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Sunday, December 30, 2007

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Ultimate Luxury


two dozen white roses from the supermarket: $25


eight long-coveted vintage china dinner plates, ebay: $20


shoes that turn wearer into fairy ballerina princess,
post-holiday department store sale: $50

A Christmas without a single credit card charge: priceless.


Curious how the holiday decorating went? I've been uploading new pictures here.

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Thursday, December 27, 2007

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Yoga with Nana



This made me feel marginally better about the ongoing Lego Star Wars II xbox marathon.

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Monday, December 24, 2007

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Fall on my Knees.



It is the second anniversary of Notes today, and I kept thinking I would get to sit down and write something beautiful for you for Christmas Eve. I wanted to tell you what this night means to me; what it is, this year especially, to wait through the dark night for a miracle. What it is to find one where and when you'd least expect it. I thought I'd tell you about the service of lessons and carols last night in the Cathedral, the one I never miss, and I never take the children or Patrick to, because it is my moment alone in the wings, just before the red velvet curtain comes up on Christmas.

I wanted to tell you how my Mom can clean a lobster like nobody else on earth. How much I've hated shopping these past few days, and how grateful I am that I could. How I was on the verge of complete mental collapse just now in the supermarket when a girlfriend hugged me and told me to remember I am a kickassmotherfucker, and how my Christmas wish for you is that you have someone like that in your life. A potty mouth angel.

I want to tell you about Kirk who knew me when and who calls me every Christmas Eve without fail, and how I am jumping to grab the phone every time it rings.

I could write a book about how much I miss my Dad.

I thought I'd clean the house, wrap every gift, make a nice supper, take my children for a walk, go to church. It is ten minutes to five, and the list has shifted from what must be done to what must be let go. The best I can do will have to do.

Including this.

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

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In Grandma's Goody Bag

Friday, December 21, 2007

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Building a Mystery


strange portrait of me writing, courtesy of my three year old son.

It occurred to me today that many of you are still wondering and worrying about us, and that I need to let you know that good things are happening around here. It's still too early to write the latest chapter in the story, but it feels like we've turned the corner.

I can tell you it got worse before it got better. On the off chance my sister, my mother, and Jen turn out not to be delusional, and I ever get to sit on a talk show couch with a book of mine in hand, I will have some damn good stories to tell. Let's just say I had my Debra Winger in Terms of Endearment moment. You know, right before she starts sleeping with John Lithgow.

At any rate, the wind has shifted. Patrick is suddenly snowed under with work. Since last Sunday, he has had about twelve hours sleep. You won't hear either one of us complaining. Decisions have been made and some big changes are on the horizon, which you'll hear about in due course.

Before all that good stuff happened, my mom decided she just couldn't hack the long-distance worrying, and booked a flight to join us for Christmas. She arrives tomorrow night, and we are beyond excited. It's going to be a good end to a tough year.

Maybe the beginning of a great new one.

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

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What This Baby Can Do

My beautiful baby sister said the most brilliant thing the other day, and since she last updated her blog in June, I told her I was going to steal it and use it here. (Go ahead, tell Mom. Crybaby.)

We were talking about what's been happening with Notes this past year in terms of readership growth and publishing opportunities, and I was saying how it's still such a new medium, and how I believe that most of my target audience has yet to start looking online for what I put out here (writing), because the mainstream perception of blogging is still so narrow (which should make you feel very avant garde—feel free to put on a black turtleneck and affect a strange accent the rest of the day).

And then my sister said, "Well, it's probably like when photography was invented. Most people thought of it as a novelty or just a technological tool. Nobody understood for a while that you could make art with it."

It is the perfect analogy. I keep turning it over and marveling at it from every angle.

Take a scroll down the Technorati Top 100, supposedly representative of the most popular blogs on the internet . You'll see lots of technology sites, lots of how-to's, some politics, a sprinkling of humor and gossip. It's more like glancing through USA Today than, say, the New York Times. Now, there is some fabulous, well-crafted content on that list. Dooce is on that list. Lifehacker is on that list. I don't intend disrespect for the list, or any site on it. This isn't about the list; it's about what drives the list, what the vast majority of blog visitors are looking for: information and entertainment. Utility and novelty. 

To come back to the photography analogy, our Alfred Stieglitz moment has not happened yet. Or rather, I think it's happening, but it has yet to emerge from the relatively small parlor club that is the blogosphere and into the public gallery of mainstream consciousness. I think for the most part, readers who seek evocative writing for its own sake don't expect to find it online. Yet.

When I began Notes, I didn't think of myself as part of blogging culture. I had seen (it would be a stretch to say "read") exactly two blogs. This was just something to do on the way back to print, a medium that was friendly to life with small kids. I had zero expectations attached to it. Looking around, I saw no reason to cultivate any. This blog is short on controversy and long on introspection. I've never expected to be one of the rockstars (though I've gotten to know some of them—I think I might be the Loudon Wainwright of blogging).

I hung onto that sense of being a part from, not a part of, until about the middle of this year. A couple of things converged to push me off the fence. One was becoming aware of how much I got out of the instant feedback from readers. My extroversion has always been a major stumbling block between me and sitting still long enough to do the work. When I hear from you, it's like high octane fuel in my tank. Going to the computer to write no longer feels like confinement to solitary.

Going to the Blogher conference last summer was a big leap. In the space of 48 hours I went from "I don't think I belong here" to "These are my people." I know that anytime I mentioned that I was going to a blogging conference, my offline friends were picturing a geek-meet in somebody's basement, but that was as professional and as creative a group of women as I have ever encountered, and I was proud to be in their number.

More and more, I see writing online that's easily the match of anything like it in print. Except there isn't really anything like it in print, and that's the point. Just like photography can't be equated with painting, even though they are both visual; blogging can't be equated with print, even though are they both written. It's a unique medium, and it has to be judged on its own emerging standards.

One of the speakers at the conference, Penelope Trunk gave this interview with my friend Stephanie, where she talked about being very critical of early blog writing, only to have a mentor tell her that she needed to cut people who were developing the new medium a little slack, because they were doing something no one had done before. I don't think this medium still needs a handicap, but I do think we are still making it up as we go along, still seeing what this baby can do. And it's incredibly exciting.

On the days when I've written something here that I'm proud of, or when another blogger's writing tears me open with its beauty, or makes me envious of its poetry, or pushes me to write better —well, it feels a little like this:

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

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Learning Curve



Tonight we made Christmas cookies from two rolls of store-bought dough. As far as I can tell, the foundations of the earth did not split, or even quiver. The boys seemed to enjoy the rolling, cutting and decorating every bit as much as with homemade.

I'll allow it's a far cry from the days of fruit-juice sweetened, organic whole-grain teething biscuits made from scratch. I must be getting better at this.

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Sunday, December 16, 2007

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The Missing



Three weeks into advent, we finally remember to light our candle wreath. Two purple, one rose. Anglicans say the rose candle is for "joyful anticipation." I've been an Episcopalian myself for nearly a decade, and I've yet to see a public display of "joyful anticipation" on the face of any white Anglican older than eight, so I borrow from my Catholic roots, and say it is for Mary, for the mother.

It's a rare leisurely meal and the candlelight kindles storytelling. Patrick tells the boys about Christmases past, years when his family filled and overflowed the house that belonged to his grandmother Geneva, widow of the ragman, all long gone. As he enumerates kin, the boys' eyes grow wide. It's hard for them to imagine. In the five years between 1998, the year I became pregnant with our first son, and 2003, a year before the birth of our last, we lost three of our four parents, and both my grandmothers. My mother lives half a world away. They don't know the kind of family gatherings we did as children.

Baby boy, at three and a half, perceives the absences outlined by these stories. He climbs into my lap, and with both hands pulls my face towards his. "Who grandfather's name called?" he whispers.

"Al," I tell him. "And Patrick. Poppy and PawPaw."

"Who grandmother's name?"

"Nanny."

"Who other grandmother's name called?"

"Honey."

"Honey," he repeats.

Old grief is a gypsy robber. Sometimes it picks your pocket slyly in a crowd. Sometimes it's steel to your gut. Your knees hit the ground and you're breathless.

I gaze into the flame of the rose candle. Not in joyful anticipation, but with thought for La Virgen María de los Dolores, "Virgin Mary of Sorrows." When Patrick and I exiled ourselves to Mexico, it was the season of Lent, and there was a local fiesta dedicated to the sorrowful Mother, where people displayed elaborate house shrines to the Virgin, adorned with wheat grass and bitter oranges.

I was in fresh, raw grief at the time, mourning the end of my first marriage. It was the kind of grief that makes every breath an effort, a decision. It sounds very romantic to say I ran off to Mexico, but the truth is, I spent most of my days there in a fog. The Night of the Altars pierced it. Sorrow and loss was allowed. I wanted to gather all the oranges into my arms, bite them through their skins. I began to understand that the pain wouldn't let go of me until I clasped it first.

I sometimes think we haven't been able to gather in the pain of losing our parents. As they were going, our children were coming. There hasn't been time or space. In the case of Patrick's parents, I'm not sure we've ever come out of shock. Even my dad's death, more expected, still seems unreal. My mother and sister experience his absence nearly every day, but I only encounter it when I visit. I remember riding in the back of a car with my sister in front of me on the way to mom's from the airport a few years ago. My sister was saying, "When Dad died...," and I could hear this voice inside my head, asking "What did she say?"

My husband doesn't have the geographic disconnect, but he also manages to get around the gaping hole. We don't visit Patrick's parents' graves, a half-hour drive. We almost never get together with his brother's family, although our relationship with them is genuinely warm. Apart from Christmas cards exchanged with a steadfast few, we don't see or hear from relatives or friends of his parents. Patrick's never been back to the house his father sold soon after his mother died. It's as if the entire space they carved out in the world simply closed over.

Every year, my children's schools have a grandparents' day, and every year I have to scramble to come up with a substitute grandparent for them each. Once, the best I could do was get a co-worker they'd never met. The schools insist I come up with somebody. This year, I had someone lined up who they did know and love, but she got the dates mixed up, and missed. She felt terrible, and so did I, but in the middle of apologizing to them, I decided that they and I needed to accept reality. The reality, I told them, is that they only have one grandparent, and she lives 2,500 miles away, and it's very sad, but that's just the way it is. And grandparents' day is probably always going to be a drag because of it.

Sorrow and loss are allowed.

I have to tell myself that at the dinner table tonight when Patrick describes for the boys how deeply the presents would be piled under his tree. Oh, don't tell them that, I think. I don't want my children to feel lack. But they do lack, and it's not in presents. It's in three wonderful people who would have loved them unconditionally, and indulged them shamelessly, the way only grandparents can do. It's a huge hole in their lives, and no amount of wishful thinking on my part can smooth it over. Even my three year old, the only child to never meet any of them, understands that they are missing, and misses them.

I have to let him. Even if it means I have to miss them too.

Next advent, I want to sprout wheat grass, and find bitter oranges to decorate the mantle and the candle wreath, along with the nuts and pinecones. I need to teach my children and remind myself, even in the midst of joyful anticipation, that sorrow and loss are allowed.

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

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I'm in UR Mind, Stealing UR Ideas

I am working on a post about blogging as a legitimate art form, so we had best get this out of the way:



Patrick wants a Lolcat caption for it. Suggestions?

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

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Perhaps I Over-Reached



I caught a little sound clip from the new Apatow film Walk Hard (trailer above) the other day, an excerpt of a song called "Let's Du-et." I can't wait to see it. I adore the musical genre that number so lovingly mocked. Tammy & George. Dolly & Porter. June & Johnny. The hurtin'-er, the better.

A few years ago, I was driving somewhere with my middle son buckled in his car seat behind me, belting along for all I was worth to Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis' "When I Loved You." After the last note was unfurled from the very depths of my gut, there was a perfectly timed, delicate moment of silence. Then a little voice piped up from the backseat.

"Maaaybe you should just sing the Muffin Man."



If you or someone you know shares my fondness for Du-ing-Et, John Prine's tribute cd In Spite Of Ourselves is a must-have. "Let's Invite Them Over Again," featuring Iris Dement, is one of our favorites.

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

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Does Kodak Make a Safety Latch?

What I found on my camera this morning:



If these pictures tell a story, I don't want to know what it is.

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Monday, December 10, 2007

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How I Wonder



...If Santa can fly all over the world in one night, why can’t he bring everything on my boys’ list? They really have been good all year.

—from this week's Flawed But Authentic contribution

Also, you might look for my party piece at Monday night's annual Christmahanukwanzaakah Bloggers Concert.

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

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All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea

One of the first boxes I lug out of the attic in December is the one marked "Xmas Books and Video." Through Advent, I try to read the boys a Christmas story each night at bedtime. They usually open a new book on Christmas Eve, so over the years, we've built up a nice library. A really good childrens' book can be hard to find, and a really good Christmas book even harder, so I thought I'd share some of our favorites. I'd love for you to share yours in the comments, and please don't feel confined to the Christian holiday. We'd love to incorporate other winter celebrations into our Advent library.


Disclosure: I've used my Amazon associates account to build the links, so I can legally show you the images. If you click through and purchase anything, I do get a small referral fee. But I am sure you can find most of these titles just as easily at your independent bookseller or public library. So don't hate on me.

(I know, first with the advertising, now the product links. Where will it all end?)


The Baker's Dozen. This is a really charming folktale about a pre-revolutionary baker in New York, who encounters Saint Nicholas as a trickster and shape shifter, and gets taught a lesson in giving.

The Nativity. The text is straight out of the King James bible, and the illustrations are out of this world. The Holy Family have natty dreads, the angels are ragged and pot-bellied, Gabriel wears army boots, and the baby Jesus is anatomically correct. It is my hands-down favorite. Divinely inspired.

The Donkey's Dream. This beautiful book draws on symbol and myth. Even the text is dreamlike. Lots of imagery of the Sacred Feminine. Primes the wee ones for the Da Vinci code.

Christmas. I wish "Miffy" hadn't become so ubiquitous. It kind of takes some of the charm out of Dick Bruna's illustrations for me. But there are no rabbits or kittens in this book, and the story is told very simply, so it remains a favorite. I like how the people are all brown and black (except the angels who are colorless) and how Mary has a patch on her dress. Whoever the historical Jesus was, however he was born, we can be reasonably certain it wasn't to the Breck shampoo girl in flowing blue velvet robes.

Wombat Divine. Who doesn't love to say "wombat?" My school-age boys, who participate in the annual Christmas pageant, really like this antipodal perspective on auditions. When everyone tucks into the pudding at the end, I have to explain to them that it's likely a steamed pudding with raisins and hard sauce, the sort I grew up with, not the Jello kind, and they look thoroughly disgusted with me, like I just said we ate reindeer meat. Wait till they find out about flipper pie...

Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve? What would Christmas be without Jan Brett? We read The Mitten year-round, but this one we save for December. It's full of ugly little trolls, who get their comeuppance from a ravenous polar bear. Excellent therapy for bloggers.
The Snowman. Someone gave us this animated film the Christmas just before my second son was born. I will forever associate the musical score with the endless twilight of newborn time. The lovely thing about having babies in January is not feeling the need to go anywhere. I think the fact that this short, bittersweet film is without dialogue made me feel better about keeping it on more or less continuous loop for my then two-year old that entire winter.


Finally, one that comes handed down from my family in Newfoundland. I don't remember hearing it as a little girl, but every Christmas Eve after I became a teenager, my father would read to us A Child's Christmas in Wales. There are more lavishly illustrated editions to be had, but I favor the woodcut original. "A Child's Christmas in Wales is all about the language. Better to let the imagery roll in and wash over you. I highly recommend hearing the audio version recorded by Dylan Thomas himself, but by all means, read this one aloud yourself, with all the Welsh gusto you can muster, pint glass in hand. Do it year after year. You will find yourself quoting it forever, like bits of scripture. Can the fishes see it's snowing?

Okay, now your turn...

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

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Golden



Every shoe my children own is under their little table top tree. Saint Nicholas comes tonight.

I didn't celebrate the feastday of the Turkish bishop as a child growing up in Newfoundland, nor did Patrick in Little Rock. There are a few compensating charms to raising a family on this little raft of ours, stranded as we are from in-laws, grandparents, cousins and the like. Getting to make up our own traditions is one of them. Who's to tell us, "that's not how we do it?"

My mom's great-grandparents came from Denmark. Maybe they recognized the saint's day. I adopted it as a way of mediating between cultures. I gather it's changed now, but when I was a little girl back on the island, Christmas didn't get going until the week of Christmas. Here, it begins on Thanksgiving; the first week of December, at the latest. Also, it moves around. People say things like, "Oh we're having Christmas at my parents' house this weekend because my (insert faraway relation here) will be in town."

Now, that's fine for them. No judgment here. But for me, Christmas isn't a moveable feast. Christmas is Christmas. And if your loved ones can't be with you on December 25, you weep, and croon Bing Crosby, and make drunken long distance phone calls.

So on the eve of the 6th of December, the boys get to decorate their bedroom and put their shoes out, and I get another couple of weeks before I have to lug the rest of the boxes out of the attic.

I intended for our Saint Nicholas Day to be reality-based. Other Episcopalians who mark it tell me that honoring the historical Saint Nick can make for a softer landing when the kids let go of the make-believe one. But when mine found gold-wrapped chocolate coins in their shoes the first year, they said it must have come from St. Nicholas, and I had to respond in the same way I do to Christmas morning exclamations: with a great big smile. My kids make a believer out of me.

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Monday, December 03, 2007

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The Altar Guild



Shawn O'Hagan (dory painting); Jen Lemen (votive card)

Oh the sisters of mercy,
they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me
when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort
and later they brought me this song.
I hope you run into them,
you who've been travelling so long.
—L. Cohen

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

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It's How the Light Gets In



"There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"



On today's Flawed But Authentic contribution, I've written about my friends' wonderful, character-filled house.
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