New Holiday Traditions

Now that we're past Halloween and building into the full swing of the impending Holiday season, I find that my mood is changing.  I'm one of those sappy people who has always loved the holidays.  I love everything about them.  I love the baking, the family dinners, the decorations, the shopping, the gift wrapping, the holiday movies, the anticipation of Christmas morning, the holiday songs, the general sense of goodwill that people have for those few short weeks in November and December.  I'm a sap and I love all of it.  Part of this stems from when I was little and the holidays were the only time that I got to see certain family members because everyone was always so busy.  It was when I got to see aunts and uncles I hadn't seen in a long time, or got to play with some of my cousins that I didn't see often.  It was the time of year where I could follow my older cousins around like a lost puppy, desperately hoping for their approval because they were so much older and cooler than I was.  In a family that was sometimes distant, or fractured, the holidays were the time that we would all get together and pretend the problems didn't exist.

In recent years, holidays have become more difficult.  We split each holiday between my family and Jason's, and coordinating everyone is difficult.  Plus there's an issue with everyone being at different houses and arguing over who should host, or who should cook, and in the long run it becomes more stressful than it needs to be.  If we throw in any friends from out of town, it's a full blown nightmare.  In the end, it makes me kind of sad.  I'm not sure why everyone has to have their own agenda during the holidays, and why it's about what one person wants as opposed to what the group as a whole wants, and the past few years have left me frustrated by the time we hit Black Friday.  This year, however, feels different.  This year in addition to our traditional families, we get to celebrate with our own quirky little family of hodge podge members.  It's no secret that we don't currently have children, aside from our psudo-child teenager who we care about as if she were our own, so I've never experienced that small unit family togetherness that parents feel.  We are in no way replacement parents for her, but through her we do get to have that experience for the first time this year.  One more person to go along when we pick out the tree, one more person to help decorate, one more person to enjoy presents with on Christmas morning.  Plus, we've inherited her boyfriend, who has become a part of our strange family unit, and a graduate from the theatre program who we have kind of adopted as "cool niece".  All of these new and wonderful people in our lives seem to make the squabbling matter less.  Regardless of who does or doesn't want to host dinner, or whose house we end up at, we will come home to our cozy house with our weird little family, drink hot chocolate, and have a lovely holiday.  The rest of the world's problems don't matter when you can close the door and love where you are.  We'll be in our kitchen, creating new traditions.  This Christmas will be filled with cookies, cocoa, pine scent, twinkling lights and love.  I'm not sure what more I could want.

Well, That Covers It

Do you ever find an image that basically says everything you want to say more precisely and succinctly than you could ever find a way to say it yourself?

Thoughts on Generosity

I've been thinking lately about my life, and about what makes my life feel worthwhile.  I think that if I were to look back in my old age and think about all of the hard work I've done, and where it has gotten me, I would have to say that what I am most grateful for is that my work has given me the opportunity to become generous.  My life has not left me well off in any way, but I have come into a life that is comfortable, and has allowed me with the ability to spread some of my good fortune to the world around me.  I don't think that, upon first look at me or my life or my strange little family, anyone would immediately be able to say "She is a generous person", but I sort of wonder if maybe that's the whole point.  I think that generosity done for the public and announced to everyone is somehow seeking gratification.  The people who do generous things without announcement, without expectation of gratification, and without expectation of receiving anything in return, I think those are the people who are doing things for the right reasons.

I've been thinking about what people I know consider being generous, and I've realized that so many times the word "generous" is automatically associated with money.  So often we think of those who make large charitable donations are the generous people in our world.  People who remember tragedies with a prayer and a check in the mail to support those who have suffered are considered the generous members of our society.  I think the problem with this is that while money helps, and money can do a lot of things, this attitude negates the good work done by people every single day who aren't capable of spending a dime.  Generosity can be found in the teacher who stays two hours after school to tutor their students so that they don't fail classes.  It's in the little league coach who spends hours teaching a kid how to throw the perfect curve ball.  It's in the volunteers all over this country who work in soup kitchens, or cuddle kittens at the Humane Society, or visiting the elderly.  What I've learned is that it is so much more difficult to give your time than it is to give your money.  Time means giving of yourself, taking time out of your schedule and focusing on something other than yourself.  It is difficult, often, to find time, and to use it helping someone other than yourself.  Money is easy, you can make more of it.  You can't make more time.

I enjoy that I have been able to lead a generous life.  I have been fortunate enough to have time to give, and the ability to give it to things that I've been passionate about and cared about.  I've had a home that I've been able to open to those who need a comforting and safe place to be.  I've had the ability to help people who needed it, and I've been able to make life a little bit easier for a handful of people.  None of it cost me anything, at least not really, but I can't help that it's been a lot of small kindnesses that will some day add up to a lot for someone, and hopefully they can look back and feel like someone helped make a difference.  But I don't often talk about it, and I don't expect any sort of credit or praise.  I just hope that at some point someone will feel better about life, and that I helped make them feel that way.  And I hope that some day, when I am old and gray, I won't look back and wish I could have done more.

These are just things that have been bouncing around in my head lately.

It's In The Small Things

There's something about the changeover from Summer to Autumn that I can't seem to get enough of.  I've never enjoyed the heat of summer, even though I love the longer days and lazy pace that summer brings.  I feel like everything moves slower in the summer out of necessity, because it's simply too hot to be quick about anything.  Something about Autumn is motivating.  It's a time to get back outdoors, when the weather is still lovely enough to enjoy without being too cold, and to enjoy the last bit of good weather before we begin bracing ourselves for the snow and gray skies of winter.  September this year has brought warm days and cool nights, and just enough crispness in the air so far that we can begin to look forward to sweaters and hot cider.  This time of year makes me notice and appreciate all of the little things that make life enjoyable.  Cool nights mean it's no longer unbearable to bake treats at night, so the house has been filled with the smell of cookies, and soon it will be muffins and coffee cakes and comfort foods.  Apples are back in season and they never seem to taste as crisp and delicious any other time of year.  Cider and pumpkins will soon be filling stores.  I've got plans to buy new candles for the house so that it will smell like cinnamon and apple all the time.  

On top of that, this time of year makes me appreciate small comforts.  Fluffy towels right out of the dryer, fresh bed sheets, the warm glow of a room lit by lamps, enjoying a lazy Sunday spent reading a book, freshly polished floors, a hot cup of tea in a heavy stoneware mug, a rack of clean dishes with a clean kitchen and hooded sweatshirts.  Small things that add up to little pieces of happiness that can get you through the day.  I often come off as someone with high expectations, but most of the time it's the little details that really matter to me.  It's never the large gifts that make the most difference.  It's the little every day things that matter, the things that I enjoy most.  Time spent with this strange, unconventional little family that we've created in this hodge podge of a house, that has been a highlight of my year so far.  I think that most of the time, we have to create our own happiness, so I'm glad that I can take so much joy in such small details of my life, however briefly they may last.

A Few Words About Words

I was sitting in my living room yesterday reading a book, and it got me thinking about how interesting the written word is.  I mean, if you think about it, the invention of writing itself is a friggin' miracle.  Somewhere between crawling out of the primordial ooze and present day, we as a collective species managed to figure out a written language, which then evolved into hundreds of written languages, simply because we thought that there were important things out there that needed to be said, and recorded, and remembered.  We went from hieroglyphs to rudimentary written word to full fledged language all in the short time that man has walked this Earth.  Now we're here reading things that were written hundreds of years ago, and forming religions based on books written centuries ago.  So much of our culture is based on what people have written down ages before we were born.  Countries are founded on written documents, laws are still made based on those documents, and there are those who have been lucky enough to have their literature endure the test of time.  When you stop and think about it, it's pretty mind blowing.

When I was reading my book yesterday I sat there wondering how many other people have read this book, and how many people loved it, or hated it?  How many people in this world have picked up the same volume I'm currently reading and said "Hey, this has changed my life"?  I think that's one of the things that's so great about any sort of writing, that it lasts and that it can trigger the same emotion in one person as it does in someone else millions of miles away and that now these two people who may never meet still have some sort of unspoken connection to one another.  I like to imagine that other people are like me and that they read about a place in a book and realize that they want to go to that place and experience it for themselves to see if it lives up to everything they've read in books.  Sometimes, when I'm walking through a new city that I read about in a book, I wonder if someone else is in that city for the exact same reason, walking the same street and that in some strange way we are sharing the same moment without even realizing it.  That's what makes it so awesome, that all over the world, people can have the same experience without having to be together. 

Anyway, it was just something I was thinking about.

Finding Words

There have been several times in the past few weeks that I've sat down and thought "I really want to write something" but before I can even log into my account, I find myself too weary to put my thoughts into coherent sentences and I stop before I can even begin.  The depth of things that are going through my head and the things that I might want to talk about is so great that I can't figure out where to start.  I don't want to make this blog all about a bunch of whining or talking about my thoughts that I think are deep and profound but I fear are little more than the musings of someone who has very little depth to them, and very little to say.  I have trouble finding the words to express the things I'm thinking, or worse, feeling, and I can't seem to figure out how to put everything in order.  I'm working on it.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Small, But Valuable

To steal a line from Nora Ephron, "I lead a small life.  Valuable, but small."  This seems to sum up my life pretty well.  I don't do big important things, I don't make scientific discoveries.  I have lived in the same ten mile radius pretty much my entire life.  On the whole, my life is simple, and if were no longer to be around, it would not make the news, nor would it be a loss felt by a great many.  That is not said in self pity, it is just a reality that I think most people live with but don't care to admit.  It is not to say that my life does not have value.  I've spent a huge portion of my life working toward the greater good. I have been a part of protests and union rallies, I have been a voice to speak out against injustice, I have donated large portions of my life and my time to volunteer work.  I was raised in the belief that there is always a greater good, and that we all need to strive toward it.  When injustice happens to one, we all need to fight against it until it no longer exists.  That has been my entire life.  It is why I am quick to jump to the defense of people who have been somehow wronged, even if it is not my battle to fight.

Now, as an adult I have dedicated my life to helping out in a field I know, so I've spent six years volunteering my time and money with the theatre department at my old high school.  Not because I got anything out of it, because I've never been paid, and the tireless hours often go unnoticed, but because it was needed.  They had almost no parents to volunteer, they had no help, and they had more than enough work to go around.  So, I jumped in with both feet.  Jason was right there next to me, working just as hard and being just as dedicated.  We coached actors, we made costumes, we made and purchased props, we worked concessions, we worked every fundraiser, we chaperoned field trips, we organized transportation, we managed meals for the students.  There were very few areas of that department that we did not touch and try to improve.  When Jason took over as Booster President, the boosters went from doing nothing more than paying for scholarships each year to offering group sales, paying for free workshops, subsidizing the expenses of field trips, providing larger and more meaningful college scholarships, offering hardship scholarships so underprivileged kids could attend events they would not otherwise be able to afford, and creating a summer Shakespeare program to allow students an opportunity to expand their on-stage experience.  We have had big dreams.  We had plans of doing more, and growing more.  Offering workshops for elementary and middle school students, college audition guidance, financially supporting programs in the elementary school, donating to other arts departments in the district, organizing larger and more exciting field trips.  You name it, we wanted to do it.  It never happened, and probably never will.  Somehow my small, charitable life became the source of some sort of scandal.  The good intentions and hours of dedication that Jason and I have had all along are now somehow under accusation of "creating drama".  Our forward thinking is now a problem.  We have been falsely accused, we have been disrespected, we have had our names dragged through the mud, our reputations have been damaged, our work has been taken for granted and we are now being barred entirely from making any more progress.    I will never understand why hard work gets rewarded with jealousy and spite.  And what's worse, we have lost the ability to know who can or cannot be trusted.  People we have considered friends, or at least colleagues have turned on us due to rumor and conjecture that has no place in our lives.  Each time I hear someone else say they are tired of this drama, I wonder why they believe that we are not tired of it ourselves.  It's exhausting, and we never wanted any part of it.  But we will not go quietly when injustice exists in our lives.  It is not in our nature.

I think what makes me the most sad is that there has been nothing more rewarding over the past six years than working with the amazing group of young people we have been privileged to know.  They have truly been the highlight of my life, and they will never know how much they have taught me about reality while I was teaching them how to pretend.  I have opened my home to students in need, not because it was easy, but because it was right.  Some people would say Jason and I are crazy to spend so much time focused on improving the lives of these teens, even outside of the confines of theatre, but there has been nothing in my life that has felt so right.  When a student came to us in need of a home, we didn't think twice before offering ours.  It is an act of love I will never regret.  To think that because of a handful of small, petty people, I will lose the privilege of meeting more of these amazing young people makes me so sad.  Especially when those small, petty people take those same young people for granted and cannot recognize how special and valuable each of them is.  They will never know what a privilege they have.  I would never dream of taking it for granted.  It has made my life so much more rich, and so much more colorful.  If I am to lose this opportunity, I will remain grateful that I had it for as long as I have.  I will never apologize for the work we have done, regardless of how much "drama" others might accuse me of creating.  I have no regrets.  I have touched lives.  There is nothing more valuable than that.

I have kept my life small.  Those kids have given it value.  They will probably never know, but I could never thank them enough.