hello, 2009!

Welcome to 2009! It's lovely over here. Let's see if I can fit today into seven...

1. Breakfast with my elementary school music teacher. I try to do this every time I'm in town, because it's one of the highlights of my visits. This man made my childhood more joyful. He was among those that taught me to love music, to love movement, to be a performer. Later, he was the man who inspired me to go into teaching myself. He still inspires me, every time we talk. I feel so happy and energized after spending time with him. This time, we talked about teaching as a career, and I feel even better about my choice to teach than I did before (and I was already awfully content!).

2. A walk in the snow, which had piled up almost a foot and was still falling in giant soft flakes. I had no mittens and no hat, but my coat was warm, and I wandered around the neighborhood with my hands stuffed in my pockets. Snow somehow both muffles and highlights noises - there was a soft silence broken by the crunch, crunch of the snow under my boots, and the scrape of a shovel against a driveway, and the slough of a drift crumbling on itself. The snow settled on my hair and shoulders, and even when the wind drove it into my face, I felt so happy and at home.

3. A visit to Rick's Recycled Books ("New Is Nice, Used Is A Lot Cheaper!"). The shelves in this store are almost audibly groaning under the weight of books. They're stacked precariously, several stacks deep on each shelf, from floor to just-as-high-as-you-can-reach. Although they're sorted by genre and then roughly alphabetical, there's always a sense of discovery to Rick's. I came away with three paperbacks for under six dollars total. Bliss.

4. The Capitol Steps' New Year's Eve special. None of the songs made me fall out of my chair laughing, but it lightened my spirits about politics. I'm so thankful to live in a country where we can jest about our politicians on national radio

5. The New Year's Eve contra dance! First, the people! C., who drove from the other side of the state today to get here and who waltzed with me and even swung with me to "Auld Lang Syne". P., who gave me a hug and told me about her son (who went to high school with me) and asked me all about my job. The lots of new people whose names I am already forgetting. T., who knows me as "Kramer's girlfriend" and dances very well. And the retired professor, who is best described as "eccentric" and who asks me about "that young man" and tells me to "come back to us soon", and who always tries to spin me three times.

6. The band! Great Bear Trio - my favorite contra band. (This is different from my favorite contraband.) They spice things up with nontraditional arrangements and instruments - electric guitar?! - and they are so. High. Energy. My favorite dances are when they start playing slow and gentle, elegant, graceful... then, after everyone is solid on the dance, suddenly the tempo rises. Someone gives a whoop! and we all spring into liveliness. The dance is carrying us by now; we are not thinking the steps anymore, but simply living them. The band gets wilder - feet stomping, violin bow flying, guitar pounding. Sound builds on sound. Then, then, it almost all drops away. Maybe just the guitar hammers out a single chord, again and again. Maybe the fiddle plays one pitch, rhythmically, stacattissimo. The dancers keep whirling, still keeping perfect time, and the band adds just one more sound, ever so slight. Tension builds, and builds, and we keep dancing - and then it's all there again, wilder than ever, and we're all part of this organism, this pattern, this dance. We couldn't stop now if we wanted to, and we don't want to. It's ecstatic, better than drugs. When the music crashes to an end, we collapse like marionettes whose strings have been abruptly cut. But we are grinning.

last
7. It's 2009 now. That's pretty glorious just on its own. Happy New Year!

Calvin: Wow, it really snowed last night! Isn't it wonderful?
Hobbes: Everything familiar has disappeared! The world looks brand-new!
Calvin: A new year... a fresh, clean start!
Hobbes: It's like having a big white sheet of paper to draw on!
Calvin: A day full of possibilities! It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... let's go exploring!

2008 is almost over

1. Lots of reading time - I didn't have any mode of transportation today, so I spent a great deal of time reading. It's more of a luxury than I was keeping in mind. I've read so much during this vacation, and it's been great.

2. Homemade artisan bread for lunch, made with the recipe from the book my sister gave me for Christmas. This recipe is ridiculously easy. I foresee much bread in my future.

3. Going to the movies with my mother tonight.

4. A nice phone conversation with an old friend, although I won't be able to see him while I'm in town this time.

5. News that a different friend will be in town for the New Year's Eve dance!

6. Plans to have breakfast tomorrow morning with a former teacher - the one who inspired me to go into teaching myself.

7. It's snowing! Right now! I didn't notice it start, but I suddenly looked up and the whole world was white.

it's nice to be home

1. Waking up all curled up in my featherbed. This is one of the things I love about coming home to my parents' house in the winter.

2. Breakfast at the bagel shop I frequented senior year of high school. They still have the same bagel I got every week - granola almond with honey almond cream cheese. Crunchy!

3. Spending the whole day with my sister - and her being as excited about this as I am.

4. Lunch at the Indian buffet with my mom and sister. We stuffed ourselves full of curries and naan and chai and other lovely things.

5. Finding black pants that fit and are comfortable and are good for wearing to work. Pants that go with everything make getting dressed in the wee hours of the dawn much easier.

6. Giant piles of filthy snow at the edges of the parking lot at the mall. I know it sounds not so glorious, but it's home. There are no piles of snow, giant and/or filthy or not, in California, and in a perverse way I miss them.

7. The noise the wind is making right now as it gusts around the house, rattling the windows and moaning through the big pine tree and making the naked maples shake. And then it is still, and the yellow streetlamp shines on the damp pavement and the snow that lingers on the curb. And then the wind again, whispering, wuthering. I hope it keeps up all night long.

(and a bonus: I just got an email from a friend I hadn't known would be in town while I'm here!)

a glorious resolution

It might be too much to resolve to make this list every single day in 2009. A year is rather a long time. I'll start with January, and go from there.

Yesterday's glorious things:

1. The wonderfully crazy dreams I had, all about flying air filters and swimming nutrias and teaching. I have an unusual memory for my dreams in general, and even more so if I sleep in a strange place. I almost always enjoy this other world that I get to visit while I'm asleep, and have a real fondness for my dreams.

2. Seeing all my cousins, from the oldest to the baby, at our annual New Year's get-together. We're rather different - they mostly live in farm country and vote Republican and can repair bulldozers; I live in California, am happy about Obama, and sadly don't know much about bulldozers. But we always have a good time, and it's great to be in a house stuffed full of family.

3. Eight kinds of pie. 'Nuff said.

4. The way the evening comes on in that farm country in January, chill and fresh and pale sky shining over bare fields crested with leafless trees.

5. My cousins' new house, which will actually have enough room for their two small children to be as exuberant as small children are.

6. The drive back home with my sister, talking in the dark.

7. Making pizzelle on my new pizzelle maker late at night - they come out beautiful and golden every thirty seconds, as lovely as the ones you can buy at the Italian grocery, smelling of vanilla and a hint of anise!

about the glorious things

Somewhere back in college, during the last week of classes, my friend Joy and I began listing good things about our day to each other. Somehow, no matter how little sleep we got or how long our final papers were supposed to be (and how short they still actually were), we found that when we sat down to think about it, there were always plenty of wonderful things. We settled on seven as the ideal number, and "glorious" as the adjective of choice, and kept up the tradition for a good long time.

Even though I'm not at a time in my life now when I need that pick-me-up, it seems to me that this is a habit I'd do well to pick up again. We can all use reminding how great things are, can't we?