not for the heavy expectations piled on top of this kind of random and contrived event. As a child, I was safe and happy on December 31st because my parents either hosted or attended some kind of party, and my brother and I enjoyed a festive evening with our Grammy Graham, eating contraband snacks, drinking sparkling cider and trying to stay up until the ball dropped. As a grown up and married person I am, again, in the safe harbor that comes with having a predictable date for the evening, and (best of all) knowing that we don’t have to do anything at all if we don’t want to; we can watch a “Cops” marathon, rent movies, order hot wings, or otherwise disport ourselves in an old and married manner. Sometimes, like tonight, we adjourn to the home of equally old and married people to drink a little, watch a talent show improvised by our children, and hug dear old friends at midnight after a conjugal kiss. All good.

In the valley between the rolling green peaks of childhood and my current situation lay the New Year’s Eve Danger Years, when I began to have panic attacks at the mere mention of the occasion some time around Thanksgiving. Would I have a date? Would I have somewhere to go? If I had a date, would it be good? What would I wear? What if I didn’t get asked to do anything? There was no sticking of heads in sand, either; every other radio ad was for a “bangin’ New Year’s Eve” party at some bar or another, and the paper had a full page of advertisements to lure people with cash and a passion for cheap champagne and rowdy crowds. Like Valentine’s Day (which I should hate just as much, but do not because I like hearts and pink stuff), New Year’s Eve became a giant, perpetual reminder that one should be doing something much better than she would be doing on any other December night, and that everyone else would be lounging lasciviously at the Hottest Party Ever with a drink in one hand and a bulging bicep in the other.

Here is a random sampling of what happened instead:

1978: A sophomore in high school, invited to spend the evening at the home of Guy I Really Liked. We made Chicken Marsala and watched TV. I had spent ages getting ready, imagining what might happen, hoping that he’d kiss me at midnight. He did not. Crushing disappointment entirely eclipsed pretty amusing evening.

1982: Invited to go out to a party at a bar by current but ambivalent boyfriend. Bought dress, tiny handbag and monstrous stilettos. I looked good, he looked good. Smoky, noisy, icky party with people throwing up in the bathrooms. Too much drinking. Back to my (parents’) house where I did get kissed, after which he threw up and passed out.

1985: House sitting at house that seemed perfect for sizzling rendezvous with current boyfriend. Cooked up a storm, bought champagne, dressed seductively. I made stuffed mushroom caps, for God’s sakes. Boyfriend (who had told me he loved stuffed mushroom caps) arrived un-hungry because he had “eaten at work.” Hated champagne. Started watching college football games, which he did until they were all over, during which time I worked myself up to the giant fight that occupied our time from 11:00 into the wee hours of the morning.

1987, 1988, 1999: Studying for law school exams which started bright and early the first week day after New Year’s Day. Studying with guy from New Year’s Eve 1982, still ambivalent, still no kiss at midnight.

1990, 1991: Alone in my apartment in Boston? Talking to the stranger who called me by mistake, really liked my voice and kept calling back to see if I’d have phone sex? So sad I buried it.

1992, 1993, 1994: Probably with my parents, or possibly taping the labels back into library books.

So you see. You see. It never worked out quite right, it was never all it was cracked up to be. I’m not all that bitter any more, just sort of sad that I wasted all that time and energy trying to make my life mesh with a reality that was…unreal.

The best New Year’s Eve ever? In 1996 I was pregnant, and on bed rest in the hospital where I had been since November 22. My husband (well, he wasn’t, yet, but only because my plans for a cute, empire-gowned wedding had been ruined by the fact that I was living in a bed with rails for the foreseeable future) brought takeout Chinese and we borrowed a video player from the Gray Ladies so we could watch movies. I was not allowed to get up and take a shower at that particular juncture, and I was wearing a nightgown. There was no perfume, no makeup, no heels, no glamour, no drinking, no party hats, no bands, just a couple waiting for a baby under rather stressful circumstances, having a great evening together ( interrupted occasionally by nurses with pills or blood pressure cuffs). Six days later, we were parents, and that, dear reader, is something to celebrate.

I will not wish for you magnums of champagne, high expectations or reams of resolutions. Instead, I hope that you observe the passing of a pretty ordinary winter’s night with peace and equanimity, enjoying the companionship of family or friends if there’s a celebration to be had, or a good meal and a good book if there isn’t. It’s just another night, really, a man-made benchmark that means nothing cosmic unless we choose to buy into the hype. Nothing is any different tomorrow unless we make it so, and that choice is, to me, vastly more interesting than what anyone does tonight.

The Egg Came First.

Both of my parents worked, and both of my parents cooked. My mother cooked our nightly dinner, cooked elaborately for dinner parties, and cooked traditionally for holidays; my father had a small selection of specialties which he prepared brilliantly, but from which it was unwise for him to stray. Just as he could play “Waltzing Matilda”on the piano with great panache (but nothing else, because he didn’t read music and had never had a piano lesson in his life) he prepared omelets, souffles and quiches that were enviable in their perfection and deliciousness. He also had a way with bread pudding and rice pudding. Outside this egg-y arena he cooked with rather less flair, tending to make meatloaf stuffed with random and vaguely repellant leftovers, lunches featuring Devilled Ham sandwiches with mayonnaise, and his 1970s specialty of pork chops with Risotto a la Milanese. This last item he made quite nicely, but so often that my brother and I dreaded our mother’s departure for a conference, knowing that we would, at least twice, be served the ubiquitous pork and risotto duo when we really craved macaroni and cheese or fried chicken.

It’s strange, given the fact that my mother was the main cook in the family, that my first memorable cooking lesson occurred not under her direction, but under my father’s. Maybe it was because cooking was less novel and entertaining for her, or because I was always more willing to receive instruction from my father, tending to ruffle and become stone-faced at the suggestion that I might learn anything from a woman who seemed to do everything well, cheerfully,  and with enviable ease while I fumbled through life eccentric and misunderstood. If I could not emulate her (and I could not) I could reject her natural ebullience and social success as too cheap for the likes of me; I preferred to think that my artistic temperament and delicate nature were better handled by the parent who also tended to be shy, self-effacing and hyper-sensitive.

I was probably nine or ten when my father taught me how to make an omelette, and it is the first thing I remember cooking by myself after the lesson was over. He taught me to beat three eggs and a splash of milk, using a fork, never an egg beater (although we had both), to have the cheese shredded before I began cooking, and to melt a pat of butter in an omelette pan, maneuvering the handle so that the thin veil of foaming liquid coated the entire bottom and sides of the pan. The eggs were then poured gently in, and a thin and flexible spatula was used to go around the quickly setting disc of egg, raising the edge and tipping the pan slightly so that the uncooked portion could slide underneath towards the heat. When only a faint hint of raw egg remained in the center, the cheese was sprinkled evenly across a precise half-moon of egg, allowed to begin melting and then concealed by the Big Flip, the trickiest part of the process. My father started me off with the two-spatula method which ensured that there would not be a tragic break in the puffy, golden top; after an assortment of successes and failure in the flipping department (all edible, just not always pretty) I graduated to swift, one-spatula glory.

The gift of omelette instruction has served me well for nearly forty years. When I was a poor law student I could get four dinners out of a carton of eggs, a stick of butter and a hunk of cheese (I could sometimes even have toast with it). When I was dating, it was an easy and impressive breakfast with which to dazzle a sleep-over guest. When I am home alone now,  it is my default solo meal. I can, and do make fancy omelets for other people, utilitarian omelets filled with leftovers, and experimental omelets filled with everything from spaghetti to cottage cheese. I make “blank” omelets with no filling, but perhaps a drizzling of truffle oil or a sprinkling of really good, crunchy salt. I never even get through cracking the eggs without hearing my father’s voice in my head, no matter what fresh hell is erupting among the dogs, cats, children and telephone; even if I am plugged in to a podcast or a little mood music I can hear him, and my hands demonstrate perfect muscle memory as I crack, splash, whip, melt, pour, cook and flip.

He gave me a lot more than a thrifty and versatile meal option, or a set of good, basic egg-cooking skills, my dad; he gave me an example of patience, craftsmanship, gentleness and the importance doing one’s best, even at the humblest of tasks.  Those lessons will be with me every time I make another omelette, even when he’s no longer just across town, quite possibly whisking his own eggs as a pat of butter melts in the pan.

Forgotten But Not Gone: An Open Letter to Caleb Followill

On a whim, because it had a very cool cover, I bought the latest issue of “Spin,” which promised to reveal to me the “Best of 2009.” It had a nice looking guy on the front, who the check-out person (Janet) believed to be Ashton Kutcher, but who was, in fact,  Kings of Leon’s lead singer Caleb Followill. After doing all of the dreary old Responsible Person things that I am obligated to do under the Geneva Convention (putting groceries away, making lunch, changing over the loads of laundry) I relaxed with my new magazine, hoping to find suggestions about bands that would make my pulse race, and my world expand. Instead, on page 4, I found a second picture of the handsome Followill behind a quote attributed to him: “[t]hat woman in mom jeans who’d never let me date her daughter likes my music? That’s f–king not cool.”

To say that I was stung would be an understatement. I had a brand new iPod Touch, I had just downloaded Sufjan Stevens’ “Illinois” on the recommendation of the considerably friendlier editorial staff at “Paste” magazine, and I was just hoping to find some more ideas about music to love. While I saw myself as an evolving, interested connoisseur of cutting edge pop culture, I had apparently been relegated Beyond the Pale, a mom-aged person doomed to listen to Billy Joel and Supertramp for all eternity, on 8-track tapes.

Here’s what I would like to say to the smug Mr. Followill (who, I will tell you without editorial comment, was photographed wearing a cross):

Dear Caleb,

If you are really an artist, I find it hard to believe that it matters whether or not your audience is “cool,” or what they’re wearing, or how old they are. Your self-conscious categorization of “cool us” and “not-cool them” makes it clear to me that while you may be talented (and I believe that you are) you are not really an artist, you are a complete and total sell-out and media whore. (No offense; us mom jean wearers just get really hot and pissed off sometimes, if you know what I mean). If I had a daughter, I would discourage her from dating you not because you are a pompous and self-proclaimed badass who gives interviews cherishing every bender, hangover and droppable name, but because I believe you to be narcissistic and immature.

If you are really an artist, Mr. Followill, you have something to say, you have a way of seeing the world, and you have a heart filled to bursting with the need to be heard. You write and sing not because it’s easy, or lucrative, or attracts groupies. (Those are all fun things, and I don’t begrudge you your perks, but that’s what they are. They are the collateral stuff that comes with recognition and popularity).  It is intellectually and artistically lazy to fall back on the cliché that Old People are shocked by everything new, from Elvis to the Beatles, and that the measure of success is the extent to which said Old People faint in shock and clap their withering hands over their hairy ears. You do not achieve success as an artist by excluding any potential listener, reader or viewer, although it may be part of achieving success as a commercially successful pop star to make your desired market segment feel like unique and special flowers. Do you want to be Britney Spears, or do you want to be an artist? It’s your business, really, but you should probably be honest about it.

It is a shock to me, a real shock, to learn that there is a caste system among listeners of alternative rock, or indeed any other kind of music. I am a person of the precise age and demographic you identify as “not cool” as a listener. Although I do not personally own a pair of mom jeans, I am old enough to be your mother, my hair is graying and my right knee hurts when it’s damp out. Inside, however, I am still very much alive. I have a full range of emotions, much as you do, and I also respond to music in the same way that a younger member of the species might respond. Lyrics move me, beats make my feet tap, and certain melodic lines and harmonies make me close my eyes or hit “replay” until I have gotten all the juice out of the experience. My point is that while you probably don’t want to date me, I am viable audience from the viewpoint of sharing an experience, a feeling or a message. If you cut me, do I not bleed? Does it really, seriously diminish your work if I like it? If so, that’s incredibly cold. Cold, short-sighted, reductivist and arrogant.

In closing, Caleb, I will acknowledge that artists have always had a person or group in mind when they created. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with checking your work against the imagined response of a patron, an unattainable lover, or even a competitive colleague. I don’t know who you think about when you write songs, although I’m pretty sure we can rule out women in their 40s. There has to be more than that consciousness of a possible audience, though, there has to be a loss of yourself in the work. That loss of self-consciousness is the point at which you cease to be a skilled craftsman making a product, and become an artist who no longer has the power to shape the work to please anybody else. If you cross that threshold, it won’t matter if your message is received by a woman in mom jeans, her hot and debauched daughter, or the night janitor at Madison Square Garden. It won’t matter if your listeners are “cool,” it will only matter that you have the relief and delight of connecting with a kindred spirit, a human in the vast sea of humans who responds to your words, your voice, your message. It’s all up to you, though; frankly, now that I’ve said my piece, I really don’t care what you do.

One more thing, though, Mr. Followill. My mother was right: pretty is as pretty does.

Best regards,

annie

The New York Times: A Love Story

Two weeks ago, I swallowed my shock at spending over six dollars for a newspaper, and bought a  Sunday New York Times. It was a revelation, a joy and so completely absorbing that I periodically had to remind myself to stop reading, and do something useful. Comparisons are odious and all, but since I started reading the Times, I am feeling the pain and guilt of finding a new love and leaving the old one with great relief and not much of a parting glance. Our local paper, despite being the only offering in this state’s capital, has lost all of its charm. It was purchased by some national publishing conglomerate which clearly labors under the impression that, because we live in Flyover,  even the goings-on under the Capital dome do not require an experienced and intelligent writing staff. Wire service reports are good enough for us, sometimes about events that occur within 50 miles of our circulation area.

Aside from the odd story about local high school sports heroes or a 1 – inch report on a local crime, the vast majority of our paper is compiled from wire stories, and many of the photographs are either file photos or pictures of folks in some other state getting ready to storm Wal-Mart or protesting taxes. Sometimes, a story about, say, preparations for Hanukkah will be written by a local reporter,  and feature one photograph from a nearby temple and one photograph of Jewish families in Rye or Austin spinning their dreidls.  Nice people, I have no doubt, but part of the joy of a local paper is finding a friend or neighbor captured on newsprint. There is no cutting out and saving these photos of strangers, or attaching them to the refrigerator with magnets.

Gone, too,  are the witty and insightful local columnists I used to read (except one), gone are most of the reviews of local concerts and theater, and gone is anything in the “Living” section about anyone “living” within a 300-mile radius of this town. Writers, photographers and editors have lost their jobs, and the few that remain are spread thin. There was more local coverage during the 2008 elections, and since I was working press for a Congressional campaign, I had occasion to speak with and submit press releases to a couple of good reporters who seemed to be intelligent and thoughtful; it looks like they have lost their jobs in the ensuing year. I understand what happened; print media is facing tough times, and newspapers everywhere are suffering, cutting back and shuttering the presses.

For a long time I kept reading, sticking with an unsatisfying relationship from a strong sense of duty, but not much love. When I realized that I was reading everything of interest to me in about 10 minutes, I had a Come-to-Jesus with myself. There was no national news in our paper that didn’t come from wire reports; I was getting all of my national news online. That made the entire “News” section a loss aside from the Op-Ed page, where I might find something of interest, or I might find nothing but a letter from an eccentric rural resident denouncing flouridated water and a column by Cal Thomas. I  read the obituaries in the “B” section, recycled the Sports and TV sections, and scanned Dear Amy and Miss Manners in the “D” section. Usually, I had not finished my first cup of coffee before I hit the wire service stories at the end of the “D” section about making adorable Christmas crafts out of leftover candy wrappers, or the revelation that some people gain weight during the first year of college.

Although I had sampled the Times that my parents received every Sunday, I had never considered just, well, reading the whole thing as my paper. I liked to steal the “Sunday Styles,” the magazine and the “Book Review;” occasionally I would snag a “Travel” or “Arts” section if something grabbed me. Last Sunday, when I opened my wallet wide and bought my own, whole Times, the earth moved. Not only was it vastly superior to the barely re-heated content of the local rag; it was a much better experience to read it “in person” instead of sitting at my desk staring at my computer. I want the paper to be a paper, to be real, and tangible and have big, papery pages that get tangled up when I try to fold them neatly.

I read all of the news, I read editorials written with great care, I read about concerts, organ transplants, working at Wal-Mart, the rise and fall of “Reader’s Digest,”  Patricia Highsmith, a 90-something abstract artist making it big, and a collection of short pieces by various “real” writers about telling lies at the holidays. I thought about military strategy, architecture, medical ethics, grammar, and Great Britain between the Wars. I literally, literally laughed and cried. I clipped a recipe for Manchurian Cauliflower and an article for my dad, and made little notes about books to read and movies to see. I did the puzzle. Like harvesting every scrap of meat off of a chicken carcass and then using the bones for soup, I picked and dug until I had extracted every bit of substance from the pile of newsprint on the dining room table. For less than the cost of a movie, or even a paperback book, I had been entertained and provoked and kept busy for hours and hours. It was real love.

I understand that, like our local embarrassment, the Times is facing serious problems of its own these days. I hope it helps, a little, that my husband gave me a Sundays-only subscription as Christmas gift, a sign that he, like the Times, is the Real Deal . When it arrived yesterday morning in its blue plastic bag, I fell in love all over again. Never mind that it will come every Sunday, or that, according to some critics, it “isn’t what it used to be;” I am still in the first heady part of the love affair. I removed it from its wrapper and separated it into sections (removing “Sports” because I don’t care about sports no matter how good the writing is). I divvied it up so that it would last through the week, reasoning that the front section and the “Week in Review” had to be read first so that I had the news under my belt while it was still news. After that Sunday dose of current events, I organized the remainder of the paper so that the “best stuff,” and the biggest stuff would be left for last. Monday would be “Business,”  Tuesday”Travel,” Wednesday  “Arts & Leisure,” Thursday the beloved “Sunday Styles,” and the “Book Review” and magazine for Friday and Saturday when I had earned a good, long read and had the time to have one.

Or I may just gorge and read all the rest of it today, because its kind of still The Holidays, and I can probably get away with it if I remember to do the laundry, answer e-mails from my boss, speak courteously to my family and make something for dinner. I am a little afraid that I may lose this treasure, that it will go the way of other print media and die slowly and painfully like our local paper, or from a sudden vicious death-blow to the bottom line. I could probably find out more about the prognosis, but honestly, I’m afraid to look.  I don’t want to read it all on my computer or my Blackberry; I admit that this love is not all about soul and substance, but about appearances and physical gratification. I love it that this paper is a paper, from the smudges on my fingers to the “ah” of putting my pencil to the Crossword. I am smitten, enraptured and probably way too attached for my own good, but surely you’ve been here yourself, and you’ll understand if I cling a little, and pray that this one will last….

Remember

Remember the birds and squirrels, who will love to have a slightly used tree in the yard hung with seeded suet balls and stale bread ends.

Remember to be where you are at any given moment, even if it’s stressful, taking in everything that’s around you as if it was the last time you’d have the chance.

Remember to catch the eye of the guy collecting cans and bottles to return for cash, and wish him a Merry Christmas.

Remember all the Christmases past, even if it’s a little sad, because those memories are part of who you are today, and the people and places that are not physically with you live on in you.

Remember to take a picture of your baby, youngest grandchild or cat playing with joyous abandon in the discarded paper and ribbon.

Remember to watch your favorite Christmas movie, no matter how corny, and don’t be ashamed to cry at the end.

Remember not to burn the roast beef, but if you do, remember that many of us like it a little crispy.

Remember to send a prayer, or good rays, or simply gratitude to the men and women who are far away from home serving our country while we are safe at home.

Remember to take some time to be alone, no matter how busy you are, to smell the tree, walk in the snow, or read a good book so that you can really appreciate the world when you come back to it.

Remember that your children love your hand on the back of their head, and the fact that you bring them soup when they’re sick just as much as they love whatever you wrapped and put under the tree. In the end, they’ll love it more.

Remember that I am grateful for all who read this blog, and that I wish you the happiest, calmest, most beautiful holidays you could possibly have.

Lip Balm, Lip Balm Everywhere, and Never a Pen With Ink….

Among the many beloved rituals associated with this time of year, one that is often overlooked is the Ritual Cleaning of the Purse. Possibly this is due to the fact that I am the sole observer of this particular practice, but I find that it dovetails beautifully with the necessity of carrying wads of both used and unused Kleenex, and the fear of dropping a Victoria’s Secret coupon in the aisle before Christmas Eve services. In order to prevent embarrassment, and to feel that I have control over at least one of the bloody messes in my life, I set aside a calm twenty minutes around the Winter Solstice to remove everything from the currently favored bag, evaluate the contents, and put back an optimistic selection of goods and chattels to accompany me on my seasonal rounds.

Onto the dining room table goes everything, in this instance a wallet, cell phone, reading glasses, an iPod, car keys on a ring the size of a dessert plate, a quilted pink makeup bag, a pad of Post-Its, a wad of receipts and coupons, an empty Kleenex package, three used Kleenex, a wad of unused Kleenex, several ticket stubs, a rubber ball, a single earring, a flier for Life Seekers Church, a furry breath mint, an empty Trident package, a piece of newspaper with an address written on it, a tiny first aid kit with nothing but alcohol wipes left, three paperclips and empty but pungent vial of something that smells like a waitress in a health food restaurant. There is a clear hierarchy of what should be thrown away, refilled, wiped off and/or restored to the appropriate spot (where it will be until the first time that I am trying to put a cup of soda in the drink holder while accepting change and holding my wallet. This is the easy part.

Curiously, no matter how often I re-shuffle, I never have a pen when I need one. I have golf pencils, their points covered with some vaguely greasy substance that makes them useless, regular pencils with no points at all, several pens advertising prescription drugs that have no ink or do not “click” properly into writing position, and one dried-up, pink Sharpie marker. Not one of these items can be used to fill out a deposit slip, address a package at the Post Office, or strike items off a shopping list. [I become paralyzed with anxiety and hyperventilate if I am prevented from crossing things off the shopping list as I put them in the cart; I am afraid that I will pick up two of something, plus it destroys any sense that I am actually accomplishing something].

What I have in abundance is lip balm. As of my most recent attempt at reorganization, there were no fewer than six labial lubricants (they come right before the four French Hens) in the various compartments and sub-compartments of my bag. There is a stick of Burt’s Bees, a brightly colored ball with a screw-top full of slightly gritty vanilla goop, something made with hemp that probably belongs to Sam, a cherry ChapStick, something called “Buzz Latte” and a tiny, crusty scrape of Creme de la Mer lip balm begged from a Neiman Marcus counter at least five years ago. After finding a suitable array of working pens (“ink pens,” they are mysteriously called in these parts, as if there were other pens filled, perhaps, with pomegranate juice or the blood of virgins) and putting them in an accessible spot, I tackle the lip balm proliferation.

Burt’s Bees stays in the place of honor, since I actually use it. The Ball O’ Balm is totally useless, but it was a gift from my mom, and she might know if I threw it out, and it goes back in. I need to keep Sam’s lip balm in case he is suddenly plagued by dry winter lips and has forgotten to bring his own balm; it’s icky to use someone else’s. The ChapStick seems like a good thing to keep in case I run out of Burt’s Bees, the Buzz Latte has a really cool package and it’s an impressive thing to whip out when I’m feeling chapped at a ladies’ lunch. They are both put back in the bag. The Creme de la Mer is a tough call. All of the liquid has evaporated, leaving only a quarter inch of tan scum clinging to the edges of the plastic sample vial. No one else would know that it was lip balm that cost as much per ounce as Krugerands, but I do. I had to work hard to get it, schmoozing the Morticia Addams behind the Creme de la Mer counter with a story about how I “loved the face cream but hadn’t tried the lip balm yet.” I tucked it back into a tiny pocket, deciding that it might eventually evaporate completely and take the decision out of my hands.

It’s cleaner now, and I’ll head out today knowing for at least a few minutes that my cell phone is in the Cell Phone Pocket and that I have only unused Kleenex at my disposal.  The pens will disappear into the pockets and purses of others, and be left on counters all over town, and new lip balms will appear, but for today I am in order.

Christmas: Am I Doing it Wrong?

Christmas is only three days away, and I’m beginning to think I did it wrong. I am not panicked, abject, or guilty; I am simply enjoying a relatively light workweek with the promise of family and a great dinner on Friday. Outside of my mellow sphere, however, there are signs that we are waiting not for a holiday, but for the end of the world, as we know it. The guy in the Sherlock Holmes hat at the Post Office talking loudly to himself about how he “didn’t need this aggravation,” the parents searching frantically for the last few gifts, the women with jobs and children beating themselves up because they haven’t gotten their cards out yet…it’s out there. Are they crazy or am I a flake?

I have had Annie’s Very Hysterical Christmas (followed by Annie’s Very Bad Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), but this year I decided to let the red & green chips fall where they may. We got a tree and a wreath, but when the day came to get the tree and Sam was busy at a friend’s house I chose not to have a fit and gnash my teeth because it was not our tradition and it was all RUINED. Rob and I went and had a lovely time, and we now have a lit and decorated tree and a wreath on the front door. The process of bringing the Christmas decorations was marred by the fact that approximately 700 squirrels have taken up residence in our attic, and at least one of the boxes didn’t make it down the ladder, as a result of which we are missing the nativity scene, several angels and some snowmen, all of which are probably far above my head providing bedding and snacks for the bushy-tailed enemy. I declined offers from Sam to shoot the offenders with his airsoft guns, and from Rob to set the cats on them; why shouldn’t the squirrels enjoy Christmas, too?

I didn’t bake cookies this year because we can’t actually eat them, and I didn’t send Christmas cards because I had found, in past years, that the prospect filled me with such existential dread and stark panic that it really wasn’t worth it. I did buy gifts, but without the sense that they had to be perfect, and that I had one chance in all eternity to surprise and delight my loved ones with the objects that would change their lives forever from black and white to living color. Santa will be generous and thoughtful, but there will be no let down if I do not wake up on the 26^th feeling that I have made the world a better place through the clever use of credit cards and stealth.

I did not sign up to decorate a second giant tree at my parents’ house and put up all of their santas, snowmen, angels, wreaths and garlands, working with a sense of dread as I contemplated the post-holiday necessity of taking down, boxing up and re-storing all of their decorations and then doing it all over again at my own house. I bought them a tiny, adorable real tree, and we will spend this afternoon at their house with the help of all of the grandchildren doing “Christmas Lite” and having lunch. I decided to take simple things to contribute to Christmas dinner – green beans almandine, a nice salad with pears and hazelnuts and a key lime pie. There will be no hauling a steaming and sloshing pan of au gratin potatoes over the river, through the woods and onto my floor mats, nor will there be a trashcan filled with the remains of four failed Buches de Noel. There has also been no eggnog, no hustling to buy teachers’ gifts, and we somehow managed to miss both “Frosty” and the “Grinch.”

There is nothing wrong with Doing it All, and I admire those who are able to get the cards out, buy perfect gifts, bake 14 dozen cookies and decorate every inch of their homes without requiring outpatient psychiatric treatment. I have, in fact, been there and done that, many, many times. Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that I was really kind of hating Christmas, that it was One More Damned Thing, and that no one in my family was happier or better off because I was cracking the whip and running myself into the ground. There is also the whole “reason for the season” issue; even if one is not actually celebrating the birth of Christ, the holiday is, at its best, a time when even the most staunchly secular can take time to relax with their families, create traditions that have some meaning, and celebrate the goodness in life.

The best moments I have had in this holiday season have involved friendship, community and a strong sense of being tied to the humanity around me: the church Christmas pageant with tiny children dressed as sheep and angels, a gingerbread house party with a serendipitous mix of old and new friends, a drop-in visit and wonderful conversation with people we hadn’t seen in years (because we’re all too busy), a mellow, hilarious family dinner at a great new restaurant, and a magical concert of Christmas music in a beautiful old church. None of these things were forced or calculated, and all of them left us with a sense of greater connection, and a reminder of how really lucky we are.

Interestingly, abandoning the idea that I have to have a perfect holiday has also dissolved the sharp-edged irony I have often felt about holiday hype and commercialization, and left me free to be the sentimental, open-hearted kind of person who gets all misty-eyed over the littlest sheep in the pageant. Like Scrooge, or the Grinch, my heart has grown several sizes this year, and I do not find myself in the midst of one activity thinking about the next, or calculating a perpetual to-do list in my head. I am fully present, engaged and interested in what goes on around me, whether it’s a conversation with an old friend or a haunting, antiphonal carol sung in a dimly lit church. There will be no crash because I am neither running hard nor climbing high; I’m just moving at a comfortable pace and tuning out the idea that “every kiss begins with Kay.” I could “do it all,” and in fact I have, but why would I ever go back?

Sleeping Over.

The sleepovers of my youth were very girly affairs marked by hushed conversations, giggling, and cute pajamas. When I was very little I slept at my best friend Leslie’s house, where we did not sleep in her much-envied pink canopy bed, but in “the guest room,” because it had twin beds so I wouldn’t be scared or lonely. Leslie’s mother would tuck us both in, and although I felt a little strange about being away from home, I was comforted by the fact that it was always the same, from the satin-edged blue blanket to the smell of her perfume. Later, there were frequent sleepovers at my house and elsewhere, my preference being “elsewhere” because there were different toys and a much higher probability that morning would bring sugared cereal. There is no way to overstate the ecstatic bliss that came from savoring a bowl of Sugar Smacks or Apple Jacks instead of slogging through yet another pile of Oat Flakes, Cheerios, or other livestock-friendly breakfast cereal.

I am now on the parental end of the sleepover, and it’s an entirely different scene. I have only a boy, and although I vaguely recall my brother sleeping at Kevin H.’s house and finding out how to tune in porn on the basement TV, I had very little preparation for the nightlife of pre-adolescent boys. There are no pajamas, cute or otherwise; they drop, exhausted, where they fall, fully dressed and carelessly swathed in unopened sleeping bags and sofa throws. A grayish white sock peeks out, here and there, and the living room is strewn with Tostitos bags, bowls rimmed with ossified queso dip, and the odd retainer.

Before passing out, there is a round of activity befitting a Cruise Director with a penchant for warfare, carbs and French whorehouses. There is often an Airsoft gun skirmish outdoors, with boys creeping stealthily around the DMZ surrounding our house wearing gigantic masks and ambushing one another in the general vicinity of the untrimmed boxwood hedge. Next, there is the viewing of a free Netflix movie involving, probably, more guns, fighter planes and an endless supply of cutting-edge ammo; this entertainment is accompanied by heavy consumption of soda, chips and chewing gum, wads of which are traditionally left clinging to various end tables, plates and orthodontic appliances. Cheap incense is burned, and the house smells not like the Christmas tree, or the remains of dinner, but like corn chips and musk. It is a smell that could probably be sold to the military as a kind of olfactory weapon calculated to drive our enemies swiftly to their collective knees.

After we have made the token gesture of providing pillows and blankets and suggesting that a bedtime earlier than 2:00AM might be in everyone’s best interests, the really mysterious stuff begins to happen. I don’t actually see this part; I know about it only from wading through the morning midden and making archaeological finds. Every computer, mouse, Xbox controller, wire and DVD that has ever come into this house is somehow carried into the living room, and cords are connected in a Booby trappery of Death, partially obscured by blankets and chip bags. A nozzle appears in the cat’s water dish, apparently from a can of spray cheese, but I didn’t buy spray cheese. There is a wad of small bills and change left under an empty can of Mountain Dew. (My tip?)

I can hear them now, debating whether 9:00 is too early to get up, and competing, even as they pick sleep from the corners of their eyes, for status as the person who slept the least. They shuffle to the bathroom, forage for waffles and resume game play among the wreckage, fresh-faced zombies of the digital age. I will have to spend rather more time than I would like cleaning Airsoft pellets and sour cream & onion crumbs out of the couch, and there will be a pervasive air of sleep-deprived grumpitude abroad in the land, but it’s okay. No matter how strange these boy sleepovers are to my delicate and feminine self, I like knowing that they are here, and safe, and young enough to be goofy. Next come dates and girls and broken hearts, and driving cars and PSATs and college and…I’d rather deal with this, at least for now.

I Just Want to Read.

It’s possible that I am just too superficial and intellectually bankrupt to understand the necessity of taking literature apart as a means of understanding it. Reading a  blog post about domestic violence in the “Twilight” books, and the “New Moon” movie in particular,  I was cold-cocked by the statement that author Stephanie Meyers clearly “wasn’t educated in critical perspectives on race, class and gender.” I had flashbacks, terrible, vivid, flashbacks of the days when I was not allowed to read without a “critical perspective”of some sort or another dangling over my reading lamp. This requisite analyzing, criticizing and general buzz-killery was part of what it meant to be a serious student of literature, and, while I played the game pretty well, I think that reading that way must be very similar to the sexual experience of a man wearing an extraordinarily thick condom. You can feel it, but it’s not the same.

I was the kid who had to be told not to bring the book to the dinner table, and who carried piles of books on vacation to protect against a printless moment. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Elizabeth Enright, “Heidi,” the “All of a Kind Family” books, the “Boxcar Children,” Nancy Drew, and “Cherry Ames, Student Nurse.” I loved  “Little Women” most of all, because I believed that I was Jo March. (I still do). I read so much about English children in the 1920s and 1930s that I began to write “colour” and talk about my “maths” homework. I was reading critically in the sense that I liked or disliked books, and knew what did and didn’t make sense or appeal to me, but there was not, at that blissful time in my life, any imposition of an external standard of quality or any requirement that I investigate the author’s prerogatives or background.

Books were “good” or “bad” for me, and although I  learned early that creators of books, advertisements and political campaigns had agendas and ideas that were not always patent, I didn’t have to delve deeply into the behind-the-scenes world of a book to understand or enjoy it. I believed, and still believe that reading a book is a private affair between an author and a reader, and that it is largely unnecessary to rely on intercessory interpretation as a means of understanding of the writer’s message. If anything, a third-party, be it Northrup Frye or an English teacher, did nothing so much as muddy the waters of my reading life by suggesting meaning and context that was foreign to my understanding of a book, and sometimes, probably, to the author’s intent in writing it.

As soon as I took “real” literature classes in school, I became facile at the parlor tricks that would carry me through high school and a degree in English; these included decoding what I read based on symbolism, historical facts, and the life of the author. I did it well, but it really was just a game – my reading was not enhanced by associating darkness with Iago or knowing that Poe had worked in the Baltimore Post Office. There were authors (Dickens, Austen, Wharton, Lewis and Dreiser come to mind) whose work was enhanced by an understanding of their sociopolitical zeitgeist, but I would have sussed out that information on my own if I had wondered about whether orphans were really sent to institutions or if small town America in the 1920s was as smugly closed-minded as it was in “Main Street” and “Babbit.”

Studying literature involved what seemed to me to be a desecration of art based on bizarre and irrelevant external standards. There are people who do not merely admire the Rolls Royce or the Rolex, but want to understand their mechanical underpinnings; I am not one of those people. I might need to understand how my car worked in order to fix it or maintain it properly, but I do not need to see, fix, repair or disassemble the “works” of a novel or poem in order to have the experience intended by the author. If I do, there is something wrong with one of us.

One example of this death-by-analysis occurred in a Shakespeare class, in which a young woman opined that it was unfair that Shakespeare had originally been performed with men playing the roles of female characters.  She was earnest in her feminism, and genuinely outraged, but as the discussion whirled around me, I could think of nothing but poor Will Shakespeare spinning under the green grass of Stratford. I think that he imagined his female characters as female, and while he may have made some choices based on the theatrical conventions of his day, he saw Lady Macbeth, Cordelia, Miranda and Desdemona as wholly women, from their motivations to their actions. There are so many interesting things to say about Shakespeare that one could spend years speaking only of the use of language, the humor or the relationships; I was gobsmacked by the perceived need to debate an historical circumstance that was not of Shakespeare’s choosing, and was (in my opinion) collateral to the art he produced.

I am not suggesting that the study of literature should more closely resemble the mommy book club in which the focus is on drinking wine, gossiping and talking about whether or not one “liked” the book, or the characters therein. I think there is real value in discussing the setting, the characters, the themes and the language in literature as a means to deeper appreciation and understanding; it does matter why characters do what they do, and “what the ending means.” It’s part of hearing the author’s voice, and taking in what she wanted to give you.  It can also be useful to stretch one’s own understanding by looking through the eyes of other readers, and a vigorous debate can help a reader question assumptions, examine personal biases and change or solidify his solitary understanding.

This collaborative and book-focused process seems to me to honor the art as art, and to address it as a missive sent to us by the writer rather than teasing it apart based on whatever external “isms” are currently in vogue.  If a writer lived in a previous century and in an entirely different culture, it may be interesting to observe that he or she has written in a way that might now be characterized as sexist, racist, classist or otherwise “unenlightened,” but I see no point in actual criticism or categorization of work based on the fact that it is insufficiently politically correct based on standards unimaginable by the writer. There are, in fact, things written in the here and now that are intentionally or unintentionally sexist, racist, and otherwise anathema to certain people, but that is a matter between the writer and the reader.

Similarly, the writer’s education, sexual orientation, marital history, political and religious beliefs might be interesting to know, but I would hate, as a writer, to have my work defined as “straight, liberal, white woman” lit. What if the writer (an artist, after all) has something to say that completely defies anything one might expect based on her “typing.” If it seems that the work contradicts what one would expect, does that make it ironic? Angry? Disingenuous? Is the imaginative power of an artist limited by where he grew up, how he votes or what he eats for breakfast? What is gained by the picking, the dissecting, the categorizing and the smug analyzing of what was intended, in the first place, to be an expression of something personal and unique, floated in the literary ether to be absorbed by readers only imagined by the writer?

As a writer and a reader, I hereby formally reject the “officious intermeddler” with his big bag of symbols, “isms,” and critical perspectives. You may pity my tiny mind, judge me as unsophisticated, or wonder at my lack of critical rigor, and that’s okay with me. Right now, I just want to read.

The Unresolved.

I enjoy a comedy, a solved murder mystery, an upbeat song or a love story that ends with “happily ever after.” I am inexorably drawn, though, to the un-mended, the thrawn, and the unresolved. [Note: I'm probably all over irony, too, but writing about my love of irony seems excessively and preciously self-conscious, so I won't do it although I may actually be doing it]. I respond to the unsettled in art, in music, in movies and in books, feeling a jolt of recognition and a little rush because someone has made art that reflects what I feel most deeply: pat resolutions are fleeting fixes, and  the real work of life is never on “pause” while we have our happy sitcom ending or find love, after all (darn it!) in the arms of the handsome-but-quirky guy we sparred with all through the movie. It does a huge disservice to humans of any age or gender to see this absence of care and surreal resolution presented as “normal,” or even attainable in a world where it is far more important to live in, embrace and own what is real, even if it’s a little dirty, a little shaky. That’s where all the good stuff, the real magic of life is found.

As a high school junior in 1978, I saw Woody Allen’s “Interiors” with a group of friends. I was drawn into it’s cold, controlled pastel veneer and the depiction of a family trying desperately to remain in control as everything fell apart. It was only partly a matter of personal resonance; my own family was not anything like what I saw on the screen, but I recognized the suffering of trying to “keep it together” and look good when one’s heart is breaking. (there is nothing a hypersensitive sixteen-year-old girl knows as much about as heartbreak and longing for a happy ending). Nothing could really be fixed, or resolved in any way, and the failure of most of the movie’s characters to acknowledge and give in to their real predicament magnified their pain and isolation.  Everyone I was with hated it, and I remember silently mulling it in my head as we all rode back to hang out at someone’s house, feeling self-conscious because I was the sucker who had gotten wrapped up in a “terrible” movie.

Later, I came upon “Lost in Translation,” which is my favorite movie in all the world. It is far less tragic and difficult than “Interiors,” because rather than fighting against the temporal and unresolved nature of life, the main characters “roll with it,” for lack of a better expression. It’s focus is two lonely people far from home, and the ways in which their lives intersect for a brief time, with love, deep understanding and romantic longing, but not so much as a kiss. It does not end with them together, or living happily ever after; there is no dramatic smack-to-the forehead, running to catch the train, “I almost lost you” moment. We honestly have no idea whether they will ever see each other again, and it seems right, and it seems wrong just as it does at the end of “Casablanca” when Ilsa gets on the plane with her husband, which is right but really wrong, and leaves the man she really loves, which is wrong but really right. The main characters in “Lost n Translation” have let a “moment” happen, and not tried to pin it down or save it.  It is not abstract, or manipulative, but a beautiful expression of how love and pain and uncertainty and necessity are with us all the time, and sometimes the most serendipitous moments occur when we stop trying to make everything fit neatly into a plot or a program.

In literature, my favorite is also a master of the unresolved; J.D. Salinger didn’t publish much (although he is rumored to have written a great deal), but what is available to us is a small collection of art that recognizes life’s uncertainty with no attempt at varnish. My favorite is “Franny and Zooey,” in which a young woman wrestles with issues of faith and meaning, coming to no permanent conclusion except that there is no permanent conclusion. There is no plot, there is a great deal of breathtaking character development and dialogue than makes me want to weep with envy, and it is not a wise choice for readers looking for an easily digested “take-home message.” A shorter, and more devastating example of Salinger’s ease with the uneasy is the short story “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” Because I’m hoping that you’ll read it some day, if you haven’t already, I won’t tell you what happens; suffice it to say that it creates attachment on the part of the reader, and then does what life does, and pulls the rug out from any sense of comfort or predictability.

There is  both classical and popular music that elicits and ratifies feelings of tension between reality and our dreams of resolution and long-term happiness. In classical music I find this beloved paradox in much of Mahler, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, in Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night and Bloch’s “Schelomo,” and in the best Requiems, which manage to combine the message of eternal life and release with acceptance of the sadness and loss of those left behind.  Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” moves me the same way; clouds, love and life may appear beautiful or terrible, but our characterizations and classifications of them are nothing more than passing illusions. Everything, really, just “is,” and our attempts to trap, codify and preserve “good” things may well keep us from the necessary work of living life.  It’s tough, it’s un-pretty, it wouldn’t work on the Hallmark channel, but it’s ultimately far more joyous than the stress created by trying to create or hang on to some artificially generated standard of “happy.”

I am leaving this post unresolved.