Silent Solstice

A dear friend of mine is the happiest little Christmas elf I've ever known. She's sparkling with that classical Christmas Spirit that is sincere, heart-felt, generous, and evergreen. We can out-do each other in snark contests, but when Autumn and Thanksgiving roll around, she creates the traditional Christmas Home and Holiday experience for herself and her lucky family. And she enjoys doing all of it, fits it all into her working schedule, and pulls it off splendidly. She gets her Christmas cards mailed before the 15th. This morning I received a beautiful ecard from her, with a chorus singing 'Silent Night', of a snowy lake shore and gazebo, cue snowfall, light Christmas tree, skaters glide, night falls and the moon rises. It reminded me of being about 6, the Mythical Winter of 1967, when my dad stood outside night after night spraying water onto the backyard to create an ice rink when I got new ice skates for Christmas. He installed flood lights on each corner of the house so we all could skate at night, and the neighbor kids came over with their hockey skates to play off the street (which was solid ice for weeks) and I spent hours out there. We didn't have a gazebo, just a big white doghouse, but the moon did rise beautifully, and it was so far below zero for days at a time, that you could hear the Milky Way tinkle and chime overhead over the scrape scrape of your skates. The big multi-colored Christmas lights on the eaves around the ranch house made it all feel even more magical and outside of time, and the sub-zero silence was profound, even to a 6 year old.

That is the Magic I love to create this time of year. Even without ice skates, without the home-made ice rink, the 10ft high snow banks, or even the 30 below zero nights playing outside, what I love about the start of winter is the deep stillness you can find, and how the chill makes all the lights even brighter. This time of year all the colored and white lights come up, but to me it all has little to do with Christmas, even though that's why most get put up. The darkest time of the year, with short and shadowy days, calls for the most stars and moons and Milky Ways we can find, to bring outside for each other to admire. Late December to me is monolithic pine and fir trees blanketed in snow, then shrugging it off later in a good wind to sigh all night in relief. I got to wear the hand-knitted sweater my grandma made for me that was too big the year before. It's hanging on to the nylon rope while our black Lab Whiskey pulled me in my slick plastic boots down the icy road fast enough to make my eyes water. Outside was where it all was for me, the fun, the beauty, the make-believe kingdoms.

Holidays, cooped up indoors with uneasily blended families, lots of cigarettes and alcohol, hurt feelings and other injuries---"I'm goin' outback to skate!" met with some chuckles, a reminder to wear the dry snowpants, and go through the garage. Within minutes, I was free.

Hours would go by, people would start to go home, one of the neighbor kids would come over with his new skates, it was so quiet, the air smelled so fresh and blue, the fireplace smoke would float by once in a while, and to me, the whole Santa and Jesus thing just wasn't this good. Polar winter was what I loved, snow forts, tobogganing, your nostrils freezing together, all the ways the snow sounded depending on how cold it was, the green smell of cloudy afternoons, the liquid amber sunsets glowing through the icicles on the front of our house.

Working retail and restaurant jobs for so long brought me to a high bitterness with the whole Christmas idea, the cranking, wheezing and groaning machine of it, the Mall of it. Tuning in to Solstice is closer to what it means to me, but not in any kind of organized Pagan denomination either. Work-wise it was always a misery for me in my professions, then add on what people in your life expect you to play along with. For years, I just boycotted the whole thing, played Scrooge better than anybody and meant it. Anyone who's heard David Sedaris perform his piece "Holidays on Ice" has an understanding of my personal take on American Christmas in my tarnished experience. To those who love and do it so well----I salute you.

My neighbors throw an outdoor winter blitz that can only be a Rite of Baccus, and I think they frolic naked and debauched around a roaring fire, but I don't want to look. With all the leaves gone now, and the bloated chorus at 1:45AM, there are just some things that should remain a mystery.

This year it's different, in every way.
There's no sick employees and customer madness, no greasy aprons and slow-healing burns, no drunk and surly boyfriends or relatives, no feuds or car wrecks, no frantic, no airports, no bad Jello to choke down. The sourest part of my Inner Scrooge is getting some rest and twinkling lights therapy, does not have to teach a lesson about over-consumption when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, and is taking the next few weeks off in honor of my Christmas Elf pal.

I almost don't know what to do with myself. Got on a hand-knit sweater, strung up some colored lights, and I even saw a movie filmed in Siberia that just blew me away. My bones like the milder Portland climate these days, but Elemental Winter just awes me. There's so little human interference with it, and I respect that power, and find it hauntingly beautiful.

Here Comes the Fog

The fog each morning since the storm is comforting, healing to the ravages of the wind, and wraps me in a cool woolly shawl I didn't have to knit to enjoy. I think many of us are feeling a bit raw these days after the thrashing of the weekend, and feel fortunate when we glance outside hopefully and don't see splintered branches on our cars or upended root balls yawing like the threshold of Hell in the yard.

Ai-yi-yi I think, being on the side of a hill, how did we wind up with 6 inches of icy water in our newly finished basement? We thought that was all taken care of with last year's giant foundation shoring project, drains installed, weather-proofing. Not so. Only last night did I find out that there used to be a creek that flowed through the neighborhood, which didn't just disappear with homes and sidewalks, and our water table is higher because of it. The winter hurricane that screamed through here brought down the Sitka Spruce, velvety with glowing moss, the tallest in the world, twisted and shattered and pulled down to only a 70 ft trunk surrounded by spines of raw wood. The coastal flooding, power outages, the trains halted, the Interstate closed, airports shut down---everybody stop. Everybody just stop.

The indigenous people would have stopped and hunkered down and waited it out. Don't endanger yourself by pretending this storm is just a little rain, and insist on making a long trip.
Many of us made soup while the power was still on, I think it's in our DNA to do this. Make soup, gather around the hearth and stay warm together. Tell stories, mend something, doze off, find another blanket, stoke the fire, conserve your energy for the work of cleaning up after the storm blows through.

December is here with it's holidays and manic energy, the whole Christmas Machine whirring and grinding away, and the weather seems to be the only element that can slow it down. For a day or two, then it's back up to speed inhaling dollars and time and high expectations. I keep thinking "simplify, simplify, simplify" like a mantra, bring the circus down, keep your dollars and take care of yourselves, be in tune with the December Elementals of cold and wind and rain or snow. Be snug. Stay home. Don't be foolish about Nature and high waters. Mend something. Make soup and share it with people you're fond of. Tend your home fire.

Since You Asked

Thanks for the support, the waiting game is tough.

Still no word from Portland State University on my admission status.
My transcripts are all in, and I've already gotten a letter that had a student ID number on it, but it may have been regarding another student with my name and some previous PSU term grades. Of course, it arrived on a Saturday, when the office is closed, so I sent off an email asking them to please look into this ASAP so it doesn't hold up anything for me.

Classes start in 5 weeks!
Aaarrrrggghhhh!

Anyway, that's where I am with school, and will probably be able to meet with someone this coming week to get going with Registration and Orientation, etc. Then get a campus job and get going with my new life. Yesterday I talked to a woman close to my age who had her nursing school books spread out all over her workspace at a shop on Hawthorne, her anatomy final is this coming week, and she was cramming. We talked a long time about Life, and the timeless what-happened-during-my-20s-and-30s, and how it's pointless to regret past choices and what got in the way the first time. She said her hardest problem is wanting to be too chummy with her professors, being her peers, and not being a stand-out too much by answering all the questions out loud in class. I didn't ask her about the Mrs. Robinson Issue, maybe she's happily hooked-up, so she didn't mention it either. I'll have to just behave myself.

Speaking of... Consistent Mr. Torso sightings at the gym have me doing laps like Aqua Girl. He's in training, I overheard him saying the other day to the only other person under 60 with him near the pool besides me. Whatever gets me into the swimsuit and the water, whatever it takes. He's got to be under 30, which means I really need to get a grip and just admire the scenery.
Whatever. Like I told my pal Jolie, lucky for me he has a cheap hobby like swimming, all he needs is the goggles and trunks, unlike some people I know who have to own horses, rent the barn, buy the chaps and hat and gear, pay to show the horses, and you never get to see them (legally) smiling and relaxing in the hot tub almost naked. But she does have the hunky ferriers...

Sorry, my middle-aged lady got loose again, got to do something about that.

And I'm not going to Florida for the holidays, since Betty and I do the weekend 3 hour phone calls, we're pretty much caught up I think, and other than getting her computer set-up working at optimal level, there isn't much reason to fly me out there. Earlier this year I had thought about it, but that was so long ago, and now all I care about is getting into classes and arranging a job around that as best I can so I still have a life, time to study and write papers, and make stuff to sell. I'm going to get a portfolio of my stuff together, take photos, and shop it around the Portland Craft Mafias and see who wants to hook up with me, to supplement the Etsy site and focus on some local interest, too.
The Oregonian did a nice article on the hand craft movement here in town, and how high-profile it is becoming nationally, encompassing re-use, reduce, recycle and how to support local shops and craftsters instead of going zombie-like to the mall to have your brains and wallet sucked dry. One December night a few years ago, I came home zombie-like from my store at the mall, poured a tall tumbler of Merlot, and spent about 90 minutes being Santa and took care of Christmas all at one sitting. Didn't even need to refill my wine glass. What a relief that was, all shipped, all done. Ho ho ho.
This year I took the hand-made pledge. Hopefully they'll forgive me.