I opened Facebook this morning to track down a link shared by Escape Into Life for a daily literary meditation exercise for January. I’d been meaning to start this on January 1, so I’m already four days behind, and to be honest that seems at least par if not better than par for these stay-at-home, end-of/start-of-year times. Don’t judge me. I’ve been filled with ennui here at the start of 2021.
Facebook greeted me, as it usually does first thing in the morning, with a memory. I looked; the algorithm-driven memories are probably my favorite facet of Facebook. Today’s was a photo of an apple—a ripe, red apple pendant on a tree—that for the life of me I couldn’t remember taking. Possibly I didn’t, because it was connected to a poem fragment I had quoted with a link:
“Medieval physicists thought gravity was love. They catalogued it attraction.”
I clicked the link to re-read the same poem, but got a different one. It turns out the one I shared last year had (probably) been the featured poem of the day on Autumn Sky Poetry. And the poem of the day for today was another one—also utterly lovely: Why I Have to Sing, by Kitty Jospé.
I read it and then found the one by John Calvin Hughes as well. What a lovely start to the day.
To top it off, I did follow that up by starting on the literary calendar for January, which fed my soul. Now feeling hopeful, I head off to start my day—first by mailing a poem/card to a pen pal (what a lovely, old-fashioned phrase) before turning my attention to the work that pays my bills.
I have so many things I want to write about today! Reading, the end of this seemingly endless year, the deer that visited our front yard overnight while we slept…
Let’s start there, with the deer.
I took this photo thinking it would be a Wordless Wednesday post here on the blog. Then I got up this morning and wrote it into my #frontstooppoetry for the day. So, words, which means not wordless.
My husband and I saw this in the snow when we opened the gate from our side yard to head out to the sidewalk for our first walk of the day yesterday.
A single deer had walked right into the branches of our front-yard lilac tree, and from there we couldn’t tell where it had gone. Right on through? Maybe, but the tracks on the other side were definitely a rabbit’s. Either a rabbit obscured deer tracks, or the deer backed out the way it came. We could see only about three hoof prints, so it’s possible this deer used the sidewalk and veered into our yard only for a quick snack. I’ve seen it happen in the daylight. I know lots of people consider deer pests; to me, they’re graceful and beautiful creatures, with whom I’m generally happy to share a garden. It brightened my day to know I had hosted one in the wee hours.
Reading out the year
Lots of my friends are tallying up the books they’ve read this year and sharing the numbers on social media. Not me. I’ve found reading difficult this year. Oftentimes I’ve found myself too anxious to focus on reading anything longer than a poem, and for a short while leading up to and following Election Day, I couldn’t even read poetry. As a friend said to me recently, my relationship with books has been a troubled one. On the bright side, I’ve actually read more poetry books than usual this year. Among the ones I finished the year with was The Abridged History of Rainfall,by Jay Hopler (McSweeney’s Press), which is absolutely super. One poem in it, Elegy for the Living, is so heartbreakingly beautiful that I was compelled to read it aloud for the Twitterverse:
My unread book pile grew the other day when a friend emailed to ask if he had loaned me a book that he couldn’t find. He had not, but I’m pretty sure I own the book, and I thought, “If I can find it and have already read it, I can just pass it along to him”—an elegant solution to get him the book he wanted and clear one object out of my too-cluttered life, don’t you think?
You can probably tell already that this didn’t work out as planned.
I, too, found that I couldn’t track down this book, which for all I know might have decided to take a forbidden vacation with its sibling of the same name from my friend’s book collection.
But in the process of looking for it, I came across three other books that I had forgotten I had and really do want to read: two murder mysteries and Joe Biden’s book about the death of his son Beau, Promise Me, Dad. So those vaulted directly to the top of my next-read pile. The good news is that I’ve just finished reading one of them. Care to guess which one?
As we’re counting down the days to Inauguration Day 2021, and I’m looking forward to change in the White House—and, I hope, the country—it seemed appropriate to end 2020 with Biden’s memoir. I took the rediscovery of this book as a sign that the time was right to get to know my next president a little better. I’m glad I did. Although, of course, I cried at the end. So be forewarned.
Next up is one of the murder mysteries, a little lightness to start the new year.
My husband’s political advent calendar
Speaking of lightness, the new year, and the countdown to Inauguration Day…over on Escape into Life my husband, renowned cartoonist Phil Maish, has created a post-Christmas advent calendar to count down the last days of the current White House administration. Each day he opens a new door to show a new cartoon. Day 25 will be Inauguration Day.
After the overnight snowstorm that revealed the deer tracks yesterday morning, we had an utterly gorgeous day today, sunny and clear and crisp. The husband and I took a nice walk, to and through a neighborhood park, and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos, including the one at the top of this post. It was a simply perfect winter day; I couldn’t have asked for a better one to end 2020. We’ll be spending our New Year’s Eve the way we like best: watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies and trying to stay awake until midnight. Tomorrow’s lentil soup is already made, and the traditional Swedish rice pudding will follow it up; if I recall correctly, we started 2020 without either of those good-luck staples, and look where that got us.
I was 43 years old when my mother died. In all those years, never once did I spend Christmas Eve away from her. Christmas Day, yes, but not Christmas Eve, which was always the day of feasting and family gathering in my childhood home.
That realization hit me on the morning of December 24 this year—because my son was spending his first Christmas Eve apart from his father and me, thank you COVID-19. Everything is so upside-downsy this year, backwards, sideways, wibbledy-wobbledy, just plain wrong. And so my son has now done this thing that I never did. And it’s not the worst thing in the world, but it’s sad and bittersweet, and I hope it doesn’t open the door to the idea that being apart on this special day is okay for us.
Christmas tea
We did trade texts throughout the day, and Zoom allowed us to open presents together on Christmas morning, so that tradition remains alive. The husband and I spent Christmas Eve watching movies with one of my sisters-in-law, again via Zoom, and Christmas Day online with the family and friends we traditionally gather with in person. This time, each set of us was parked in front of our own personal Christmas tea, instead of joined at a communal tea. Tradition, but not tradition.
Sigh.
Random side note, because COVID
I’m heartened to see my friends and family who are doctors and nurses sharing the happy news that they’ve received their first COVID-19 vaccinations. I don’t think these vaccines are the be-all/end-all that will save civilization, but they’re a step in the right direction. They offer hope, and I for one badly need that hope. Poet Billy Collins got his first vaccination today also. Poets are definitely essential, so hooray!
We’ve made it through the darkest day of this year, and I’m thinking about silver linings. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been cooped up since March 13. In all that time, I’ve been inside one store, once. I’ve seen a handful of friends at a distance in my yard or theirs. I’ve spent two days with my son and hugged no one but him and my husband. Thanksgiving happened by Zoom. Christmas will as well.
This hasn’t been easy. Emotionally, I’m on a hair trigger, ready to start yelling or crying at any moment. Look at me crosswise, and I’m likely to erupt. And I know I’m not special; there are thousands of us all over the country in the same shape.
But I’m managing to find silver linings this holiday season. Separated by 2,000 miles at Thanksgiving, my son and I got together on Skype, and I taught him to make pie. That wouldn’t have happened in a normal year because he would have had someone else to provide Thanksgiving pie, either me or a friend. Still unable to travel home, he’s now planning to make cherry pie for Christmas.
Silver lining.
I, too, did some extra cooking at Thanksgiving: I made miniature pies for all of the local relatives and friends we normally would have spent the holiday with. And then I made bread for them, too, while I was at it. I sent all of those off with the husband (my personal shopper and task rabbit), and he delivered them—at social distance—with our love. It made me happy, and I think it did the same for him and the recipients.
Silver lining.
Christmas is a different challenge. It will be the first we’ve ever spent without our son since he was born. So I baked a batch of his favorite Christmas cookies and shipped them to him. I also sent him a miniature artificial Christmas tree and his favorite set of Christmas ornaments—five, one-inch-tall “misfit toys” from the original Rudolph cartoon. Then I got out my paper and scissors and glitter and glue gun and made him ornaments from pictures of our two dogs. I can’t describe how excited it made me to put those together and mail them off to him as a surprise. I can tell you, though, that I then did the same for the co-workers for whom I could find pictures of their pets.
Yes, I’m making do. But occasionally I’m doing more than that: I’m making new celebrations and perhaps memories. I’m not going to say it makes up for the horror of this pandemic. It doesn’t. But it has helped me get through, and it helps my mental outlook to focus on these bright spots.
And lest you think this blog post is all holiday lights and cheer, let me assure you I’m still on a hair trigger. Just ask my husband.
