on the corner of 8th Avenue and Possibility

On the corner of 8th Avenue and Possibility, a girl sits on a bench.

Oh, she knows that there's no such street as Possibility, but that is how she's come to think of this corner.

From here, the Possibilities are—well, as innumerable as the people flowing past on this Manhattan evening.

She comes here most Wednesday evenings, just to sit and watch, although she supposed that'll change when winter comes.

Already, she has her scarf wrapped tight against the October breeze, but maybe her Wednesday evening tradition won't have to change, she says to herself. With the right warm clothes and a hot cocoa to look forward to, she could still come here to take in the Possibilities.

She hasn't lived in New York City very long—a few months—and it wasn't long after she moved here from Mishawaka, Indiana {"What a name!" people always say, as if she might've invented it} that she started coming to this corner.

It started quite by accident one Wednesday after work: she had a pebble stuck in her shoe. She was in her heels and always worried about catching the heel in a grate on the sidewalk, but here she was with a pebble.

And so she sat down on this bench on 8th Avenue to get it out. Annoyance gone, she looked up and suddenly realized how tired she was.

It had been a long day {up by 5am!} and sitting, just for a moment, made her feel that her day had been full of pebbles, little annoyances, and that she'd spent all day pulling them out of the metaphorical shoe.

But sitting down, she could slow down.

She could take in the world marching past on the gridded streets of New York City, and that day, she actually said out loud—before she could stop herself—"It's a sea of humanity, it really is."

What a true and obvious thing to say, she had thought then, and watched all the people with all their lives.

Tourists: always looking up, as if they've never seen a building more than three stories high.

Couples on their way to a Broadway show, both of them dressed up.

Other workerbees making their way home, perhaps just as tired as she was.

Babies in strollers.

Men dropping the restaurant garbage bags on the corner.

Homeless people with their McDonald's cups out, jingling for spare change.

A sea of humanity and a world of possibilities.

That day, as she looked down the street at the hot dog man {just $2 for a meal! This is living!}

and as she looked kitty-corner at the fancy ice cream place {artisanal is probably the better word}

and as she was bathed in an orange glow like a Technicolor dream from the digital billboard across the street,

she had decided to come here every Wednesday evening to remember that the world is bigger than small pebbles and little annoyances. It's bigger than a desk job and buying new shoes and the day-to-day life we can get so focused on and it's even bigger than Broadway.

There are Possibilities all around us, if only we'd sit down to take them in, as she does every Wednesday evening on that bench on 8th Avenue.

find your fall rhythm

"Find your fall rhythm."

This is part of the Starbucks fall ad campaign, and the poster I saw this morning had a woman wearing a creamy, dreamy cardigan, haloed by golden autumnal sunshine, and smiling beatifically—presumably because she was thinking about a pumpkin spice latte.

Starbucks gives suggestions for your fall rhythm: leaping into leaf piles and screaming at the sidelines, but aren't those more high notes than rhythm?

Those are the things that make fall so enticing, so iconic, so memorable&dmash;but they can't be part of your everyday rhythm, the beat alternately pushing and pulling you along.

Leaping into a leaf pile every day would mean:

• you'd need rake leaves every day, or
• you'd need to closely monitor your neighbors for their raking habits—sneaking in to jump in their pile just when they look up to appreciate the color play between the red leaves still on the tree and the blue sky
• you'd eventually reach a point when you see a pile of leaves and want to run screaming from it. Too much of a good thing.
• Also, you may end up with leaves in your hair a lot. The wood sprite look, you know.

A fall rhythm is for finding a groove—not a rut but a beat for walking through your day, and you can't find a beat if you're randomly jumping into leaf piles.

It's about buckling down for work and feeling proud when the job is done and done well, an idea that must be in our DNA from generations of harvest time. To see the sheaves of wheat in a field at sunset: that is a fall rhythm, and with the first brisk morning, we are drawn to it.

And if that first time you see your breath again in the early morning doesn't make you think of wheat, it might make you think of school. You may have been out of school for years—longer than you were even in it—but come mid-September, you may feel a need to buy every college-ruled notebook you see at Target.

You may yearn to draw up a schedule for the day, one that beings with free reading time in your homeroom {No, seriously, why can't we begin every work day with that?}.

Perhaps you want to pick up a textbook, cover it with an old grocery bag, and then, finally, really get straight what the Stamp Act meant.

A fall rhythm is about order and closure.

But paradoxically: it's also about disorder and beginning.

The leaves fall chaotically, and we make plans for winter projects, many of them involving a facet of self-improvement.

I will cook one new recipe a week.

I will swim twice a week.

I will read Dickens and Austen.

That sort of self-improvement thing: as the world becomes a stripped down version of itself, we want to build ourselves up, perhaps yearning to fill out all the gaps nature is leaving behind in color, warmth, and growth.

So you see, fall's rhythm is confused and always changing temp; by its very nature—its very weather—fall keeps us guessing.

As much as it makes us long for stability, it's, of course, a transition season, and you never feel that more than in the early morning as you're trying to figure out what to wear.

It may be 39 degrees out at the moment, but you know that by mid-day, it'll be in the upper 60s or even 70s. How to prepare for this? How to dress?

This is why, I believe, the fleece vest was invented. It is the epitome of the transition clothing and helps keep one part of you warm while letting another part breathe easy. You are ready for cold and warm at the same time, plus you look outdoorsy and like you might take a hike at any moment, maybe over to the Starbucks, where you will order a pumpkin spice latte and think: Fall, can you please stay forever?

i don't give a fig: lessons from the fig tree

The summer after I graduated from college, I was in a waiting room. Not a physical one—I mean this metaphorically.

That fall, I was going to Rouen, France, for a school year to be a language assistant in a French high school.

In between graduation and France, I was an editorial intern at InterVarsity Press—living in the suburbs of Chicago and trying to decide if marking up copy was indeed what I did want to do with the rest of my life.

I was plagued with all those typical post-college questions:

• How do I know which job is right for me?
• Was British literature, French, and linguistics really the smartest thing for me to study?
• When will I feel like a real grown-up?

Questions like that can make you impatient and nervous, and when I look back on the me of eight years ago, that's what I see: someone who was scared about making a wrong choice. I was petrified that one false step and I'd be off the path to success and happiness and the house with a white picket fence and summer vacations.

What I couldn't see then—but I can see now—is that life isn't so black and white.

Life isn't a "one path cut through the dark forest" kind of thing. It's not a fairy tale story where if you wander from the path, you'll be lost forever among the wolves and wolves in sheep's clothing.

It's a journey, yes, and there are different paths to take and you do sometimes find yourself in a dark forest. But as you grow older, you begin to trust that there will be a sunny meadow somewhere on the other side of that dark forest, even if you have to take five different paths to get there.

Okay, so all these deep life thoughts were precipitated by re-discovering something that I wrote when I was in that metaphorical waiting room. It was this thing on the fig tree that I wrote for the online version of Relevant magazine, and re-reading it, I crashed right into my petrified self.

In it, I'm writing about what it means to see growth in your life. How do you know that you're doing all right? How do you know that you're on the right path, even if you can't see any signs that are saying: This is the way; walk in it?

I was worried about those things, but I was trying not to let it show. My 30-year-old self can see all that clearly in this piece, although I'm sure that in eight years or so, I'll look back on stuff I've written here and say: Oh my dear little Kamiah, CALM DOWN. Also, don't try to talk like you have it all figured out.

I'm posting this today for two reasons:

1. To make it easy on myself in eight years or so when I'm looking back on my writing and trying to find proof that I have actually matured since college.
2. Because today, the Monday of Holy Week, is the day that Jesus cursed the fig tree. So timely!

And now, a note from my 22-year-old self trying to sound mature:

I don’t know much about fig trees. As a girl from Iowa, there hasn’t been much need to ever learn about them. For one, I’m not even sure if they grow in Iowa, and why should I care anyway? It’s not like I live on a farm or vineyard or wherever fig trees are really grown.

Here’s the extent of my knowledge of fig trees or fig-related things:

• Some people say, “I don’t give a fig.” However this is an expression I’ve never used, and I don’t think I will until I’m 74.
• It’s not a cookie; it’s fruit and cake. That’s the Fig Newton slogan, but I always thought those were old lady snacks. Just give me an Oreo.
• Jesus cursed a fig tree in Mark 11:12-14.

That’s really the full range of my fig tree facts, and as you can see, it’s limited to the negative and the elderly. I found out recently however, that I can actually learn a lot from the fig tree.

In order to fully appreciate the fig tree lesson, you must know that they take three years to grow enough to start producing fruit. Until then, fig trees seem rather useless—especially to the untrained and impatient.

If you don’t see the fig tree with the right frame of mind, then you won’t see the necessary maturing process. You’ll see only apparent idleness and disappointment.

Look at the vineyard owner in Luke 13:6-9. He had a fig tree planted, imagining the massive number of fruit it would produce to sell at a reasonable price.

He was a good businessman perhaps, but he was no green thumb. He didn’t understand the fig tree’s process: “For three years now, I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?” (7).

The hired hand who did work at the vineyard knew better and knew that the tree would bear fruit soon enough. He calmed his master down without belittling him: “Leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit, fine! If not, cut it down” (9).

Think of it this way: you’re the vineyard owner, in charge of your life (that’d be the fig tree), but certainly not entirely capable or even sure of yourself. You feel like you’re doing what you’re “supposed to,” but you’re not seeing the tangible results. You’re still struggling with that one sin (for me, it’s spiritual complacency, pride, and comparison...ok, that’s several sins).

You just want to get over it, get past it, mature away from it—but the sin keeps attacking in different, surprising ways.

You want to scream, “But I’m doing everything I know how! I’m reading the Bible, I’m praying, I’m honestly seeking you, God! So why isn’t it doing any good? What’s the point if I’m just going to keep re-learning these same dumb lessons?”

You’re the vineyard owner, unsure of why it’s taking so long to become who you want to be inside—that ideal, shining Christian that can’t ever seem to be reconciled to who you actually are.

Enter the hired hand, the guy really doing all the work around here, the guy who really knows what’s going on. The hired hand—aka, God—gives you the gentle reminder (sometimes, of course, it’s not so gentle) that growth and maturity take time.

They also take a little work—his work on you. He has to dig around you, tearing away everything that refuses to bring glory to him.

Then you can learn to be dependent on him alone. He has to fertilize the soil around you so that instead of just passively accepting lessons, you’re ingesting them and using them to help you grow.

Yeah, it’s a combination of work: yours and God’s. Then the fruit comes, but not until after patience, endurance, and dependence develop.

And keep in mind that a fig tree doesn’t bear fruit all the time. There are rest periods, there are droughts, there is blooming without fruit (never good—that’s like in Mark 11:12-14 when Jesus cursed the fig tree). However, through all that, the fig tree is still a fig tree doing what it can to fulfill its purpose—to bear fruit.

As a Christian, you have to bear fruit for God. That’s why he digs around you, fertilizes the soil, prunes you—so that you’ll work for him and reflect his glory.

You have to trust that the fruit will come in his time (an easy thing to say and a hard thing to practice with honesty), so don’t torture yourself feeling worthless for God because you never seem to grow past the same temptations and disappointments. You are growing, but generally it’s a long, growing process like the fig tree’s.

Before bearing the fruit that God wants you to, you have to work on responding to his care.

Who knew that fig trees offered such reassurance?

re-arranging {part I}

It all started because I needed to change a lightbulb. Up on a chair in my living room, I looked around and wondered.

What if I moved the bookshelf there? What if I moved those chairs? And aha, that would expose the vent that's been hiding {surely another reason it's always slightly chilled in my apartment in the winter, beyond that the heat is programmed to drop to 58 degrees at night and beyond that I live in the Midwest, land of the frozen ice sheet}.

This re-arranging was not at all on my to-do list.

----------

I've been making these MUST DO and NICE TO DO lists for my free weeknights and for the more unstructured weekends. The concept is straightforward: prioritize. What is actually required today?

I have a tendency, when given a chunk of free time, to make lists as long as my legs, not that I have long legs but when it comes to listmaking, your finger is probably a better gauge, I've leaned.

In my leg lists, the concept of time never applied, so perhaps the first item on them should've been:

• invent Star Trek-inspired machine to stop time {consider suspended animation principles from Star Wars?}

Being outside the limits of time would've helped me accomplish everything on my leg list, which usually looked like this:

• plan lunches for week
• make grocery list
• go to grocery: try to arrive before everyone and their children do
• make chicken stock {can be started early in the morning and left to simmer while doing everything else}
• take clothes to dry cleaners that have been hanging over the back of the armchair in my room for months
• go to Home Depot: plan bathroom re-do?
• do all laundry
• clean bathrooms—especially scrub floors! Maybe twice!
• vacuum whole apartment
• vacuum car
• figure out why garage clicker isn't working
• make three-course dinner

And then, because I'm aware that free time is for relaxing, I would add a few "non-chore" items:

• read paper
• do crossword {time self! Try to beat time from last Saturday!}
• journal
• call three friends to catch up
• write cards to three other friends: gosh, Kamiah, try to be a better and more consistent friend and not have to do these massive catch-ups

That all adds up to an impossible, intimidating list.

It's a laughable list. The kind of list you'd half-expect to end with:

• conquer world by lunch: then have soup and grilled cheese?

It's also the kind of list that leads to guilt when you, quite inevitably, can't accomplish everything on there. Or even three things on there.

As the day progress and you don't make as much progress on your list as you'd like, you can start to feel weighed down.

I think it's the weight of those undone tasks, the weight of the things you aren't doing, dragging you down. Day after day, you feel like you aren't accomplishing what you need to. Yes, your definition of "need to do" may be off and unrealistic, but that doesn't matter in this scenario.

What matters is: you feel dragged down by these tasks, and even in admitting that, you add another task to your list: get over yourself. What's so hard, after all, in your life? Why don't you have the strength to get up and do what needs to be done?

In my mind, I see a person with hunched-over shoulders, an exhausted frown, and insomniac eyes, walking through a harvested field {stubbled and a burnt yellow} and pulling behind them a to-do list made of stapled-together scrap paper 100 miles long.

Wow. Sorry for the incredibly dramatic—if very vivid and perhaps paint-able—image there. But in all honesty, I got to a point earlier this fall where I did feel like that person.

I felt like someone trying to carry on doing all these tasks I didn't even know if I enjoyed anymore.

And it didn't matter how many lists I made or how many people I explained this to: at the end of the day, I still felt dragged down. Something had to change or I was prone to start wandering through harvested fields feeling sorry for myself.

I took comfort in this: I know many smart, time-savvy people who, given the opportunity, think they can accomplish 10 things at once and so they, too, make these leg lists.

Why do we do this? Why do we overestimate our abilities and underestimate our need for rest?

I think the answer lies in:

• how common—expected, even—it is to multitask
• how scheduled our lives can be so that we're either perplexed by free time or overzealous when it comes
• if you're of a certain task-oriented, checklist-loving, order-bringing personality. {I may be one of those.}

I've been learning this fall—and now into Advent—about limiting the to-do list.

About not trying to conquer the world {or even my own little corner of it} in my free time.

About focusing on really, actually, truly needs to be done—and then setting the rest of my free time free.

And from that place—that place of wanting to feel less like my life was dragging—has come the MUST DO and NICE TO DO lists.

----------

Which I'll tell you about in Part II, as well as wrap up the furniture re-arranging bit {bet you forgot that that's where this story started, didn't you?}

that's the way you spell success

Earlier this summer, I decided I needed a challenge, something to liven up my days, keep my mind churning and productive.

Faced with the heat and the feeling that said heat was mushing my brain, I needed something that would be the equivalent of sticking my head in a freezer.

Or something that would be like having multiple mojitos every afternoon on the verandah, which sounds refreshing but also slightly bordering on alcoholism.

In short, I needed a challenge that would keep me writing and wouldn't make me turn to drink. {Contrary to Hemingway and Fitzgerald, we don't all need to drink for creativity and memorable prose.}

Enter the 41 Day Challenge: Post every business day on my blog for 41 days. This had a lot to do with the number of followers I had at the beginning of the summer, and a somewhat desperate plea for more.

You can read the thinly-veiled desperation here.

And you can see me throwing down the gauntlet as a challenge to myself here. That's what knights did to issue a challenge, right? They threw down a gauntlet? Or maybe they hit somebody with it? Or poked somehow with a spear? Also, I thought the gauntlet was an obstacle course that could kill you: as in "run the gauntlet." I should move on from showcasing my appalling lack of Medieval knowledge {and I should consider re-watching First Knight, I say: any excuse for Sean Connery!}.

Here as summer is turning to fall—I refuse to acknowledge your presence, Indian Summer, should you come—my challenge is over.

And I won.

I didn't really think through the prize thing, so if you have any suggestions, I'll take them. I just got a new car, so don't suggest that; I won't go allWheel of Fortune jumping up and down on you for that as a prize.

I made it through all 41 days, and like any self-respecting person who sets seasonal goals for herself, I've thought through the lessons of this challenge. I need to come up with a catchy phrase for this: Self-reflection after achieving a goal is crucial to making better goals next time. See? That's not catchy at all.

Lessons I Learned Over Summer "Vacation"

1. There is always something worth noting in a day. When you have to come up with a blog post every day, you start to pay better attention to what's swirling around you. Suddenly, an interaction at Walgreen's with the photo desk clerk can enlarge into a story.
2. I don't always have something to say. Even if there's something special about every day, which sounds decidedly like an Anne of Green Gable's sort of idea, that doesn't mean that I'll be able to come up with something just right—or even halfway right—to say about it.
3. And it's okay to not always know what to say.
4. When you don't know what to say, poetry is usually a good fallback. Please note, though, that this lesson may apply only in the writing world; it might not work to go about quoting Mary Oliver when you're not sure what to say on a conference call. I'll try it out and let you know.
5. People actually read what I write. And sometimes, they even feel compelled to share something from their life with me. This continues to astound me and make me grateful. Thank you for reading.
6. You can always find time to do something that interests you. This has the ring to it of something your mother would say to you, but it's true, which is why it sounds mother-like. There were days when I didn't know where I'd find the time—for this silly, self-set challenge that maybe no one cared about but me—and I'd think, 'So what? It doesn't matter if I miss one day! Who would point that out? Who would notice?' {More on those questions in a moment.} But I'd find the time, little slices here and there, to get something out. To meet the challenge.
7. Personal challenges are more personally rewarding. Lack of a self-set prize aside, this 41 Day Challenge was worth it—if simply to test my commitment to writing.
   
   Those whiny questions in my lesson above have a deeper, less whiny root: Why do I do what I do? Why do any of us do what we do? Is it to win accolades from others? Is it to scratch and grab our 15 minutes of fame? How much of what we do is focused on gaining attention? If a blogger posts and no one comments, does that mean the post {and the time writing it} were in vain?
   
   I will admit an un-pretty side of me: when one of my best friends didn't know that I was doing this 41 Day Challenge, I was saddened. Offended a little. Hurt for sure. I don't talk about my blog too much in my outside-the-computer life, but I think I needed this summer's challenge to help me face an expectation I had and wasn't even aware of: I wanted people to become hooked on my writing, and there were certain people in my life that I expected/internally demanded to become hooked.
   
   But that's unfair—to me and to them. It means that I'm writing just to get attention, and it means that I've put some sort of blog reading requirement on friendship, which doesn't sound like a fun friendship to me, nor does it sound like a fun blog.
   
   Writing that's focused on accolades and notice and people fawning is more likely to be writing that doesn't ring true and right. It's more likely to come off sounding like an infomercial for a product no one would buy unless it was 3am and they couldn't get to sleep.
   
   So I had days when I wondered if it was worth it, this self-set challenge.
   
   And I realized that yes, it was worth it: it was worth doing for me. Not for anyone else. Once I fessed up to that expectation of accolades, I could more easily squash it and put it in its place.
   
   Don't you find that that's true? That if you try to ignore an emotion or a thought or some part of you that you'd rather not admit, then you suddenly find that that's all you can think about. If only you'd face it, full on and with gusto, then you could say to it, "You're not right, and you don't get to control me."
   
   The 41 Day Challenge was worth it for me. I proved to myself that I could keep up a steady stream of writing, even when I didn't feel like it. I broke down that desire for attention {for right now—attention tends to be a life-long problem}, and I wrote.

accomplishments

A quote for the day {or, in truth, for many days}:

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.
{President Truman, smart man that he was}

This quote should be printed in every board room, on the doorframe of every CEO's office, on cubicle walls, and in break rooms.

We, as a working people, tend to preen. We point out what we've done well; we draw attention to ourselves and those to-do lists and all our checkmarks.

We are peacocks when perhaps we should be more like peahens, and I, for one. need to remember that this life isn't about accomplishments and accolades and having my name tied to all of those.

Not that I know what this life is all about, but for today, Harry's words {we're on a first-name basis since I went to a school named after him} are humbling and good for me to remember.

an unexpected night off and pie crust

Tuesday nights are taken nights. I have a rotating schedule of evening activities, and Tuesday night is small group.

But it's Holy Week right now, and my small group decided to take a holy break, leaving me with a somewhat unexpected night off.

Does this happen to you? You find yourself with a few free hours—hours you didn't expect to have to yourself—and you suddenly feel like you've found a weekend oasis in the midst of the week. You start planning restful things to do, but then you realize that you're trying to cram too much into your oasis.

With all your thoughts of cleaning and writing and reading and phone calls with far-away friends, it's getting a little crowded, and you can't seem to reach the refreshing water in the oasis. Why do we do this to ourselves?

I'm familiar with my crowded oasis challenge, so with tonight's unexpected night off, I decided to do one restful thing, not 12.

And to limit the temptation to do more, I made that one restful thing a multi-step project, which may sound like the opposite of restful, but here's how my mind works: if I do one thing that takes a long time, then I won't be tempted to do many things that take a little time. I'll be focused.

Multi-tasking is not always good. One multi-step project is sometimes better. {And at other times, no project, no agenda, no schedule is the best.}

My multi-step project for tonight was a goat cheese tart, and I needed the process and the method and the structure of cooking to help me relax.

Mostly, I needed the crust.

There's something so astounding and reliable and forgiving about making your own crust.

Throw a cup-and-a-half of flour, a stick-and-a-half of butter, some salt, and some cold water together and you get this...experience.

It's an experience of worrying if it's going to turn out well—as you try to get the butter into pea-size chunks, there are moments of thinking, 'Am I doing this right?'

And then you realize that you're doing the best you can. You started with the right ingredients and besides, regardless of what you do and how big your pea-sized chunks are before you roll the dough out, the butter and flour will combine. They always do.

I had this very peaceful moment tonight as I fit the crust into the tart pan. It was lopsided, so one side had extra hanging over the edge and the other side {not that there are sides in a round tart pan, but you know what I mean} was sadly missing dough.

I tried readjusting the crust, which caused a schism in the bottom, leaving me with a holy, no, I mean holey, crust.

That was not what I expected when I started this unexpected evening off.

But crust, as I said before, is forgiving. I pulled off some of the hanging-over crust and smooshed it into the bottom. I spread out the crust with my fist, giving it the look of gentle waves in a bay.

I know my crust wasn't perfect. I know I probably limited the flakiness of it by smooshing it down.

But I also know that when I go to bed tonight, my apartment will still smell like this goat cheese tart, and even though the bottom is wavy, it will smell just as I expected: like comfort and peace and calm.

a pug katharine hepburn: my goal with daisy

I am not a negligent dog owner.

{I'm making that assertion based on Part 1 of this story, where you can read about how my little pug got me in trouble with the Association Board.}

I want to begin with this clear assertion because there are people who don't care if their dog is an excessive barker. They don't care if she's doing that because she's hungry or cold or bored or anxious—for whatever reason she's yapping away, they don't care.

I'm not like that. I'm not someone who got a dog and then seems surprised and angry when the dog exhibits dog-like behavior.

I don't want Miss Daisy to bark too much, and so I've been working with her. When I first got her, she did the normal bark-because-I'm-so-excited-you're-home thing, but I've been teaching her that she doesn't have to show her love with barking. She can be the strong but silent type, sort of like a pug Katharine Hepburn.

And she is becoming Katharine. She doesn't bark all that much when I get home now, and don't you find it amazing that dogs, little creatures who don't speak English, can be taught things? With enough repetition and reward, they will do what you ask, and maybe there's a life lesson in that.

Nor am I an oblivious dog owner.

a caramel christmas. but first: shouting.

I have one more way to interpret that original question—what is it about a little bit of light that fills us with such wonder this time of year?

It's the Hallmark Channel interpretation. The Hallmark Channel brings the Currier and Ives print to life and then plays it on repeat from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Lifetime does this, too, and I think ABC Family is also playing Christmas movies non-stop.

The Hallmark Channel symbolically represents the all-Christmas-all-the-time view that has taken over, and it makes us think that Christmas is about more.

For the entire month of December—no, let's admit it, the Christmas "season" starts before Thanksgiving and perhaps even before Halloween in some stores—there's a shouting match for our attention: BUY MORE, SPEND MORE, DO MORE, BE MORE, MAKE MORE PERFECT MEMORIES, EAT MORE, DECORATE MORE.

We start to think we must make room in our hearts for Jesus—and room above the hearth for a 52-inch TV. Because if we don't buy that as a present, then we don't really love whoever thinks they want that.

If we're not careful, Christmas can become nothing but noise as we listen to those shouts for our attention and money and time.

-----

Christmas is a time when we can more distinctly feel the pull in disparate directions.

The spiritual. The familial. The shopping-al. {Not a word, I know, but I liked the parallel I had going there with the -al. I guess I could've used the word financial. Eh, too late to take it back now.}

The last thing you want to feel during Christmas is stretched so thin that people can see through you, and that is why I encourage you to approach Christmas as if it were caramel this year.

Yes, caramel. Because:

1. it's malleable: I'm going to sound really trite here, but Christmas takes on whatever shape you give it. You don't have to stick with certain traditions, and you can buck expectations {especially self-expectations}.
   
   You don't have to craft your own Christmas cards and have them mailed by the first week in December—if you don't want to. You don't have to decorate—if you don't want to.
   
   You can watch every Christmas movie ever made—if you want to. You can give up something for Advent—if you want to. The point is to shape Christmas as you want it.
2. but it can also be hard: Hard as in difficult or hard as in rigid. The difficult part we don't need to get into: holidays come with baggage, even if you don't travel anywhere {lame joke}. Let's look at the rigid, as in rigid boundaries. It's important to put up a good fence or wall or some other kind of protective barrier around what you want to do to enjoy Christmas. This may mean that you don't say yes to every party you get invited to—but instead say no knowing that you shouldn't socially max yourself out.
   
   It's okay to say no sometimes. Some people have trouble believing that, particularly during the holidays when you're supposed to be happy and friendly and cheery all the time, at all costs to your own little soul.
   
   Because of your little soul, trying hard to truly celebrate Christmas, you do need a bit of a hard edge to your boundaries.
3. it's made out of basically one ingredient: Christmas can be simple: friends, Jesus, family. What's the one thing about Christmas you enjoy so much?
4. but you can make it more complicated by adding other things to it: Please scroll back up to the part where I talk about how it's okay to say no to stuff during the Christmas season. When you start trying to please everyone, from your boss to Martha Stewart to Good Housekeeping, you start losing track of how Christmas is supposed to be fun.
5. it's a challenge to get just right: I don't know anyone who's figured out the best Christmas balance and been able to stick to it every year. Every year, we all need reminders of how to truly celebrate without wanting to slowly pull our own teeth out because that might be less painful than this blessedly exhausting holiday season.
6. but when you do, man, that's sweet: Literally sweet, in the case of caramel. And in the case of Christmas, you know what moments I'm talking about. The little or big ones where everyone gave a contented sigh at once. The time when you were little and you woke up at 3am on Christmas morning, peeked through the curtains, and saw a bright shining star that looked like it could be the Star of Bethlehem. Whatever sweetness is to you, look for snatches of it this Christmas.
7. and even if you don't get it right, you most likely still have a good story about you leaning too close to the pan, staring at the sugar, waiting for it to turn the right auburn color, talking to it and demanding to know if it's done yet: Not to sound too much like your mom here, but you can always learn from bad experiences, and later, you may even be able to laugh about them. A bad Christmas does not mean you're a bad person with a bad family and bad friends and a bad dog and bad hair. It just means that you get to try again next year to have a good Christmas.

Merry Caramel Christmas!

just like a picture print by currier and ives

There's the Currier and Ives way to interpret the wonder that fills most of us during the Christmas season. I call it that—Currier and Ives way—because of that line in the Christmas song "Sleigh Ride." You know, that part that goes:

There's a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy
When they pass around the coffee and the pumpkin pie
It'll nearly be like a picture print by Currier and Ives
These wonderful things are the things
We remember all through our lives.

Most people have no idea what Currier and Ives is, but they equate it with an ideal view of Christmas, this dream of how the holidays should go. In the picture are twinkle lights, children in matching outfits, and a yet-to-be carved turkey.

We put a lot of stock in the Currier and Ives view of Christmas, and we start to think that it's the perfection of the image—the slick presentation of a shiny, happy family—that creates the Christmas glow.

When we build up Christmas like that, we run the risk of disappointment in the actual day because we don't live in a Currier and Ives print. No one does; even Currier and Ives didn't live in one of their freeze-frame views of familial bliss.

The twinkle lights may blow, leaving you with a half-twinkling tree.

The children may squabble over who got the better present.

The turkey, once it's carved, is, I'm sorry to say, a revolting, somewhat-haunting carcass. It is not something you want to leave on your dining room table.

What is it about the Currier and Ives view of Christmas that fills us with such a nostalgic longing, even if our Christmas doesn't turn out like that?

And what can you do this year to make sure that expectations are realistic, held-in-check, not based on an unachievable notion of should?

{That question is asked assuming you're like me and need daily reminders to not let expectations zoom away from you. If you're not like that, please call me immediately and tell me how you do this.}

it's beginning to look a lot like christmas

"After Thanksgiving, pumpkins just look out of place," I said to my sister and brother-in-law the day after Thanksgiving.

We were driving by a house in Burlington that had a row of pumpkins out on the deck. A day before, they were just-the-right-thing. They were appropriate and festive, but 24 hours later, they looked wrong to me.

"Are you going to blog about that?" my brother-in-law asked from the back seat. It must've been something in my tone that tipped him off. I said that pumpkin thing with a twinge of Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail when she's talking about autumn in New York City and she gets excited over Scotch tape.

Anything that sounds like a rhapsody on a completely normal thing is probably going to end up as my next blog post.

{Also, Sid has clearly picked up on my trick of testing out material on people I know. If I get a good response to something I say, I write about it. If you want me to stop writing and you know me, stop being enthusiastic, laughing, saying things like, "Oh, you should write about that!"}

As soon as Thanksgiving is over, I make the mental transition to Christmas. We're talking as soon as the dishes are clean and the leaves are taken out of the table so that it's back to its regular size {and not stretched to seat 10 people}—I'm ready for holly-jolly.

Given my demand that no Christmas decorations appear until after Thanksgiving, I know that I'm expecting too much of society. Slash expecting too much of myself.

For my demands to be met on a society-wide level, we need an army of elves or perhaps just a very committed group of volunteers, propelled by Christmas spirit and sugar and/or caffeine.

I want them to take down and properly deal with all fall-related decorations, which should be left up until Thanksgiving. Leaves in yards count as fall-related decorations.

Simultaneous to that, I need this little elf/sugar army to paint the town red. As in Santa Claus red, but it should be done tastefully. By that I mean according to my tastes.

No inflatable anything in the front lawn, but especially no inflatable snowglobes.

Nativity scenes should not be made of Disney characters. That's just confusing for the kids, who are trying to remember that Jesus isn't Santa Claus; we should not put on them trying to remember that Jesus isn't Mickey Mouse.

Every house should have a light theme: blue, white, multi-colored. Pick one kind and stick with it.

Those light-up deer—you know, the wireframe ones with twinkle lights on them—are acceptable.

There are other rules, but I won't get into them. I don't want to seem too demanding/judgmental/unappreciative of other people's Christmas cheer.

All of these strong opinions on decoration come out of an intense love of Christmas, its traditions, and the build-up of the season.

They also come out of an intense desire to welcome and appreciate and savor every season, especially the holiday season. I take great joy in anticipation, but as evidenced by my pumpkins-are-out-of-place thought, I incline toward a rush to move on.

Get to the next season.

The next celebration.

I don't like that inclination, that headlong fling, picking up speed as I race down the hill, falling forward into the next.

Does anyone else do this? Work so hard to appreciate the moment—and then jump ahead to the next?

I'm making an early new year's resolution to not do that this Christmas season. I will appreciate the build-up and the wind-down. I will not always be thinking of forging ahead, as if my being depended on newness.

To begin, my Christmas traditions, created several years ago to slow me down as the build-up to the holiday threatens to make me go too fast...

• Watch The Mary Tyler Moore Show Christmas episode from the first season while putting up the tree
• Meditate on the Magnificat at least 3 times a week
• Read the Christmas story every week
• Read A Miracle on 34th Street, the version I got from my aunt when I was 8, the one illustrated by Tommie DePaola
• throw a Christmas cookie baking party {this year's party might be expanded to include crafts}

{Note to self: take down fall decorations tonight.}

bring me java, bring me joy

Yesterday morning, I had a 5-minute long conversation with a woman at my gym about coffee.  She told me that since she always sees me at the coffee maker—just before she gets her first cup of coffee for the day—she's come to associate me with good-morning-perkiness.

This is the perfect association for me.  I'm the girl with a play list called Good Morning Songs.  I wake up to a different one every morning:  sometimes it's "Good Morning, Baltimore" and sometimes it's "Love Is All Around."  (You know, the theme song from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Don't tell me you didn't know that.  If you really didn't know that, I'm mad at you, slash we don't live close enough to each other.  If we lived closer, I can guarantee you that I would've made you watch Mary by now.)

I'm also the girl who loves coffee, although there are a lot of girls like that.  I'm the girl who can drink a latte at 9pm and still sleep fine.  I bet you wish you could do that.  I can also go without coffee and not be cranky.  I bet you wish everyone else at your office could do that.

I help run the coffee ministry at my church, and when you combine caffeine with Christianity, you get high energy Holy Spirit.  Not really.  That sounds sacrilegious.  I don't think Jesus needs to drink coffee, but I like to think that he enjoys it.

You can see why it was easy for me to have a 5-minute long conversation about coffee.  I'm surprised it wasn't longer.

But then it reminded me of this thing I wrote when I lived in France.  It's all about coffee and the experience of going to a cafe in Rouen, where I was teaching English at a French high school.

Obvious foreign references aside {referring to the euro and at one point, I use French, but have no fear, I give you a contextual translation}, I think that if you love coffee, you may—well, you don't have to love this, too, but maybe it could just make you a little happy about how much you like coffee, one of those simple joys in life.

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The cup waits in front of you. From above, the coffee, light brown like the Mississippi mixed with a foggy morning, is moveable punctuation, a perfectionist’s period of definition on the bleach white saucer and cup. There’s a froth on top, though, hundreds of little bubble that move as one.

Part of the ritual, maybe the most important part, is waiting to taste the first sip of your café crème. There’s built up expectancy from the moment you step in the café—or even from the moment you step out of your door.

You’re going to a café and it’s a bright afternoon, the first sunniness of spring in Normandy. You’ve bunched up your need of alone time into this idea of an afternoon at a café, any café.

Solitary but surrounded by voices you don’t have to understand if you don’t want to, laughs, babies’ cries, clinking cups and saucers. Café soundtrack, a background to your thoughts. You’ve brought cards to write, and like always, you have a journal, too. The café may make your hand itch to write—or it may not. It’s all part of the anticipation, the surprise, and a bit of the ritual.

Choosing a café is not as obvious as seeing an empty chair. You have to walk by slowly, giving your mind time to imagine yourself in that chair. It’s a feeling of ambiance and a feeling of blending in to that ambiance. All this feeling is in a split second decision and of course it is little more than a small day’s decision of where to spend an hour or two.

Small decisions of the day become big decision of life when piled together, though, and an hour or two are still hours in your life. Cafes, for you, must have an irrepressible air of reflection because they need to recognize their possible importance, even if it’s just in an ironic way, as the place where you can be alone but not lonely.

You choose a café on a side street, away from the tourist flock and the 5 euro coffee cup.

Really, though, you knew that you were coming here, to Bistrot des Carmes, as soon as you heard the apartment door latch behind you. The first afternoon you came here, a Tuesday after work, a man in a corduroy jacket and square wiry glasses played his guitar at the corner table by the window. It wasn’t a concert; it was just him at his usual café on a usual Tuesday playing his usual music.

All that made you feel that this place, Bistrot des Carmes, was unusually unique, like a movie of France showing for you alone in the cinema.

Propped up on the sheeny brown bar, smooth from use and cleaning, was a chalkboard menu: Laurent vous propose…He suggested quiche and flan, a croque monsieur and tarte aux pommes, but you wanted nothing more than a café crème.

The cup waits in front of you, and you’ve waited long enough. Picking up the cup with both hands, one scooping the bottom for warmth and the other slipping a finger through the handle, you breathe in the ritual again. Tip the cup, close your eyes, and taste part of the foreign life you’ve fought hard to create.

Drink the café crème to forget that you’re too different here and drink it to remember that you never want to be complacently the same anyway.

give me something gentle / make it sentimental {or the robins' nest, Part III}

{This is Part III of a story about the robins who have built their nest on my balcony.  I'm sure you can pick up what's going on—just use those context clues skills that got you through so many standardized reading tests. But I'd also recommend reading Part I and Part II; it'll make the story so much easier to follow, I promise.  And I'm not just saying that so that you'll stay longer on my blog.  I really do want you to have a good story experience.  Really.  Now click.  And read.}

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By the time I wrote a poem about the bird nest that appeared on my porch light, I had clearly absorbed several lessons from the robins and their nest: times of emptiness can quickly become times of fullness, for one.

Take time to stand in the sun and wonder at the richness around you—that's another one.


Both of those sound like lessons that could be made into framed art, optimistic reminders of the enduring hopefulness of life, perhaps expressed in mosaic or line art featuring flowers and mountain meadows.


They'd be the kind of pieces sold at farmers' markets and craft fairs, a snippet of Americana that causes people in big cities and small towns alike to pause and wish they felt less compelled to check their email 24 times a day. To wish they could more consistently and truthfully be okay with turning off the to-do list part of their brain that’s run by a lizard: darting here, darting there, eyes darting to the next task to do do do.


Now, just a couple of weeks after writing that poem, I’m having thoughts that are less craft fair appropriate.


They are: Shut up. Stop flying in front of my face. You’re ugly. Can you chirp in a pitch that isn’t a scream? I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you have a bit of worm stuck in your beak.


Who has such bitter thoughts towards robins, of all creatures? Skunks, maybe, or raccoons, I could understand, but robins—they lay Tiffany blue eggs, and every spring, seeing the first robin makes me want to wear a flowery skirt, even if there’s still snow on the ground. Robins are a cause for celebration, not targets of my darkest thoughts because I can’t control their chirping.


But isn’t that the way life sometimes is? Something new lands in your daily life, and suddenly, you’re writing poems about watering cans and being full to overflowing.


Then the novelty wears off, and what was once energizing becomes a normal grate on you, even though you don't want it to. It becomes this accepted part of your life, and you can become blasé about it, take it for granted, treat it badly.


Tell the robins to shut up when all they want to do is sing to and protect their Tiffany blue eggs.


I wanted these birds to come. I wanted to love nature, right here on my doorstep—or actually, on my porch light. I wanted—I still want—more watering can moments.


But I also want to sit on my balcony without feeling that I’m going to be in a modern-day take on Hitchcock’s The Birds. I’ve gotten a very up-close look at the sharp beak of the robin, and let me tell you, you don’t want that thing anywhere near your eyes.


The stand-off between the robins and me is, I’ve decided, an example of expectations not matching reality—and how you can veer off the path into a swamp when you start to demand too much of your expectations.


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{Wow, doesn't it seem like I just opened up a whole new topic?  The whole expectations vs. reality thing?  I'm so not writing about a bird feeder anymore, and that's what I enjoy so much about writing.  The surprises you find yourself stumbling upon.  The turns your writing can take.  I thought I wanted to vent about those dang birds, but those dang birds have led me here, to this twist of a statement about expectations and reality.


And yes, I'm going to end there for now.  If you have any deep, revelatory thoughts about this, you should let me know; I'm still sorting it out in my own head.}

the one date i can't find in my planner

One Friday night, I could've done anything, but I chose—instead of baking or sewing or reading or making anything more complicated than a grilled cheese for dinner—I chose to watch a movie I knew would simultaneously comfort and hurt me.

27 Dresses.  The first time I saw it, I was with a good friend at this old movie theater in my town, the kind with just a few screens and where the ticket and the popcorn are the same price:  cheap.

The movie made us both giddy when we saw it in the theater.  Pretty dresses!  Living in NYC!  Adorable apartment!

For girls who live in the suburbs but feel that deep down inside we're urban chic, 27 Dresses made us forget that just outside the movie theater were SUVs packed with soccer cleats, hockey sticks, trombones, and all the other paraphernalia that comes with having 2.5 children in suburbia.

But the movie also made us upset that the straight-laced girl has to get drunk in order to finally become crooked-laced {or whatever the opposite of straight-laced is}.

They always do that in movies, you know.  There's always the girl who's too attached to her planner and her immaculate order, and there's always the moment she finally lets her guard down and allows Prince Charmant in.  That moment always involves alcohol.

Always.

Ok, maybe it's just always in romantic comedies.  I'll try to be more accurate with my blanket statements, but I’ll back up my blanket with examples.
 

27 Dresses

Guys and Dolls

10 Things I Hate about You

Never Been Kissed {technically, this one involves marijuana, not drinking}

As a tiny side note—hence the tiny font size—I realize that my theory doesn’t exactly hold up.  I can disprove myself simply by saying Meg Ryan.  And I bet there are plenty of other ways to disprove me, so why don’t we move beyond this side note and return to that Friday night when I changed into my flannel pajamas at 7:30.  Yeah, let’s focus on how cool/social I am.

That Friday night when I watched 27 Dresses alone, it comforted me because it's a love story.  It's someone I don't know, and they're having adorable moments in beautiful clothes.  I don't have to deal with jealousy when it's Katherine Heigl.

But the movie hurts because of course it's just a movie and it must end well.  {Unless it's a French movie.}

The girl may be single and denying it hurts in the opening scene {generally takes place at a publishing house in New York}, but by that last scene, she's kissing someone perfect for her.

Someone who gets her.

Someone who cares more about her than he does about himself.

And in between those scenes, she gets drunk and the story turns.

After watching movies like 27 Dresses, I don’t start plotting how to create this shiny, perfect hair, perfect vintage apartment, white teeth world.

It’s not even that I want that life to replace my life.

My life is shiny, too, and while I may not have perfect hair, I have some charming vintage furniture, a closet full of sassy skirts, and very healthy teeth {never a cavity!}.

Movies like 27 Dresses do make me wistful, though.

And then I roll my eyes at myself {a tricky thing to do—try it} because I don’t like this pining after a life that isn’t real.  I don’t like that part of me, even the smallest part, finds comfort in these movies.

I seriously get hopeful when I notice similarities between fictional characters and me.

I have an over-stuffed planner!

I do crazy things such as scrub the stove when I can’t sleep!

I like to cook when I’m angry!

I…well, I don’t actually live in New York, but I like the idea of living in NYC, and I’m sure if I were there, I’d live in a brownstone on the Upper West Side!

I don’t want to admit this, but I must:  movies like 27 Dresses give me hope that I won’t be alone for ever.  If the crazy, planner-obsessed girl on the big screen can find the right man, then maybe this planner-obsessed girl will eventually have a wedding date to put in that planner.

I know it’s silly to take hope from Hollywood.  I know my hope rests in God alone and that he has a much bigger plan{ner} than mine.  I know that I should hold all my dreams loosely as I lift my hands to God.

But that’s the practical side of me.  For the emotional side of me, I sometimes need a Friday night alone, an unexpected one, where I take a little eye-candy comfort from 27 Dresses.

tradition, expectations, and favorite underwear

My mother got a tattoo:  this is part 3 of that story.  You can go back to the beginning {and read all about how she sprung this news on me in the bathroom} here.

I worked through my tattoo shock during Fiddler on the Roof.

During the song “Tradition” when the people in Anatevka explain the very specific roles each member of the family and community plays, I leaned over to ask my mom, “But why did you do it?  Why get a tattoo at 53?”

“Because I was tired of being what everyone expected me to be.”

It was hard to miss the irony:  my mother announced that she wanted to surprise people for once in her life, just as a cast of Russian peasants was singing about how mamas should “know the way to make a proper home, a quiet home, a kosher home.”  In Anatevka, you were supposed to do what was expected of you.

But Fiddler on the Roof is about accepting change, especially changes in people you love.  It's a bit about how you may not always agree with their decisions, but that doesn't mean they're wrong.  And Fiddler is very much about family and community—and the continuity that love brings, even when there's change.

All this is very acceptable to me when represented in two-and-a-half hours and with a 15-minute intermission to allow you to buy the commemorative Fiddler nesting dolls.  I even like it when I get that dull ache of pre-emptive nostalgia during “Sunrise, Sunset” as I think ahead to what it'll be like when I'm older—perhaps when I'm 53—and I try to trace back how I got to where I am.

I do not like this acceptance of change idea when it's so clearly represented on my mother's thigh.  {Or anyone's thigh, really.}

But that idea my mother had brought up—of wanting to surprise people who thought they knew you—I connected with that.  That's the idea that makes my nostrils flare when someone tries to fit me into a box.  Being packed into the goody-two-shoes box also makes my eye twitch.

I didn't think that I alone owned that feeling; I just didn't know that my mother had a share in it, too.  Instead of having an eye twitch, she had unpacked herself for good from the goody-two-shoes box by getting that tattoo.

The blue horse on her thigh was an act of ripping the box apart and then stomping on it while wearing very muddy shoes.

****
Even the biggest changes eventually become accepted, known parts of your life.  The trick is to get through the time when you can't look at your mother without screaming, “TATTOO!  You have a tattoo!”  Keep that voice inside your head:  this is the best advice I can give.

As I learned more about my mother's tattoo—as I stopped asking questions in an accusatory tone—I got used to the idea.  She'd been thinking about it for several years.  She'd picked out the design a year before she actually got it—got inked, I think the lingo is.  She'd decided on a horse because she's always had and loved horses.

She'd wanted to get it on her lower back, but the tattoo man had guided her towards the thigh because it was less visible.

Dear Tattoo Artist in Iowa City—

Thank you for preventing my mother from getting a tramp stamp.

Sincerely,
A daughter who would've been more horrified

It's been a year since my mother got a tattoo.  At times, the absurdity of it stops me:  my mother, who used to sew matching Easter dresses for my sister and me, all frills and lace and pastel fabric, has something in common with that guy at my gym who has cut the sleeves off every shirt so that his tiger tattoo is always visible when he's lifting weights.

Most times, though, I think of my mother's tattoo as special underwear.  Don't deny that you have a favorite pair of underwear and every time you wear them, there's an extra kick in your step.

My favorite pair has French on it, useful phrases such as “Quelle heure est-il?”  This would be useful if I needed to ask a French person the time, had forgotten the phrase, and was in a situation where it'd be normal to look at my underwear.

Wearing your favorite pair of underwear makes you feel more powerful and prepared for the day, mostly because it's something that only you know.

My mother's tattoo is her permanent favorite pair of underwear so that even when she's wearing comfy sandals and a khaki skirt, all practicality on the outside, she can walk with a kick in her step:  she has a blue horse galloping across her thigh.