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.
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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!
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