BLOG 10TH ANNIVERSARY! BYE-BYE 22!

First, THANK YOU!  If you are reading this, you are among a handful of my friends who do.  👍🏼  As this year ends, I'm celebrating the 10th ANNIVERSARY OF THIS BLOG.  I started with some trepidation.  "How dare I write about my life for others to read?  Who cares?"  But I was motivated by noticing that when I share my truth, others are encouraged to share theirs and a burden is lessened.  My hope that is we can find commonality in human experience together and no one feels alone with their emotions, experiences, and challenges.  I also hope I've been at times funny or entertaining, but I fear my sense of humor is often lost here as some posts I meant to be ironic were taken seriously.  Oops.  And I guess I tend toward a more introspective, "serious" vibe here, in spite of craving whimsy, absurdity, and laugh-out-loud humor in my life.   I looked back at early posts recently and see in some I wrote with more brevity and humor, less angst.  I'll try to get back to that. 

As for readers....I guess I still have some trepidation.  This blog is not "marketed" on any blogger indexes or even open to public searches.  My privacy still takes primacy over being widely read.  (Plus I don't want to deal with trolls and hackers and unauthorized links to porn sites, which happens with disgusting regularity in the blogging community.)  While I fantasize about being popular and famous, I know the competition out there is significant and I wouldn't be in the same ballpark as the truly greats.  So I keep my profile low (and mostly private) sharing with only those on my Facebook friends list (about 125 people) and a few others who have asked to be on an email reminder list as new posts come out.  I do, however, encourage YOU to share links to my blog if you feel like it.  Word of mouth is good.  

I get very few comments here on the blog.  I get more via email and FB feedback.  I treasure all of it.  But mostly I don't hear anything and at times it's like writing into a void.  But I also realize I'm doing this for me as much as for any readers.  It's a personal chronicle of my life that one day may be read and appreciated by my family.  I have the blog printed at the end of each year into a hardcopy paperback book, the collection of which sits on my bookshelf waiting to be discovered by future generations (hello grandkids!).  I tease my adult sons and daughters-in-law that a stipulation of my Will will be they have to prove they've read my blog books to get their inheritance.  They are currently 10 years behind, having shown no interest.  Oh well...they will have homework to do.  (I feel a kinship with Emily Dickinson -- another prolific, mostly private writer, who gained historic stature and esteem long after her death.*)  

So, dear select readers.  I am incredibly grateful to you for reading.  Thank you!  🙏🏽

2022 RECAP:

As years go lately, 2022, on the personal front, was...fine.  (There were some ongoing challenges, but I have a good therapist.)  I wrote about our 50th anniversary, trips to Kauai, Hilton Head, and Ireland as standouts.  Here are a few other highlights on my mind today, but not necessarily the most important of the year: 

For historical reference: Covid continued to rage for awhile with new strains breaking out to get us.   Even so, vaccines work and numbers went down, so mask mandates were suspended.  I don't care...I am still very careful and wear my mask in public.  Nevertheless I got Covid in July (from a family member) and while I called it a "mild case" come to find out it really wasn't, compared to a lot of other people's experiences and according to the notes in my medical chart.  I was pretty sick, but thanks to vaccines I was not fighting for my life -- just miserable for a week or so.  Hub has yet to "catch" it unless he's had such a mild case at some point we never knew it.  He credits his immune boosting supplements.  Maybe...and luck.  Hoping the current winter trifecta surge of Covid, flu, and RSV pass our family by.  Hospitals are jammed again.

We have not downsized yet:  Hub did two huge projects at home this year:  He laid nearly 1000 square feet of flagstone to create a long walk-way and patio behind our house. It took a physical toll, from which he is mostly recovered, but he got it done and it's beautiful.  He also installed landscape lighting which we are so enjoying.  Inside I/we undertook an update in home decor and furnishings, ditching  foo-foo traditional for a more contemporary look and I absolutely love it.  Our home remains a source of toil, trouble, and great comfort and joy for us.

Family is my heart place:  The other comfort and joy is our family.  The adults seem to have an appropriate balance of life-stress and fun in their lives, dealing with demanding jobs, home ownership, dogs, kids, friends and finding joy amidst the challenges.  

The grandkids are getting big.  My nearly 8 y/o granddaughter still thinks I'm the best friend she's ever had and says she loves our "chats".  She is curious, precocious, and insightful, so we do actually have some good talks.  Yesterday she asked me, "Grandma,  I've been meaning ask you a question...what is the meaning of life?"  That was a surprise.  So we talked about that for about 10 minutes.  She's my girl, digging deep into the Big Questions!  

My 13 y/o granddaughter has blossomed into a teen and has moved her BFF allegiance from me to her  group of girlfriends from school, as it should be.  She is still as lovely, sweet, polite, creative, funny, and interesting as she's always been, but I notice the age-appropriate search for her own identity as she has become the quiet observer of all things "adult" at our family gatherings.  She doesn't join her sister in playing and coloring; she sits at the table and listens, joining in with grown-up conversation.  I love watching her grow into herself, even if I feel a bittersweet distancing from her now and again.

Birthdays and the concept of time: People my age (I turned 72 this month) say it over and over -- where does the time go?  The years fly by and it's always a shock to realize some memory of an event that I think maybe happened 3 or 4 years ago was actually 7 or 8!  I read an article recently that explained that one week to an 80 year old is a tiny little portion of our lives compared to a week in the life of an 8 year old.  Also some of us spend a lot of time reminiscing instead of being mindful of this present moment.  And part of the "time flies" feeling is also the phenomenon of 'sameness'.  Our lives become ones of routine and familiarity with nothing novel to mark our days as "different", so it all runs together.  The advice was to seek new experiences, add variety to our interests and to our daily plans, and be totally present to each moment. All of this helps to keep us from feeling like life is a blur and flying by way too fast.

So here we go....Hello 2023.  What ya got for me?  I'm curious.  In the meantime, I'll just keep writing.

At least, that's the view from here...©

*If you have Apple+ TV streaming, watch "Dickinson".  It's one of my fave shows.  I plan to re-watch every episode of its 3 seasons as this winter's binge.  It's a 30 minute per episode quirky, funny, fictionalized contemporary/historical mash-up of Emily Dickinson's life, from which I learned more about her and her  poetry than I ever did in English class.  

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

CHRISTMAS WRAP

Well, it's over.  Christmas.  I guess it's still the holiday season so our tree is still up (until January 1) and I left a few "winter" decorations out, but yesterday I put away anything that was red, green, or Santa-related.  As I observe every year,  things that once looked so festive in early December become gaudy and cloying as soon as the last guests leave on Christmas night.  I'm finished.  

Still, my love/hate relationship with the holidays mellowed this year.  I had some sweet and happy times, some stressed and tired times, a couple of sad times, a migraine too much of the time, but mostly sort of neutral "this is fine, not awful, not great" times.  I scaled my activity, traditions, and expectations way back to the point where often nothing felt particularly magical.  

In thinking about that I realize part of the reason this year didn't feel very "Christmas-y" to me was how little effort I put into it.  I let so much of the work and stress go that I also let go of the very few things I love to do:  bring in greens from our big fir trees to decorate, bake and frost sugar cookies in shapes of Santa and trees and bells, play classic Christmas music (OK - I tried -- it annoyed me this year -- not sure why), put a holiday table cloth on the dining room table for our Christmas Eve finger-food buffet, get out and read my sons' old Christmas books from their little kid years, reading "The Night Before Christmas" aloud to my family on Christmas Eve (no one noticed we didn't do that this year, so there's that.)

I guess I'm still grateful for a feeling of "neutral" in some way though.  While the emotional roller coaster of my past Christmases was stimulating in a weird way, it was also exhausting.  And no, I'm not on any "even out the moods" meds.  I'm doing a new (to me) therapeutic modality that finally seems to be the answer to my woes (most of the time): Radical Acceptance. Maybe I'll write about that in the new year.  For now, with the exception of missing a few of my favorite things, I'm experiencing a strange low-level hum of....contentment, just being with what is.  Is this how other people live all of the time?  Weird!

I did send Christmas cards this year.  I always look forward to choosing family photos for the cards, sending them out for printing, getting them back, then spending time pouring over my old address book, remembering friends near and far, who I don't see often, but still care about, with a short note on each card before it goes in the envelop to be addressed and stamped.  Years ago I sent about 50-60 cards each year.  As fewer and fewer people reciprocated, I've scaled that number way back to about 25 in recent years.   I still get excited when the mail carrier comes.  I'm always hopeful for a card, even better if it has a Christmas letter inside -- it's widely ridiculed, but I love that people take the time to share their lives in this way.  Last year I got about a dozen cards in the mail.  This year I'm absolutely and finally giving up all hope and I'm ready to admit card sending is a dying (dead?) tradition.  I sent my 25.  I received 6, most with no personal note at all, let alone a letter.  Now I just feel embarrassed that I sent mine -- especially a card with photos and notes!  Sheesh.  Like, who cares, right?  LOL  But I'm pretty sure I'll do it again next year because I love doing it.  It's MY holiday tradition and it makes ME feel happy.  I'll just scale back again -- to 1, for my BFF who shares my love (and nostalgia) for Christmas cards.

I read the other day that the week between Christmas and New Year's is "liminal time" - a time of transition.  The article recommended we suspend all responsibilities, obligations, work, worry, and stress, and stay in our jammie clothes all day sipping tea, and reading one of the books we got for Christmas (that would be "The Light We Carry" by Michelle Obama for me).  I know many still in the outside-the-home work-world don't have this luxury, but some of us do and I love the notion of just letting ourselves settle and rest.  

I'm trying to do that, with some limited success.  My migraine "helped" as I gave myself (finally!) a full afternoon on 12/26 to just lie in bed, reading and napping, and it seems to have chased the several days in a row headache away, for now.  (Although I'm feeling very lethargic...)  Tomorrow I think I'll teach my Zoom yoga class to my merry band of yoginis.  No other plans for the week.  I'm going to try to guard that time against any incursion of a case of the "shoulds" and just flow with whatever I want to do -- getting well, being quiet, reflective, self-nurturing, and gentle with myself -- mindful of each precious moment of this time of transition, which is actually every moment, isn't it? 

At least, that's the view from here...©

STRANGE HOLIDAY VIBE

This is the weirdest holiday season in recent memory.  Except for the Covid year, which will forever be the pinnacle of "weird", and does not count. 

We had an unusual stretch of dry, sunny November days so Hub put up the outdoor lights earlier than ever.  We didn't turn them on right away and I swore we'd wait until at least the first week of December, but on Thanksgiving night, turkey leftovers barely cold in the 'fridge, the lights went on.  Then a couple days later the tree went up.   My birthday is December 19 and when I was a kid that was the day we put up the tree!  Can you imagine?  In this day and age, December 19 is so late as to feel we've completely missed the season!

But starting so early has meant my whole internal holiday clock is off.  I feel like the season is either stretching out for months...or it's flying by and I'm in a rush to be ready, as if Christmas is later today (!),  rather than still nearly two weeks off.

Our 13 year old granddaughter made the 7th grade girls volleyball team about which she was beyond thrilled.  We've been going to twice/weekly games. I love it!!!  It's a bit akin to watching my boys playing 2nd grade coach pitch baseball.  They've got the general idea, but are not too proficient at the finer points.  And just like those little boys, they couldn't be cuter or more enthusiastic or more into team commaradarie even if they were having a winning season.  She declares she loves it and loves hanging out with and playing volleyball with her friends, and that is what 7th grade is all about anyway.  But any grandkid Christmas outings we imagined are not happening (yet).  It's been all volleyball all the time.

I'm also thrown off by people traveling.  When did that become a thing?  Son Two and our dear DIL just got back from Italy where they traveled over Thanksgiving.  Friends are posting on FB from the tip of South America, half-way through a southern hemisphere monthlong cruise.  Other friends spent time recently in the Galapagos Islands.  I'm confused.  Isn't the holiday season (Halloween to New Year's, basically) time for family, home, and hearth?  I suppose that hearkens back to my Illinois childhood when two weeks was the grand total of time off all year for my dad working at the textile factory. Vacation meant going to Indiana to visit Grandma and Grandpa in, like, July.

Unfortunately, the Hallmark movies are annoying this year for the most part. We've spent our usual 20 minutes sampling one or another before taking a vote: watch or ditch. We've ditched more than we've watched.  The formula is predictable, the plots almost identical, and the writing and acting lazy, but this year there isn't even a sufficient dose of over the top Pinterest decor to help me feel the spirit!

We did have a weekend of our own Christmas movie magic early in the month.  There is a town 100 miles east over the mountain pass that has a hokey Bavarian theme which hosts "festivals" of various types year round with Christmas being the biggest.  So many lights!  So many shops!  So much snow!  Horse drawn carriages and live music in the park.  Hot chocolate, candy canes, spiced cider.  We stayed at a B&B 10 minutes out of town in the middle of the forest.  Star-studded nights, crisp sunny days, lots of snowshoeing to complement the towny Winter Carnival atmosphere.  That was nice. 

Yet, I notice I have no interest in receiving any gifts.  I DON'T WANT ANY MORE STUFF!!!  Which has had an unfortunate carryover into also not wanting to GIVE any gifts.  I can't think of one creative gift-giving idea and besides, WHO NEEDS MORE STUFF?!?  Consequently I've purchased only one gift for one grandchild.  Panic will set in shortly.

Also, I've scheduled a few visits with my therapist, so I'm distracted by working to become a new and improved version of my already awesome, but occasionally malfunctioning, self.  It takes some energy and is a bit disorienting to change familiar but unhelpful thought and emotional/behavioral patterns using new therapeutic modalities that take me off auto-pilot and ask me to forge a new route with both of my hands on the wheel.  Sheesh.  Who undertakes this at Christmas time?!?

So mostly the season feels like a mashup of life as usual, strange new things, and a dollop of Christmas.  Maybe my birthday really will kick off the season after all.  I'll let you know.

At least that's the view from here...©

END OF AN ERA

I'm having flashbacks of my parents sitting quietly in their living room easy chairs, each absorbed in their preferred sections of our hometown newspaper, The Beacon.  It served our small city of 60,000+ as well as the surrounding more rural areas of the county.  So many conversations with family and friends started with, "I saw it in the Beacon...", "The Beacon says...", "It will be in the Beacon..."  Our daily newspaper was a lifeline to our community, our nation, and the world (along with the Huntley/Brinkley Nightly News.)   When my mom died in 2008, I sent an obituary to be published in The Beacon for any who might be still in the area and would remember her living there for all but the last 10 years of her life when she moved here, near me.

When I grew up and lived in a Chicago suburb I took the "el" into the city daily to work. It seemed everyone had their Chicago Sun Times or Chicago Tribune broadsheets folded to a manageable size, like some sort of urban commuter origami, to read while seated on cracked pleather bench seats or standing swaying in time with the clickity-clack of the train on the tracks.  Often they would leave the paper behind and I felt lucky to score a slightly used copy, not having any money for my own subscription.

Living on a barrier island near Charleston SC we read the Post and Courier, delivered every morning to our palm-tree lined driveway.  We mostly checked the tide tables and restaurant reviews, but the paper also gave us insight into this strange and new place we'd committed two years of our lives to inhabiting.  

One of the very first things we did when we moved to our current city in the Pacific Northwest was to subscribe to the Daily Herald.  For 40+ years we've had home delivery -- at first it was in the traditional manner of a boy on a bike tossing the paper in the vicinity of our driveway after school.  Then it switched to being a morning paper, so adults drove multiple paper routes to string together a job that provided some income, delivering the paper in the wee dark hours so it was at our home well before 6:00 a.m.  

The Herald, when we moved here, was owned by the Washington Post and was considered one of the finest smaller city newspapers, with multiple sections, experienced and respected publishers and editors, a stable of fine and talented reporters, photographers, and columnists.  It was printed at the Herald offices and presses just blocks from our home.  We relied on the Herald for everything local and it was a great resource for national and world news too.  Editorially it leaned slightly left, so we liked that as well.  (Not all did -- there was always a lively exchange of opinion in the Letters to the Editor.)

But now....I'm in mourning this morning.  There will be no Herald delivered to my front steps.

It's no secret that newspapers, large and small, are struggling to stay afloat and in fact are shutting down with startling regularity as online resources for news and opinion are the preferred medium for consumers and advertisers alike.  Our Herald was sold a number of years ago and its content has shrunk precipitously, often to a thin one-section of news I've already heard about from online sources like Facebook and Twitter.  The huge Herald office was abandoned then sold, the printing press they use is now one they share with other papers, located 60 miles away. The offices are now in a shared building (the old GTE telephone building, another relic of by-gone days).  

The newspaper often is delivered late now; press problems and inclement weather create delays;  newspaper carriers are hard to retain.  I should not have been surprised when I got word this week that home delivery would cease.  But I was.  Shocked.  Anyone subscribing to the paper edition would begin to get theirs from the post office, with their mail, starting January 1.  (Side note: even our mail lately has not been delivered daily if they are short-staffed on mail carriers.)

I noticed the Herald more and more often encouraging readers to use the digital edition of the newspaper, even offering online tutorials on how to do that.  I've been tempted to go digital for a couple of years, but our newspaper carrier has been "our guy" for several years.  He lives 40 miles north and I have to think this job is one he needs, to be willing to get up in the middle of the night to deliver newspapers.  He's at my house between 4-5:00 (I see the headlights if I'm awake).  I kept home delivery, and hoped others would too, so he'd have his job.  Now I feel a bit like I was refusing to buy a refrigerator to keep the iceman employed.

When he told us about the cessation of home delivery, I decided I'd quit the paper edition.  I made the call yesterday.  They told me that today I'd have no paper on my front steps.  It's just that simple.  That abrupt. 

It will take some getting used to.  My first thought this morning was to go out the front door, down our long flight of stairs to the driveway, and grab the paper.  We once had a Golden Retriever who we trained to do that job for us.  When he died it took me weeks to get used to the void of that morning routine.  Now I will have to let go of my own newspaper retrieval habit.

Instead I poured a cup of coffee, opened my computer, and clicked on the digital Herald.  It's not the same.  And I'm sad.

At least, that's the view from here...©