I am walking the dog on Christmas Day and I am glad. I am glad for legs that work and for a dog with boundless curiosity.
This microphone is nice.
I am twisting my neck and I am glad. Glad for functioning vertebrae, glad to have eyes that see, glad to be walking where I am known and where I feel safe.
It is cold and I am glad. Glad to make a home in a state with seasons, in a state where I was born, in a state where I went to college and graduate school, in a state where I worked in an office and in a prison, in a state where both my boys were born.
I am walking on Christmas Day in a neighborhood where the air is cold and I feel safe and I am glad. I am glad that our petty president, whose depravity knows no bottom and whose vanity knows no upper limit, has yet to start a war.
It is not yet noon on Christmas Day and we have no plans and yes, I am glad. I am glad that all the visiting, traveling, baking, roasting, wrapping, and unwrapping is done for the season. I will sit by the fire and watch some show on BritBox or Acorn, grateful for the peace, for the fire, for the streaming services.
I will sew more little Christmas tree ornaments, grateful for my supplies — the needles and beads and cloth and satin cord and polyfill — and my still-working hands.
I am glad that as an officially classifiable dom3stic terr0rist that you, dear readers, don’t need to ask why. I’m glad too that you also are likely classifiable in this new and bogus, fascist-serving category.
I’m grateful that when all is said and done, you and I will have lived on the right side of history — we have protested, written postcards, called our elected officials, donated to critical campaigns, spoken out against genocide, and called out the anti-constitutional everything — even when we weren’t necessarily buoyed by hope.
Home now. The heat comes on. In New England one never takes heat for granted. I’m grateful for that whooshing sound and the warmth it imparts.
Merry Christmas everyone. Even if you’re Jewish. Even if you were raised in a Christian church but don’t believe in Christ (ssshhhh! that makes you a terr0rist!).
Ken sits in the warm light of a floor lamp, reading. That’s my husband. Hair mussed. Intent. He brought slippers. I brought flip-flops.
The Airbnb checks the important boxes. Welcome snacks and coffee. A bouquet of red carnations. Extra towels. A drawer full of spices. Reading lights at every seat. Power strips, galore! Did I mention a drawer full of spices? Olive oil.
We wandered around CU campus one day. There are so many new buildings, I struggled to partner what I was seeing with memory.
As for geology, the Flatirons are one of Boulder’s most distinctive features. How they show up between buildings in the near distance, disappear, and then show up again is both surprising and wonderful. They’re an imposing reminder that we are, in fact, at the foothills of the Rockies.
There’s one of them below — woman in long white parka for scale.
Boulder is a dog town. Climbing the path at Chautauqua, were we the only ones without a one? Close. The climb was moderate but I was huffing and puffing. “It’s the altitude,” I asserted.
Ken scoffed, but I turned and waved at the view below us. “It’s at least 400 additional feet.”
The afternoon light at Chautauqua offered visual glory: slabs of shadow, illegible foregrounds, clouds trying to tell us something. I took a lot of pictures.
“I could die here and I wouldn’t mind.“
Husband: “Well, I’d mind. I’d have to carry you down.“
Dinner at The Boulderado. It’s an old place, a hotel. In all our years of visiting Boulder, we’d never set foot inside. From the Airbnb, it’s a 10 minute walk and in the crisp air of late December it feels good. I forgot my gloves.
I also forgot my Daily Pages, so I’m writing in an errand/reminder notebook — in between independent bookstore addresses, random passwords, instructions on how to sign in to cure ballots in Nevada. Sigh. I’m not over it. I’ll never be over it.
December 31 — breakfast at Foolish Craig’s. I ask our cute Gen Z waiter, “How are the grits here?”
“Well, my mother’s from Mississippi, so let’s just say they’re good-for-Colorado grits.”
But it turns out they’re awful with a gross tapioca-like consistency.
I’m honest with him. “I’ve been to Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina, and these are something, but they’re not grits.”
So now you know, I’m a grits snob. Honestly, the grits I make at home are better. A lot better.
Lest you think me unpleasant, I refused a swap out for home fries and said the delicious sandwich was gonna be enough (and it was — sausage and egg on brioche with pickled red onions — wow).
When asked what we were doing for New Year’s Eve, I tell him, “Snacks and Beyonce Bowl.”
“Nice!”
I feel seen. Partly because Ken has no idea what Beyonce Bowl is.
I’m wandering a little befuddled at times. I almost don’t recognize Boulder. Is it because we’re staying north of Pearl on 18th St. instead of on Arapahoe somewhere? Or maybe sleep deprivation is getting to me.
Or maybe it’s the overlay of an imagined city. For a couple of years, I wrote many fictional scenes set here. Contemporary scenes, set during lockdown. There’s a band of wild women who appear and disappear, all wearing orange linen tunics. They show up in the fields near Chautauqua or over by the library, and they dance. Wild ecstatic dancing. And then they melt back into the landscape. Nobody knows where they go. Nobody knows who they are, even. Maybe if we tool over to Boulder Creek and campus, the imaginal map and the real one will overlap? (Yes, they did — to my great relief).
Notes written on New Year’s Day 2025: Who goes there? What ghost? What friendly ancestor or malignant spy from the future? We have our work cut out for us. Number one, learn to run alongside the apathy and despair. Number two, stop telling yourself nothing you do matters. Number three, self-care. Number four, write.
For for instance, write about the Irish psychology of sabotage.
(Wait. Haven’t I already?)
I enter the New Year with some of the usual questions. What do we share online and why (like this endless post)? Do we spill? How much is revelation and how much curation? I’ve often thought over the years that absent social media I’d be more productive or maybe even, happier. More contained, certainly.
Hard to say. I value the visual record. I love my online friends.
Speaking of online friends, this is directed to you. Last night, I dreamt that Jude was highlighting Saskia. She’d figured out how to animate Saskia’s extraordinary inked creatures. I was amazed. “Saskia will be famous now,” I think and also feel a little jealous.
Note: Saskia tells me she has animated her work. So maybe in the dream, that’s what Jude is sharing? In any case, here’s the link:
The Boston skyline to our right, a smudge of grey Legos. We rise into the foggy sky. Nothing to see. The roar asserts itself. And my prayer: Hail Mary, full of grace, etc. The window brightens. The child near it speaks, the innocent pitch of three years old? Four?
I forgot to text the boys a photo of where our estate binder lives. Four plane crashes this week – or is it five? – make this thought less casual than usual.
My knee socks sag into my ankle and a cold air blows on my skin. I’d ask for a blanket, but these days an airline blanket is about as warming as a big Kleenex. Next to me: a story about Santa. The father‘s voice a cocoon. I remember cocooning. Entertaining. Teaching while at it because, you know, language. Our four-year-old would’ve carried a Pikachu, not whatever yellow stuffed critter this boy has.
I’m waiting for our ascent to yield a view of the blue sky. Cold air blowing. Full of grace. Hallowed be thy name. Four hours, says the pilot. When we see the Rockies, it’ll be time to land. My ears squeak and the noise increases. We climb.
More ear crackles.
Jimmy Carter died yesterday. He was my first vote for president. I’m sad – beyond sad – that he didn’t live to see Harris elected. There’s some small measure of relief in knowing that he will lie in state while Biden is still governing – not that vulgar, greasy, venal, egomaniacal dick we shall soon call president. Can they bar the pig’s attendance, I wonder (on behalf of 74 million people)? The Lord is with me. Jimmy and Rosalyn together again is a nice thought, one being shared online by plenty of non-believers, I suspect.
The window brightens. But no, the child pulls the shade down. His little checkered slide-on Vans break my heart just a little. How time flies and all that. My heart will break more fully later on.
For now I am distracted by the lug of a guy behind me who seems to be fishing rather frequently through the pouch attached to my chair. Wait, did he just lean his head into my chair? I’m reminded of the flying scene in LAST HOLIDAY when Queen Latifah faces a similar problem. “How much for the damn cocoon?”
It wasn’t a particularly festive holiday this time around. There was a kind of relief in the quiet, but also curiosity about the flat mood.
I’m not sure it would’ve been apparent to an onlooker — the tree lit up, cookies baked, a holiday meal. There was even, against recent years’ expectation, snow. But it all felt dull. It was as if I’d set a timer and was waiting for it to run out – not to get to that magical moment but rather to get on with whatever’s next.
Whatever’s next is where the Catholic prayers belong. Now and at the hour of our death.
Turning my head the other way, there it is at last – blue sky, white cotton balls below. We’re above the clouds! How the miracle of aviation never disappoints!
Hours later, closer by — window shade slid back open. The landscape below is patchworked brown, here and there a snaking curl of water catching the sun. We see roads, chips of cars, and now and then, buildings. The landscape is brown, brown, brown. I crane my neck. I can see the Rockies now. In the year 2024, almost 2025, they are snow-capped.
Peppa the Pig plays endlessly on a device on the boy’s lap. We are into hour four, remember. His father points out the window, but the kid could care less. His favorite episode ends. “Again!” he demands.
A corn maze appears, Mile High Farms carved into its gold crop — just for our viewing it would appear (well, and all the drones invading our airspace). “Again!” pipes the Vans-clad boy.
Denver shows up. More distant gray Legos. The ears begin to pop. “Again!” As a parent, I get it — keep them distracted, for everyone’s sake. But to have trained a little brain to crave a cartoon pig to the exclusion of looking out of an airplane window? I can’t stop thinking about it.
When the screen finally goes dark, my four year-old fellow traveler falls to pieces. Completely disregulated. Does the maelstrom of shrieks prove the wisdom of having Peppa the Pig on endless loop? I don’t think so. Over and over the boy screams: I peed my pants! I have to pee right now! I peed my pants! I have to pee right now!
Sometimes I get intimidated about the fact that people actually read these posts. Forgive the blindness imbedded in such folly, but I know I’m not alone in this weird double-take.
For instance, I want to post more about anti-racism again and about my book, now titled The Weight of Cloth, but part of me wonders — who am I? Well not about the book, which I am amply qualified to speak about, but about more general issues of structural racism.
I’ll get over myself. Have no fear!
So here is a simpler kind of post. Show and tell. And really, a chance to note recent gifts.
ONE BLEND. A blend of exotic spices prepared by a friend was one of my favorite gifts this year. A pinch flavors a big pot of stock on the stovetop at this very moment. It turns out that I committed to trying new-to-me flavors this year before even recognizing the thought. A resolution? Yes, and a discovery — that the better resolutions might be those that you adopt before even making note of them. No forcing.
Another Ottolenghi recipe. Ripped from the book PLENTY’s cover. This is my creation tho — both the food and the photo. And yea, it was tasty!
ONE BOX. Those of you that follow my cousin Ginny Mallon will recognize her artistry on this repurposed cigar box. I LOVE IT. When she started posting them on Instagram this fall, I knew I needed to give one to my husband for Christmas. Him being a Cancer was the excuse, my adoring them, the real impetus.
And since Ginny wouldn’t let me pay her, I received a gift too!
THREECLOTHS. The first is a close up and finished. The second is almost ready to be bound. And the third is a close up of one that feels like I will never finish it. A progression of sorts.
All I want to say about them today is how liberating I found Jude’s recent comment about how she doesn’t see ugly (or something like that). I was referring to a quilt not shown here. I’ve always worked with ugly and messy, maybe even taken a tiresome pride in the fact, but this feels different. It gives me staying power.
After traveling to Los Angeles to see my brother and returning home yesterday, I have a number of early Christmas gifts to share. In no particular order.
One early gift was a negative Covid test today. I know, I know — perhaps not reliable and maybe I should test again tomorrow, but I’ll take that single pink stripe! Second gift was that our local drug stores’ shelves were well-stocked with the kits.
Another early gift was being bumped up to first class yesterday. Wahoo! A window seat no less. We’re talking Belgian waffles. We’re talking elbow room. I watched a movie and I watched the clouds.
With dismay, we’re watching my husband’s frequent flier miles diminish. For years we floated a balance of about a million miles (I kid you not). But naturally with COVID he hasn’t traveled in roughly two years. It looks like he’ll retire before there’s time to accrue more benefits.
Boo-hoo me, I guess, having to pay for airline tickets like the rest of the world. It’s not just the miles though. As a Global Premium customer you get speedy, white-glove check in (a glass-enclosed cubby at LAX, a dedicated lane at Logan, a private room in Denver). No waiting ever. And then because I don’t have TSA pre-check, one of the clerks walks me over to security and cuts to the top of the line. Again, I kid you not.
After security, one can enjoy the premium lounge which is less crowded than the general areas and also offers free food and coffee. This benefit was especially a gift this week since my brother watches a lot of CNN and all the coverage about omicron induced a mild panic about traveling. JEE-sus!
More early gifts: I got to watch my brother walk! He’s really working hard to become mobile again and it’s within reach. Also, twice he cracked such hilarious jokes I nearly wet myself. No, I will not share.
Got to see my older son and he seems so good. Without prompting, he offered to drive me to the airport at 5:30 in the morning. What a sweetheart!
Coming home is always a gift but yesterday it was amplified and I’m not sure why since the pall cast over Christmas by Covid is worse than last year.
I think I was moved by the comfort of the familiar. I struggled with my brother’s things — the can opener with a weird switch, the non-compliant bathtub drain, overheating hand-beaters, the lack of a secure stool in a tall person’s kitchen, FOUR TV remotes, none of which make sense to me. You get the idea.
K and I snuggled on the couch with Finn, clicked on a fire, ate Indian take out, and watched the finale of Shetland. It doesn’t get much better than that if you ask me.
