Gliding Smoothly

What is this urge to declutter, to glide simply and smoothly into the new year? Last evening I felt a sudden need to tidy up my desktop. Into the trash went receipts for orders already delivered, backup copies of documents already submitted.

This morning I'm checking streaming entertainment accounts, wondering if I can shed any of them. Perhaps the doubling-down of a pandemic is not the time to have fewer entertainment options, though, so I've left them temporarily in place. 

Of course, the tidying that really needs to happen isn't virtual; it's the all-too-real piles of papers and files, the boxes of old clothes and bins of toys that I can no longer say I'm "holding for the grandchildren." The grandchildren are here and they won't be needing any armless Barbies, thank you very much.

Getting rid of all that stuff, I'm afraid, will have to wait till 2022. 

(These mallards will have no trouble gliding smoothly into the new year.)

Sic Transit

Because our new bird, Toby, is a hungry critter and eats more than his cage-mate, Alfie, he also makes more of a mess. Seeds pile up in the bottom of the cage, other stuff, too. I find myself cleaning the bird cage far more frequently than I used to. Which means I'm thinking about the transitoriness of journalism.

The opening of the late, great television show "Lou Grant," starring the late, great Ed Asner, begins with a bird chirping in a tree, the tree being felled to make paper, presses rolling as the newspaper is printed, then back to a chirping bird again as the day-old newspaper is used to line the bottom of a cage.

Back when I only dreamed of being a journalist, I used to watch this show. I ended up writing for magazines instead of newspapers, but the dream remained, and largely was fulfilled. Watching this show again reminds me of how it felt at the beginning, the irony and the gallows humor and even the nobility of it all.  But always among these feelings was an awareness of how fleeting it all was,. No matter how precious the words and how important the topic, the next day, they would be covered with husks and feathers.

Now more than eight out of ten of Americans obtain their news from digital devices. The daily news cycle has given way to the hourly one. Newspapers may be dying ... but the transitoriness remains. Sic transit gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world.

Ticking Clock

As I mentioned yesterday, these are open days. But what I don't say is that the week between Christmas and New Years has usually been open for me. 

It was open when I was writing for a nonprofit and, before that, for a university. It was open during my freelance career. About the only time it wasn't was early in my magazine-writing days, when I was a lowly assistant editor and had no accrued vacation time. I still remember how weird it felt to be going into an office the final week of December, even an office in midtown Manhattan. I was supposed to be staring into a fireplace or admiring a Christmas tree, not proofing copy!

Until this year, though, these precious holiday hours came with a price tag, a ticking clock. They always seemed luxuriously long on December 26th and 27th, but by December 29th and 30th, I was always wondering where the time had gone. 

These hours seemed to disappear at lightning speed, far more quickly than ordinary time, and inevitably I had nothing to show for them. That was the point, of course. It's still the point. Only now the ticking clock has — sort of — disappeared.

Open Calendar

A tree, a couch, an open week. These are days when dreaming is possible, when sitting still and doing nothing is not only permissible but almost encouraged. 

School is out, holiday to-dos are to-done. The calendar is open, the tasks complete. Even nature seems to be holding its breath. Autumn behind us, winter yet to truly begin.

Yesterday I watched two old movies and an episode of "The Ascent of Man." Today I may put away some gifts and do a bit of tidying.

But then again ... I may not.

Three Images of Christmas

8:37 a.m.: The calm before the storm.

11:21 a.m.: Cleaning up mid-storm.

4:22 p.m.: The calm after the storm. 

Merry Christmas!

Once again I'll re-run this blog post, which I wrote ten years ago. Merry Christmas!

12/24/11

Our old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper's paw prints. Inside is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we've ever chopped down. Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery store.

This morning I thought about a scene from one of my favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we'll have time to watch in the next few days. In "It's a Wonderful Life," Jimmy Stewart has just learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the banister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.

By the end of the movie, after he's been visited by an angel, after his family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way, after he's had a chance to see what the world would have been like without him — he grabs the banister knob again. And once again, it comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by friendship and love and solidarity.

Christmas doesn't take away our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the miraculous in that. 

'Tis the Season

The door is wreathed, the gifts are wrapped, the cards are mailed. But there is one more sign that the holidays have truly begun: I'm having cookies for breakfast.

It was a matter of necessity. I needed to remove at least two from the cookie tin in order to fit them in. 

But the fact is that all dietary decorum has broken down. 

'Tis the season...

Three Paths

This is not about three paths — or two, for that matter — diverging in the woods, taking one and never knowing if it makes the difference. This is not about life choices, in other words. 

This is about three paths walked in the last three days: a Reston trail on Monday, the W&OD on Tuesday and Franklin Farm today. One shady and still, the next cloudy and cold, today's breezy and bright. 

I think about how often I've strode up and down my neighborhood's main drag, how boring it can be, how I thrive on variety, and how grateful I am that this week, at least, I've had it.

Two Solstices

We have one Christmas, one Easter, one Independence Day. But we have two solstices: one for the shortest day and one for the longest.

As I sit here this morning, watching the world slowly lighten, I think about the imminent wisdom of these dual celebrations. You could see one as our pinnacle and one as our nadir. But there is a hopeful message in each, too.

In summer we revel in the long twilight, the early morning, the profusion. In winter we tell ourselves, it's all up from here. 

We live in the present for one, in the future with the other. Surely we could do with a little of each.

Spring Planting

For the last week or so I've been slipping into the backyard when inside chores are done to plant iris, allium and daffodils.  I usually miss the sunniest part of the afternoon, so it's a wintry chore as I dig into the hard clay soil. 

But it has a spring purpose. It's a vote of confidence, a leap of faith made in deep winter, when boughs lie leafless, that green will come again, that these packets of potential will send down roots and bring forth flowers. 

Today I barely finished before sunset. But nine more narcissus bulbs are in the ground, and at five minutes a bulb, I figure we are 45 minutes closer to spring.

Buying Local

This year's tree came did not grow on a sloping hillside in the richest county in the United States. We did not wait in line 30 minutes to be allowed the pleasure of cutting it down.

This year's tree was not bought from Vale United Methodist Church, the white building at an ancient crossroads like a picture postcard with each purchase contributing to a fund to end hunger.

This year's tree came from a small lot I noticed on the way out of town, a beaten-earth parking lot with a big tacky Santa Claus and a string of simple lights. On our first trip there, we met Bradley from Whitetop Mountain, down near the Tennessee and North Carolina border. His family has been selling trees on this spot for decades, he said.

Bradley apologized. The trees had been picked over, he said, but he was expecting a shipment that very evening. If we liked, he would take our number and let us know when the shipment arrived. I didn't think we would hear from him, I figured the tree shortage had caught up with us, that we'd have to pay hundreds of dollars for a scrawny spruce.

But by noon last Friday, Bradley texted: the new shipment was in. We hurried over and found a full and fragrant Frasier fir. It now sits proudly in our living room. This year we bought local by necessity. Next year, we'll buy local by choice.

Winterish

It's not quite 11 a.m. and almost 60 degrees this December 17. The forsythia is confused.  

Yes, it lost its final leaves just two weeks ago, but the soft air and warm earth are belying the scant light, are sending messages of "why not" to the poor plant.

And what of us humans? Does it make sense to pack away the shorts and t-shirts, or should we just tuck them amongst the woolens? Are we navigating a new season here? 

Not quite winter. Let's call it winterish. 

Semester's End

I've always been a student at heart, and now I'm one in practice again—reading, writing, researching. Wait, that sounds like what I've been doing my entire career. But it was different, of course, When I was a freelance journalist, I read, researched and wrote about the topics I needed to sell an article. When I was an alumni magazine editor, I wrote about what I thought would appeal to my readers. And when I worked at Winrock, I wrote about topics that would explain and showcase the organization.

Now I'm studying and learning about topics purely because they're interesting to me. These last few weeks, plunging into and through the final paper, I've been absorbed in a big topic that I can only scratch the surface of.

But how good it's felt to scratch that surface. Stacking books around the desk, dipping into one and then another. And then there's all the online research: I realized weeks into the semester that I didn't just have to rely on Google Scholar. I had an entire research library with all its subscriptions and databases at my disposal. Which means that, in addition to the books and papers you see above, there are many more bookmarked pages or open tabs on the laptop that is almost buried amidst the clutter.

Our final papers are due today. I sent mine off Tuesday mid-afternoon, then took a long walk on a Reston trail to celebrate. It's just a start. But it feels good to be a student again.

The Lights

Of all the rituals and practices of the season — the gifts, the tree, the wreath — one means more to me every year. It's the lights. 

It's the candles in the windows, the spotlights on the door. It's the stars on high and the luminaries down below. It's the icicles hanging from eaves and tree limbs wound with blues, reds and greens. 

It's these candles in the dark, because that's what all of them are: our puny fists raised together against the dying of the light. 

Christmas Oratorio

Walking to a holiday playlist the other day, I made a merry discovery: the opening chorus of Bach's Christmas Oratorio is just my speed. It's a bouncy piece of music, and when I was striding down the W&OD trail, dodging the bicycles, it seemed just about perfect.

There's the timpani pounding out the beat, the flutes trilling in response, the trumpets soaring above it all, and then, of course, the chorus, entering in unison before breaking into various voices throughout the movement.

I looked up the English translation later. "Shout for joy, exult, rise up, glorify the day."  The kind of words angels might use when announcing the birth of Jesus to shepherds in the fields. 

But even before I knew the meaning, the melody and meter passed through my ears to my feet, in that way that only music can.

For Mayfield

I heard about Kentucky when good friends wrote to ask if my brother was OK. I checked the news then and learned of the horrible tornadoes that ripped through the country's midsection. So this post is a lament: it's a cry of solidarity for the residents of Mayfield, Kentucky, a town I'm embarrassed to say I had never heard of until Saturday, native Kentuckian that I am. 

At first, I thought it was Maysville that had been hit, a river town near where some of Dad's kin were born. But no, it was, as I often say about Kentucky towns whose names I don't recognize, "in the western part of the state." And it truly is there, close to both Tennessee and Missouri, more midwestern than southern. Dawson Springs is there, too—another town hit by the deadly twisters. 

I keep thinking about the folks in the candle factory, perhaps some of them working an extra shift since it's Christmas time and they could use the money. I think about the malls where those candles might be sold. Do we need those candles? Not really, but yes, because the residents of Mayfield need those jobs. 

It could have been any kind of factory, though. And it could have been any place. But it was in Kentucky, so my heart is even heavier. 

(Dark clouds outside of Nicholasville, from my August trip to Kentucky)

Red-Shouldered Hawk

My eyes are generally glued to the screen these days as I sit in my office, finishing up the paper due next week. But they do catch peripheral movement: a disruption of the leaves in the back of the yard, where there are still leaves left to rustle. 

On Wednesday, this wasn't just any disruption. It was a bird so large that at first I thought it might be a squirrel. It had landed near a patch of bald earth and appeared to be scratching the ground. But it was almost out of my line of sight and I couldn't be sure. 

Then a shudder of the wings, a springing into air. Either the squirrel had flown or this was a large bird of prey. It landed in the spindly weeping cherry, on a branch that barely seemed large enough to support it. 

And there it sat for many minutes, long enough to take a photograph, to view it through binoculars, to note its markings well enough that I can almost definitely say it was a red-shouldered hawk. Long enough that I could marvel at this beautiful wild thing perched nonchalantly on a tree in the backyard. 

The DNA of Shopping

My Christmas list has morphed from one that was always on paper, even just a few years ago, to one that's mostly in the notes section of my phone. 

This parallels my shopping, which has evolved from mostly brick-and-mortar to well over half online. 

I still scrawl gift ideas on slips of paper which I then tuck into my purse. And I still like to go shopping, to physically enter a store, even if I have to wait a few minutes in line or spend more time than I'd like looking for a price tag.

It's part of the eternal give-and-take of hunting and gathering, a proclivity that I'm convinced is buried deep somewhere in our DNA.

(Not a shopping list, but a shopping district ... this one in Lexington, Kentucky.)

Eighty Years

Shortly after publishing yesterday's post, I realized that yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Eighty years ... 

I looked back to see what I'd written on the 70th anniversary, and there was something I'd forgotten about: a special showing of the movie "12 O'Clock High" at a Lexington, Kentucky, cinema, which Dad had organized and hosted. 

I remember that now, how excited he was about it, how he had a little display area out in the vestibule of the movie house, with uniforms and medals and other memorabilia loaned by members of the Kentucky chapter of the 8th Air Force Historical Society.

Now, the World War II veterans are almost all gone. One of the more famous, Bob Dole, just passed away at the age of 98. My dad was not one of the more famous, except to me and the rest of us who loved him. But Dad was World War II to me, and since he's been gone, I read as little about it as possible. 

(Photo: Genealogy Trails History Group)

Church Bells

My church backs into a many-pathed woods poised on a rise above a creek called The Glade. Some weekends I drive over there early, park in the near-empty lot, and take a walk before mass begins. 

The last two weeks, I've attended the latest service. The sun has set while I'm strolling, the air grown still. I know I'm preparing to pray, not actually praying, but it's hard to convince myself of that. The sauntering feels just as holy, the forest just as much a cathedral. 

As if to emphasize the point, church bells toll as I finish the walk. These are real bells, not recorded ones. I feel like a medieval serf being called from the fields, drawn from drudgery to the promise of eternal life. 

What Goes Up ...

From my upstairs office window I can see our neighbor's sad deflated holiday display. The extravaganza is typical of many these days: inflatable snowmen, Santas and reindeer, even inflatable creches, decking the yards this year. 

Tall, imposing, lit from within, these blow-up holiday decorations seem to be everywhere. It's not brand-new technology, but it seems to have reached a price point or a tipping point that makes it the decoration of choice.

When glimpsed at night among spotlit tree trunks or fairy-lit boughs, these inflatable holiday sculptures are one thing. But when spotted in daytime, without their electrical assist, they are quite pitiful: a bunch of unblown-up balloons littering the half-dead grass of early winter.

Inflatable Santas: what goes up, must come down. 

The Wee Hours

It's too early to speculate on the gifts of the pandemic, but I already have a candidate in mind. It's sleep! Glorious shut-eye. Hours of deep slumber. With no need to commute, there has been no reason to wake up at 5:30. And for the last seven months, there has been even less incentive to burn the pre-dawn oil.

Or has there been? I love these early hours, and I've missed them lately. 

So today when I woke at 4 a.m., I tried for a while to drift back, as I usually do, but when that didn't happen, I took it as a sign and rose for the day. 

It's not even 6:30 and I've had great gobs of time to read, write and otherwise fritter away the day.

In the wee hours, the world is my oyster. 

The Concert

It had been a while since I sat in a concert hall. There was Wolftrap last summer, always fun, but open-air, even when you have seats. 

Last night was the whole experience: the Kennedy Center itself, the approach and the entry, picking up the tickets, walking down the long hall, and then, in the hall, the chandeliers above and instruments tuning below. There were the black ties and tails, a hush when the lights went down. 

And then, there was this young man with a clarinet, swaying with it, bending with it, reminding me of James Galway on the flute, that same elfin charm.

The clarinetist, Lin Ma, played the Mozart Clarinet Concerto as if he was born to do it, so softly in parts of the Adagio that I felt myself lean toward the stage in order to hear it better. When he finished, the audience leapt to their feet.

Last night's concert was not only all Mozart; it was all late-vintage Mozart, every piece written in 1791, the last year of the composer's short life. And it ended with this: bliss. 

The Message

Say what you will about the cluttered house (and I've said plenty), but every so often it can surprise and delight you. 

The other night, while looking for something in the closet, I jostled a tube of silver wrapping paper, which dislodged a spool of curling ribbon, which brought down an old envelope filled with photos and a note from my father-in-law, who's been gone for almost 29 years. 

What a gift this was, to hear again from this man who, even in the midst of his own illness was writing to share holiday photos and wisdom. The note was filled with appreciation for his home, his family, for the snow that had recently blanketed the woods around his house. 

The delivery system may have been a bit unorthodox, but the message was simple: love life while you have it. 

(A different snowfall, a different woods.)

Face Time

Only one other time did I attend class on Zoom. Every other Tuesday evening I've been driving down to Georgetown, parking in the visitors' garage, walking along Prospect to the Car Barn Building, feeling a part of the campus, if only fleetingly. But last night, the professor called it. The last class on November 30 would be held only on Zoom.

It was a strange way to end the semester, though in truth it doesn't completely end until I turn in the final paper in a couple weeks. But it was the last time the class would be together, this particular assemblage of individuals, only one of whom I got to know at all, since she also traveled to campus every Tuesday evening. 

But the class itself was far more lively when it was held on Zoom only. The fact that we were all little squares, rather than some of us being squares and some of us actually being there, put us on a similar digital footing. And this prompted more chatter. 

Still, I liked the in-person version of class. It's more of a hassle, true. It takes more time. But I like to see people in three dimensions if possible. I prefer the real and original face time.

(A scene from my walk to class.)