- WM

It’s posted as a .pdf to download cuz it’s kinda long for a blog post, but I can put it up there if’n ya want ….

Lullaby_bound

The last Winter Solstice was a prophetic one in my world. 2010 was quite a year. We reaped great gains, and we suffered lasting losses. One generation of my family took a final bow, and stepped gracefully into the shadow, while the vanguard of another stood up to be counted. It was a painfully beautiful rendering of the great cycle, and one I’ll never forget.

This is the darkest time of year, the longest night. But we’re reminded that darkness is not something to fear or revile. Darkness is creative, protective and the precursor to the light we love so much. Ideas and efforts begun months ago are waiting, biding their time, until the growing season returns. I’ve got a few of those going myself, and I have to say that this year more than most, I’m feeling optimistic. 2011 holds great challenge but also chances for great change. Personally? I’m looking for 2011 to be a banner year. The last one that came close was 2008, which some of you will recall as The Year for Drinking From the Bottle (and we did).

To that end, then, I grant the coming year its new name.

2011: The Year of Unity.

Happy Solstice all. May it herald the return of the light in each and all of your lives.

The stories we tell, the singles’ adventures, the nights out, the missed opportunities and the crazy people we sometimes encounter make for colorful tales, but after a while the pages they’re written on begin to yellow, and suddenly the story of how that relationship ended or never started becomes like the 10th night in a row of eating alone: It’s not funny anymore.

We put up a good front, and we tell ourselves the things we hear again and again. It will happen when you’re not looking.

• It will happen when the time is right.
• Someday you’ll meet someone nice.
• She is looking for you too – it’s just a matter of time.
• You’ll meet a real guy who likes you for who you are.
• Just be patient.
• It will happen.

There’s not one person out there, single in some way, who hasn’t heard those, doesn’t think them, and doesn’t believe in each and every one. We have to. This would be otherwise unbearable. The thoughts that we are wasting the life we have, that we are running out of time, that we will have to settle with what we can get, not what we long for – are ever present.

As wrapped up as I get in my own search with its ever-retreating horizon, I get dispatches from the front every now and then that remind me of how this plays out in all different ways for all of us, but the story is painfully familiar.

One way or another, we keep passing by dozens, hundreds, thousands of each other, all looking. We sort and label and discard and keep moving, bent on finding the one that meets all the needs, and maybe some of the wants. We all want the same thing. To be dizzy in love. To be crazy about someone. To daydream about the word, the gesture, the touch, the caress that is – how was it put?-  the smallest but the most profound – that puts a smile on their face, that locks their eyes with yours, that makes their heart pound a little. To give to one person everything that you are, and to accept from them everything that they are.

We all suffer the same setbacks. Wrong space. Wrong time. Wrong town. Wrong job. Wrong age. Wrong background. Wrong needs. Wrong wants.

We all want to stop. We all want to be done with it forever. If you’re like me, you convince yourself, at least for a while, that it no longer matters like it once did. That you can and will dwell alone for the rest of your days, and pursue the life of the mind, or whatever you idolize. Some day, though, we all wake up to the reality that that is not what we are made for. We are built in pairs. We are built to exchange love always, and crave it when we don’t. No matter what castles we build in the air, what fantasies we spin about our own independence, sooner or later they all fall.

Perhaps the oft-recycled song lyric that it’s better hurt than to feel nothing at all is right. We can’t stop, because, love it or hate it, this is what we do. Next time you look at a friend, especially if they’re telling you the latest singles-adventure, take a moment to notice that behind them, it hurts a little. Because in the end it’ll all be worth it, but at the moment, some of this stuff isn’t funny.

Did it ring on that end? No idea. It did not ring on this end. Just straight to voicemail. OK, so it’s windy. Reception is poor. This is not unreasonable, I guess. Crappy, but not unreasonable. But here’s the thing about waiting for the phone to ring. You keep glancing at it, hoping to catch it right when it lights up. You keep it on you constantly, until you start to feel silly. So you leave it on the desk and go in the other room. But for the next 20 minutes as you eat voraciously because, let’s face it, liquor just doesn’t have the filling power you’re after, you keep hearing phantom goddamm rings! You keep looking up pathetically from your food, wondering if that particular inaudible squeak was the sound of the ringtone drifting through the background noise of the house, the tv, the dog, your own jaw moving.

It’s not. It never is.

So you sit down beside the phone instead, defying its presence. You ignore it. You dare it to ring so that you can demonstrate how much you do not care when it doesn’t ring. Sitting in the same room with the phone you play a game with yourself, to see how well you can pretend your entire emotional state is not based entirely on whether or not it rings.

You struggle mightily, angrily, violently to convince yourself you actually do not want it to ring, and would be annoyed and upset if it even did ring at this point. You build walls and bastions solid as the foundations of the Earth, and when you are finished, you are certain that there are no circumstances under which you could believe those walls would hold.

The worst thing about waiting for it to ring is the knowledge that no matter how much you need it to ring, it isn’t going to. They’re not going to call. Precisely because you care so much, it’s never. Going. To ring.

You get angry with yourself for caring so much, and then angry with yourself for trying not to care, because if you don’t care, never care, at all, than what is the point of any of it?

And what if it didn’t even ring on that end in the first place? What if there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this? Then you’re neurotic at worst, at best an asshole.

There is no way to win this contest. Choose your flavor of loss.

Settle back, defeated at every turn, certain of the outcome.

And stare at it, waiting for it to ring anyway.

No more toys in Happy Meals. No more running on grass. And stop smiling so much!

Could someone please stop the mindless assault on childhood, fun, and enjoyment of life?

It seems that every year, some new group of overly-concerned, hand-wringing, anti-bacterial-that-before-touching-it adults begins howling about a new danger to our lives. For example, we now “know” that the following are bad, dangerous, or generally unwholesome:

•  Fat
•  Salt
•  Sugar
•  Caffeine
•  Protein
•  Carbohydrates
•  Drinking alcohol
•  Not drinking alcohol
•  Eating fish
•  Not eating fish
•  Vegetables and fruits that are not purely organic, and really not farmed at all, preferably found in the deep woods near a pure mountain stream and with no snakes nearby
•  Bottled water
•  Tap water
•  River water
•  Rain water
•  The ocean
•  Air
•  Sunlight
•  Absolutely anything manufactured, grown or even found near, China. Especially toys.
•  Television
•  The internet

Now that adults have declared all food, air, water, leisure and the entire surface of the earth to be bad for themselves, and with nothing left to suck the joy out of and leave a gray, lifeless husk behind, they are going after the only source of happiness left to human life: childhood.

Eating lots of fast food makes kids fat. Fact. Kids like toys. Fact. Kids like toys and fast food that comes in happy little boxes with cartoons on them. Fact. So the answer MUST be to outlaw such things! While we’re at it, lets get rid of these unhealthy cakes at birthdays. They, too, are linked with toys and even singing! It’s as if the adults at these “birthday parties” feel it’s acceptable to celebrate any aspect of life that is not continuously sustainable for at least 50 years.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2010/04/28/legislating-happy-meals.aspx

My FB response:
“CSPI officials plan to target the birthday party industry next.

‘The unhealthy combination of high-sugar, high-fat, low-protein cakes with singing and toys is a disturbing trend in our society,’ one staffer commented.

‘Every day, millions of children are bombarded with the message that it’s OK to spend small portions of their lives responsibly enjoying things without constantly panicking over their long-term health. I mean, these people actually hold these events EVERY YEAR of a child’s life. This MUST end!’

As evidence of the growing problem of marketing high-calorie foods and toys to children on their birthdays, CSPI noted that not one child aged 4-10 surveyed could present a reasonable health plan for maintaining their weight and cholesterol through age 70.”

From now on, McDonalds will serve plain, recycled, no-wax boxes made locally from invasive species that contain: Sustainably raised, free-range soy patties; organic celery; probiotic yogurt that requires no refrigeration other than storage in McDonalds’ new hand-dug root cellars; a pamphlet entitled “Your Colon: He’s Your Special Pal” targeted at 3-7 year-olds, printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink on a hand-press by a vegan woman. Also, they will now be called “Responsibly Content Meals.”

OR, we could exercise that part of brains that contains self control. We could eat at McDonalds only sometimes. We could allow our kids to play video games and watch TV, but limit their time in front of the screen. We could tell them why they can’t have a Happy Meal everyday, and teach them to appreciate healthy foods and active lifestyles, the same way we encourage them to read books and not hit each other.

We could stop trying to turn our children into probiotic, antiseptic, intellectual, vegan, miniature versions of what we think therapists would like us to be, and just teach them to be thoughtful and responsible.

Or we could panic and outlaw everything. Either way.

(Note: Not trying to crack on you vegan folks, here. I’m just using y’all as an example of a restrictive lifestyle that should be taken on by choice, not out of shame. Nothin’ but love for your little granola-chewin’ heads!)

Women to women: “Wow, congratulations! Hag.”

Ladies, I love you. I really do. Women are just awesome. You’re so utterly different from men, and thank you for it. You think differently, you’re good at things we’re not, you provide color and contrast and variety to the lives of men. You delight in keeping in touch with people you have not seen in 3 years. You’re pretty. You smell nice. You don’t have hairy chests.

So when are you going to stop cracking on each other?

http://www.slate.com/id/2259434/pagenum/1

Jeez. I have to be honest with you: This is not something that would happen amongst us men-folk. When we take shots at each other, it’s for one of two reasons. Either we’re jealous:”He’s got a ________ and a I don’t.” Fill in with things like Ferrari, yacht, 60″ TV, vacation house, high-powered job, Swiss bank account, girlfriend who looks like Megan Fox, etc.

Or, we don’t like him because he is somehow threatening. “He’s ________. ” Fill in with things like “abusive to animals, racist, a heroin dealer, criminally insane, on fire right now, touching my girlfriend’s ass, touching my ass, etc.”

Most of the time, we’re OK with acknowledging the reason. Yeah, most of us don’t like Brad Pitt. But that’s because he has lots of money, is drinking buddies with George Clooney and sleeps next to Angelina Jolie. We don’t begrudge him his success. We just covet it.

But you ladies actually take shots at each other purely to cut one another down. “We want more women on TV! But NOT her!  She’s pretty and men will want to look at her. And not her either! She’s smart, but she WANTS men to look at her. And not her either! Because men don’t want to look at her and you’re discriminating against her because she’s not pretty!”

Listen, it’s OK to want men to look at you. It’s OK if men do look at you. Trust me when I say, we’re not going to stop, regardless of what you say or do. Somewhere around 12 we suddenly see a girl and say to ourselves “Oh. A girl. OH. Wait. That’s kind of cool …” and that’s it. From that moment until death, we’re looking at you. You really don’t have to try as hard as you do. We appreciate it, but we’re going to look anyway. So quit hacking at one another and just enjoy the attention when it suits you, OK?

‘Nuff said.

This past weekend we inaugurated GeoCaching Season 2010 with a grand tour of the hill towns where I live.

Though it was 30 degrees at night just a couple days before, by Saturday we were roasting in glorious summer heat. The breeze was hot, the shade was cool, and the soaring trees overhead had finally exploded with foliage. Walking under the canopy was entering the oldest — and newest — cathedral in the world, where all the stained glass is varying shades of green.

We followed trails, read clues, struggled with satellite bounce, and even had occasion to use an honest-to-goodness, genuine, WiFi-free, compass. Nailing seven different caches in one day, and a large pile of cheeseburgers, we spent 8 glorious hours soaking up all the fresh air, sunshine and topsoil we could reasonably absorb without serious threat to health.

It was a great day, and nailed all of the following criteria for Things You Should Experience Often:

• Other than the GPS and the occasional glance at the iPhone for tips, we looked at no screens throughout the day.

• We came upon abandoned ruins (one of my favorite features of New England woods) like Broken Chimney.

• We sweated. A lot. Good, honest, body-cooling, stress-free sweat. We sweated for the reason that humans evolved sweat glands. And it was good.

• We got tired. Our bodies started to get weak. Then we pounded water and protein snacks, and charged on to another cache. Again and again, we self-renewed at every turn. Exhaustion was not our enemy. It was our secretary.

• We did things we thought we couldn’t do. We scrambled over rocks; climbed inclines much too steep for us to climb (and got to the top); found things that were too-well hidden; lived the motto “And there is one less thing you cannot do.”

We laughed, we argued, some of us cried, and by the end of the day, there was not one among us who did not feel the day was an unmitigated success.

We ended our day poetically. Down a long, rough, leaf-strewn dirt road, surrounded by dense, towering forest, we came upon an old town cemetery buried beneath layer upon layer of sedimentary silence. The sun had sunk low in the sky by that point, throwing up the first colors of sunset, and night began leaking from the shadows along the centuries-old stone wall.

After a hushed tour of the two dozen-odd headstones, we crept through the gate, over the wall, and dug out our last cache of the day. As we logged our discovery, the fatigue, the noise of the day, the fading glare of the sun, the silence of the cemetery all fell upon us at once. We spoke in whispers, though there was no need. We were surely the only living people in earshot.

Working our way back down the road and on to badly needed baths and well-earned food, everyone had grins plastered on sweaty, dirty, sunscreened, bug repellent-caked faces. We, all of us, had managed to spend an entire day with family and friends, in the sun and the woods, burning calories and building bridges instead of the reverse. The only effort we expended was climbing uphill. We spent little besides energy. What we carried back, though, we couldn’t have found anywhere else.

In elementary school, I kind of liked the special projects that promised something more interesting than reading from the text books and taking tests. But the annual social studies project on family history was not on my list of favorites. While other kids gave presentations on German, Russian, French, English, Dutch, Czech, and Italian culture, and ties to Ellis Island were particularly prized, all I had to talk about was being Irish.

In the early 1980s, Irish culture, as seen in America, was almost exclusively focused on parodies of drunken, foolish men dressed entirely in green shamrock clothing, songs in thick accents, and stories of starvation, oppression and ignorance. The chief Irish exports of the day were targets of lampooning, corrupt Boston politics, extreme views on birth control and sectarian violence. I never once heard someone speak fondly of Irish culture outside of a parade. In short, it was an inglorious time for the Irish on a global stage.

I was jealous of the kids with English heritage (cool ties to the Revolutionary War); French (cool sounding language); Russian (Iron Curtain mystique); German (Berlin Wall intrigue) and others. What could I point to as an Irish kid? Paddy Wagons were named derisively after us. We were blowing ourselves up in Belfast. Everyone assumed we were all alcoholics. Not good.

Somewhere around age 13 that changed. I picked up a free tabloid rag targeted to the Irish American community in Western Mass outside a store one night. Inside those grubby pages with the ink rubbing off the cheap newsprint at the slightest touch, I discovered a whole new world.

It told me that my county had the most residents with direct, one-generation ties to Ireland in the state. That Massachusetts had the largest number of people claiming Irish descent in the nation. That we — the people who had left Ireland in the last 200 years and their descendants, but still identified ourselves as Irish — had a name.

The Diaspora.

We were wanderers. Forced out by circumstance but still holding “The Old Country” in our hearts. A romantic notion, to be sure, but what a notion! Suddenly I did not belong to something not worth remembering. I was displaced! I was one of Ireland’s lost sons. My people were proud of me. We were still a tribe.

That was it — I was hooked. From that moment on, my Irish bloodlines became a source of fiercely defended pride. I read about the potato famine and the diaspora. I bought magazines like Hibernia and read articles about dual citizenship. I studied family trees and talked to my grandfather, the de facto repository of all family knowledge. I sought out Irish music and language and books and the underpinnings of things like knots, sweaters, whiskey and instruments like the uillean pipes and the bodhran. I learned about the relationships between the Irish and the Scotts and studied my Scottish connections. I came to think of myself as an Irishman and to describe my ancestry, more accurately, as Celtic.

The mid-90s seemed to confirm my feelings as a wave of pro-Celtic sentiment swept the world. Riverdance presented Irish music that had nothing in common with “Danny Boy” even if Michael Flately did get silly by the end.  Mel Gibson introduced Scotland’s folk hero to the world and suggested that Scotts were not only fun, they were hardcore. And Sting and Mark Knopfler started recording with The Chieftains.

After years of ignorance, I was secure in my identity. That is, until one day at a family gathering. My then brother-in-law was born to parents who had immigrated from Ireland in the 70s. These people were freakin’ Irish and therefore very cool. I felt a kinship there without even thinking about it. Indeed, he even had a curious hint of a brogue in his south-of-Boston speech. It was all going quite well, until someone mentioned to his father that I, too, was Irish.

“Well,” said his father in a friendly tone, “is he Irish? Or is he Irish American?”

I was not in the room at the time. That was fortunate. Because though I took little offense at first, this question would soon develop into a stinging rebuke of my identity from someone I considered an insider and compatriot.

After years of loyalty and identity, I had been rejected by my countrymen.

To say this bothered me is an understatement. I felt like the combat veteran who rejoins his unit after being wounded only to find himself an outsider among friends who have seen campaigns and suffered hardships that he has not. I still loved my culture, still embraced it, still felt I belonged. But now I was second-class. Irish came from Ireland, it seemed. I came from Massachusetts.

This hurt and confused me for quite a while. With time, though, came perspective. Yes, my family had left. They had said “enough and no more” and struck out for new shores. Just as I had left home for college to find my own way, so had they. I had continued their tradition.

Without the support of hearing the old language, living amongst the history, being steeped in the culture, we, I, had maintained our roots. But we forged a new identity in a new land as well. We kept the old ties but made new ways and new customs. We kept the culture alive — and ourselves — by allowing it to change with the world. We were the new generations, the new faces, of the Irish. Ambassadors to our past, stewards of our future. We are still a tribe.

So no, Mr. Flynn, I am not Irish. I am Irish American. I am the hybrid, the bridge between two worlds. I am the traveler who remembers the way home. I teach my children Gaelic and we cook Irish foods. We remember where our ancestors were born and we love it. But we were born here. We say the Pledge of Allegiance, we cheer on the Fourth of July, and we fly the Stars and Stripes high, proudly and fiercely. We are Irish. We are the diaspora. But we are also Americans. We are still a tribe.

And by the way, not for anything, but when you left Ireland and moved here permanently, you became Irish-American too. You’re very welcome.

The circumstances don’t seem to matter. Anyway, I can’t recall them much. But we were younger, like we were then, though our personalities were modern and up-to-date. I saw you with my eyes that I used to see you with, and you me. Though I knew all that has happened and not happened, the world was green and new. Summer was everywhere and forever. It could never end, and the shining plans we all had would never happen, and it did not hurt us to think that.

We were together like we never were, like I’d always dreamed, and I lost myself for hours in your eyes. Your voice still sparkled for me. Still? I had only just come to know its melody. It rang clearly for me and only for me. And when I held you close — so close we breathed once for both of us — you held me back, and I knew the heavy buzzing of lying on the edge of a longed-for sleep from which I ached never to awaken.

We spoke endlessly and excited, your eyes laughing and your smile warm and most of what we said was unspoken and understood long before we thought of it. You loomed larger in my vision as you did then, a promise of my future and past at once, a pledge that I was right and so was the world, and you carried inside you the promises I’ve kept already, like my fate sealed and delivered to me before I lived it.

When I woke I was smiling, and I grasped at the last strands of fog in your shape without knowing what I reached for. It was some time before I knew who I was loving from so far away. It was some time swimming up to wakefulness before I knew it was you. It was you.

I remembered then all that was wrapped in that time, in that era that you defined for me without ever raising a finger or letting fall a word. The lush green of high summer and the wind in the trees, the electricity before a storm and the promise of a life about to be lived without safety devices or guides. The rich beauty and lustre of something that could not last but was made of forever. All that I was then, and all I hoped to be, I found in some way wrapped in the soft curls of your hair, of the dance in your eyes and the dangerous allure of your confidence. To hold you completely was my only wish for eternity, and in it I saw all I might need or desire. I longed to be lost in you so badly, I loved you so desperately, I wanted to love you so much more, the pain of not being close enough to you was, in itself, a precious treasure.

It has been so long since I thought of you, really. It has been far, far longer since I dreamed of you. And when I dreamed, it was of me. I dreamed of who I was and what I lost. Because you were never there. You never held me. You never smiled only for me. You never held my dreams as your own. It was me. I did. I held myself. And the dream was not of you or where you are, but of me, and where I am.

Last night I dreamed of you. I dreamed that I loved you. Because I did.

The multi-colored Christmas lights he’d strung around the window cast a buoyant light around the room. Generally, they didn’t shed much light, but because of their large number they were sufficient to write by. Besides, they made the otherwise small, base apartment look better. Everything looked better under Christmas lights.

To most, the task of writing Christmas cards was normalized; one viewed as more of a necessity, a price to be paid for holiday mirth, than a pleasure. But for some, like him, who were doing it for the first time, it was every bit as much a pleasure as anything else. He liked the feeling of writing Christmas cards. It made him feel somehow closer to the rest of the world, as though he finally belonged. To need to write Christmas cards was an achievement.

He put down his pen and looked at it fondly. He had bought it on his second trip to the city. It was of the finest quality and had served him well over the years. The pen was one of the old, familiar things that he counted on to always be there. Shifting his gaze from the pen to the stack of cards before him, he began to place them in envelopes and label them. When he was finished, he rifled through the stack, mentally noting each to be sure he hadn’t forgotten anyone. He sighed as he came to the last in the stack. The envelope had a name, but the card inside was blank. He’d saved this one for last on purpose. This one would require a special touch. This one was for her.

He picked up the Waterman fountain pen and uncapped it. Its shiny gold nib was lightly spotted with indigo ink and reflected the twinkling lights. The reds and greens, blues and ambers of the lights seemed perfectly at home against the glow of the gold. He paused. The pen hung, poised above the blank surface of the card for several minutes. This particular print of Christmas card had been chosen very carefully. Cheerful, warm, but with a touch of humor, and of course printed on 100 percent recycled stock. This card reflected him, in a way, and the wishes he sent with it.

The nib hung in space, expectantly. A quiet ache in his back brought him out of the warm daze he’d been in. Relaxing his stiff posture brought an admonishing creek from the desk chair and he recapped the pen and returned it to the desk’s surface. Rising, he stepped to the window, still half musing on partially digested thoughts. The window pane was cold despite the comforting warmth of the apartment. Seizing the moment of inactivity, a thought escaped from his brain. “It would feel warm to someone out there in the cold,” he said in a murmuring voice even though he was alone.

“What a bizarre world this is,” came another muffled declarative.

Outside, the turbulent winds sent snowflakes swirling around in a chaotic, wintery dance, always on a steady descent to the ground below. “Funny,” he said to the glass, clearly this time, “that snowflakes melt on a cold sidewalk, even though they thrive in the cold.”

A man stood on the curb below. He wore a long, black overcoat that flared in the cold wind that lashed through the dark city streets. No matter how many lights came on, the city always seemed dark. The man’s collar slapped against one side of his face, instigated by the wind, though he didn’t seem to notice. He looked lonely and concerned—or maybe a little anxious. He stood with the city’s darkness around him, seemingly oblivious to the wind and bitter cold. Finally, after several minutes the cruelty seemed to reach him, and the man pulled his coat around his chest and shoulders, and tried to hide from the wind in it.

He turned from the window and surveyed the apartment. It radiated warmth and welcome. It had taken a long time for this place to feel like home, but now it finally did, it was all worth it. He thought back, before he’d moved into the apartment, before he’d moved into the city. He thought back to college and then before college. He thought back to his friends. Where were they? What were they doing now? He missed them. He’d spent the best years of his life with them. But they’d made their decisions, and done what they had to do. It seemed so long ago, and so far away. He hadn’t wanted to go through it alone, but he’d said that he would—that he could—and he had. Certainly, there had been new friends, new memories, but never the same closeness. Never the same magic that they’d all shared. He’d made this life. His life. The way he wanted it. But there was no one to share it all with. Except maybe for her. When he’d met her, he’d caught an echo of those feelings—the closeness and the warmth. It seemed possible, anyway.

Breaking suddenly from the fit of nostalgia that clenched him tightly, he turned again to the window. The man was still there, standing in his place on the sidewalk like a sentry at his post. He hugged his arms close against his body now, as the wind lashed into him. Cars drove by, and as they passed, the sentry studied each one, expectantly. People hurried past on the sidewalk, taking little notice of his determination.

Minutes passed. Just as began to turn from the window and go back to the Christmas cards, something changed. It was a subtle change most would have missed. The man’s demeanor and stance changed. His grip on his own chest relaxed, and his head rose as he straightened his neck, giving up much of the protection his collar provided from the wind. His face lightened. An instant later, a taxi came into view and pulled up alongside the curb where he stood. His face lit up with a warm smile. He reached for the rear door of the cab but before he could grasp the handle, it flew open. A woman burst from the backseat, chestnut hair flashing elegantly under the harsh glow of the street lights. Her gray, flowing overcoat and silk scarf seemed forgotten in the moment, as did his own coat. The coats and the cold and the cab and the whole of the world seemed simple ornament, as she leapt from the taxi and they held each other, frozen for a moment.

He turned from the window again, and sat down in his desk chair. He did not look back to his work though. Instead, he glanced around the apartment and mused. “Everything looks better under Christmas lights,” he said to the night. The Christmas lights’ reflection in the bathroom mirror drew his eye. From his chair he looked in upon the sink and noted the tube of toothpaste resting there. The same kind he’d used since he was a kid. Looking at the tube felt the same as the clean, new feeling it left after he brushed. Nothing special about it. But it was pure and simple.

As he shifted his gaze, it caught on the corner of the desk. Once more, the Christmas lights directed his vision. The light they threw caught on a glass of ginger ale, and danced among the rising bubbles. The colors of the lights bounced around and diffused into the gold in the glass. The crisp, old-fashioned flavor drifted across his tongue. Simple. Pure. His eyes fixed upon some other object briefly, and then snapped back to the glass. The way the bubbles danced and sparkled reminded him of her laugh and how her soft brown eyes danced when she did. On his face the smile faded with the distance of the recollection, but inside it grew and his heart beat faster because of it.

“Wouldn’t life be a grand thing, if you could customize it, fill it with just the things you loved most? Just the things you loved the most,” he said to the lights.

The smile returned to his face. He could explain it later, but for now it would do. The pen rose in his hand once more, and the gold nib glided across the card stock on a trail of ink.

“How does ginger ale toothpaste strike you?”

by William Murphy

Nevertheless, I can’t help but notice that while everyone finds a busy schedule to be more stressful than a relaxed one, a lot of us (meaning, a lot of you) are making things much harder on yourselves than is necessary. Life simply doesn’t have to be as difficult and complex as many people choose to make it. Get some perspective. In all situations, stressful though they may be, step back and get some perspective. They will still be stressful, and you will still have to act and make uncomfortable decisions. That’s life. But most things needn’t be quite so bad. For example:

• You don’t have to tend to the baby every waking minute. Is he crying? Or is he talking to himself because he likes the sound of his own voice? Is he sitting happily nearby, playing with a block, or watching the cat walk around? If so, you don’t need to entertain him. You don’t need to pick him, move him to another room, rock him, or feed him. Babies are people, and people enjoy brief periods of quiet, calm, and relative solitude. 10 minutes of prattling away happily in the crib will neither harm your child, nor get you arrested. Enjoy the 10 minutes off and stop acting as though the umbilical cord is still intact.
• Every meal does not have to be shot for the Pottery Barn catalog. Watch Gordon Ramsay. Watch Emeril. Watch Bobby Flay. Watch Martha. What do they all emphasize? Fresh, local, simple, wholesome. Did you get that third one? Simple. Each food on the plate does not need 7 spices and a flavor-infused oil. Farmhouse tables, diners and the most popular “American” foods all share one thing in common. They’re simple. Food should be nourishing first and enjoyable second, and that’s it. If preparing a meal gives you cold sweats of anxiety, you’re trying too hard and defeating half the purpose of cooking it at all. Relax the standards on presentation a bit and enjoy a little more.
• Stop dousing every object and body part in anti-bacterial agents. The bacteria living in and on your body outnumber your own cells by about 10 to 1. Your immune system learns how to fight off infection through practice, not manuals and classroom training. Coming into contact with low levels of relatively benign bacteria actually strengthens your immune response. Wash your hands, avoid touching your face especially when you’re outside your home, blow your nose, try to avoid contact with things like door handles, faucets, etc., especially during cold and flu season. Hydrate, eat right and get plenty of rest. Beyond that, there’s no need to turn into Howard Hughes with rubber gloves and surgical masks and hosing off with Purel 18 times a day. The typical flu virus, in particular, is an outstanding piece of natural engineering. It is as insanely good at getting people to catch it as our species is at surviving its onslaughts (we’re made for each other). Chances are, it will find you at some point. Minimize your exposure, maximize your defenses, and quit being a germaphobe already.
• People are difficult. Whenever possible, give people the benefit of the doubt. Assume people have good intentions and that they have faced challenges and obstacles in their day that have worn down their otherwise good manners and behavior. That doesn’t mean you should let yourself be steamrolled, but what do you gain by making a preemptive strike on someone, especially someone who’s already in a bad frame of mind? Take care of yourself, but bear in mind that verbally clobbering someone will probably not improve their behavior  towards you, which is what is upsetting you in the first place. A little diplomacy and kindness likely won’t cost you anything and may get you a lot further. It will also make you feel better about your own behavior.
• Recognize that your actions may have unintended consequences. Sure you’d like to pull into the garage so you can stay out of the rain. But if someone has to move 2 cars and lawn equipment in order to make it happen, maybe you could just grab your umbrella. If it’s once a month, it’s a reasonable request. But if you’d like valet service 5 days a week, think about the toll you may be taking on someone else. Sure you might be frustrated that you haven’t gotten to making a decision yet — but are you holding up someone else in the process? You may both be impatient. Taking a breath and working it out helps you both, rather than venting your frustration.
• You can’t and don’t have to solve every problem. Think about how many people you encounter each day. Now add in how many situations you deal with where you have to make decisions. Driving, shopping, work, dinner, laundry, etc. How much control do you honestly have over all of that? Not much. So why expect yourself to solve problems whose factors you can’t control? Give yourself permission to say “I can’t fix everything.” Do what you can without bankrupting yourself (mentally, emotionally or financially) and accept that. You can control how much food you buy, or (maybe) which store you shop at, or whether or not you answer your phone. You cannot control the weather, your supervisor’s mood, the economy, whether or not you get a cold, or how other people feel. So relax and stop thinking you can direct or fix the world.
• Participate. This is easier said than done. How often do people answer a question with “Whatever. Either way.” If everyone does this, nothing gets done. If everyone in the room is totally complacent, stand up and make an executive decision. “OK, let’s get Chinese.” One of two things will happen. Everyone will agree because they really are complacent, or someone will chime in with “oh, I don’t really want that” which means they were just pretending not to care, and now you’ve got something to work with. Either option is better than a group of people sitting around being indecisive in the fear of making a choice everyone is not behind 100%.
• Level with people. This may not always work with strangers or loose acquaintances, but it should with the people close to you. If something isn’t working, if you need something, if you can’t solve a problem, level with people. If you need something, ask. Don’t guilt people into doing it for you. Ask. Don’t make up stories or excuses, don’t obfuscate. Be honest, be open, and ask for help. If the people around you won’t help after that, then part of your problem might be your support system.
• Stop working. Humans created things like art, music, improvements in technology, complex writing systems, because they had time to spare from survival. If you work all of the time, what are you working for? Sure, the house will be spotless, the recycling sorted, the hearth swept, the dishwasher empty, the wood stacked, your clothes ironed, the baby food sorted by color, consistency and fiber content — but at what point will you enjoy any of it? At the end of the holiday, for example, you will have missed your favorite treats, or that holiday movie you love so much. You will have drunk no eggnog, sampled no cookies, not enjoyed the sound of your friends and family around you—but your sink will look nice.

Slow down, people. Take a breath. You can have some order and planning in your life, but you don’t have to micromanage the universe, nor do you have to have a spotless, picture-perfect existence. When you’ve grown old and can no longer take out the recycling or sweep the floor, or shop and cook for 50, your sink, your gift list, and your achievements in dish management will be poor company. Your family, your friends and your memories of a warm, rich life, however, will stick by you. For my part, I intend to continue to make time for the following, some on daily basis, some whenever conditions permit.

1. Grind, brew and really taste good coffee in the morning.
2. Watch my children’s faces light up at their favorite holiday events.
3. Stand outside and listen to the quiet of a dark night with snow on the ground.
4. Watch the dog experiment to see if snow by the fence tastes the same as snow near the barn.
5. Determine if classic, golden or vanilla eggnog is the best.
6. Actively experience the comfort of falling asleep under the weight of the feather bolster on a bitterly cold, crisp night.
7. Do as much as possible by the light of the Christmas tree. Everything looks better under Christmas lights.
8. Read “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Repeatedly.
9. Laugh with people.
10. Sit by the window and watch the snow fall.

Good luck.