I'm here. But I'm over there.

Check the new blog for updates. It's just easier to post once. Time at a premium. Miss you all!!

-- edited for content --

The journey begins, slowly.

-- edited for content --

The drama of getting to DC is not a harbinger of how the rest of the trip will go.

Apparently I booked my flight to D.C. via Reagan instead of Dulles, from whence the rest of the trip commences. Yay, me! :-(

Also apparently, we took a two-hour flight from Omaha to Washington just so we could hang out for three hours on the tarmac at Reagan. (At least I got to D.C. We were the last flight accepted before they closed the airport. The wrong airport.)

Then about an hour’s wait, in freezing drizzle, for one of a handful of cabs working in the storm. I was lucky, actually, to latch on to a local going to Virginia; she talked her driver into getting me to my hotel near Dulles. The drive took nearly another hour because of the storm.

But you know, standing on line for the taxis, and then on the (expensive!) drive between airports, the smells in the air (noxious fumes, stale food, cold and dirty rain) reminded me so much of landing in Delhi four years ago. It was oddly comforting, and made me wonder what Africa will smell like. And a lovely cab driver, from Ethiopia, eager to talk about their military troops' recent foray into Somalia.

-----------------------

The sendoff.

-- edited for content --

Miz K took some lovely photos Friday evening ...

I kick ass at K's Africa trivia contest!

Wait a sec, I gotta write that down ...

Two too cool photogs ...

The lovely Miz K herself ...

Pohl lols ...

Mark teaches the art of seduction ...

Today I am a lot dehydrated and only a little embarrassed (hey! I only fell once* ... that most of you know of, anyway ...) and finally packed. (*AJ's comment: "You, fall down? No:-P)

Leave tomorrow. I'll miss Yia-Yia's ... and y'all, por supuesto!

Travelblog.

-- edited for content --

I’ve set up a separate blog to share my trip. You may be on my email notification list for that as well.

It’s not linked with this blog in any way, because I’ll be sharing it with family, coworkers and other people I don’t necessarily want to attract here!

Time permitting, I’ll post the same stuff here as well, along with any juicy tidbits I don’t feel comfortable sharing with family/coworkers. But if you don’t see anything here for awhile, you might check the other blog as well.

My journey begins Sunday. I’ll keep you posted!

Changing minds, one 8-year-old at a time.

-- edited for content --

My niece Emma, aka The Divine Miss Em (does anyone get that but me? I wonder), calls to ask how many boxes of Girl Scout cookies I wish to order. Note that: Not whether I want to place an order, but how big an order I wish to place. Is it too cheesy to say she's one smart cookie?

I confirm that I've burned some more Diana Krall CDs for her (beware the grade-schooler who's already into torch singers!), and we make a lunch date for Saturday so I can pass them on to her before I leave on my trip.

"To ***!" she says.

That's right.

"***'s a bad place."

Who told you that?

"I just know it. Somebody told me. My teacher told me."

We discuss. Yes, there are some bad things happening in ***, but there are good things, too. Yes, there are animals. Zebras? I don't know. Tigers? I think so. Eight-year-old girls, definitely. I promise to bring back visual documentation. And I volunteered to speak to her class, because whatever I bring back I mean to show her teacher, or whoever told her ***'s a "bad place," the one lesson we are meant to learn in this life -- that we are all far more alike than we are different.

Do I need to learn PowerPoint to talk to a roomful of second-graders?

------------------------

Quote of the day: (yep, they're back!)

“In the particular is contained the universal.” – James Joyce

Juxtapositioning.

I'm reading Alice Walker's latest essay collection, "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For." One concept in particular has stuck with me:

"I believe there should be a moratorium on the birth of children. That not one more child should be born on this planet until certain conditions are met."

The short version of her conditions being that we can manage the well-being of those children, of the children (including us adults) already here, and of the many other life forms inhabiting this planet, a life form of its own.

Jarring, in that context, to learn about researchers preparing for the first uterus transplant, so that infertile women can experience childbirth. The uteri (?) would come from corpses, and would be removed again after childbirth to avoid the need for lifelong antirejection drugs.

How much money has been funneled into this little experiment? How many existing children could it have supported?

Millions are going unfed and unloved while we waste precious and finite resources at an ever-escalating rate. A weak (under)estimate is that 6.5 billion of us (and growing) are currently walking the earth, beating it down and heating it up and sucking it dry.

Amid world crises of hunger, drought and deadly conflict, we choose to spend billions playing with unnecessary research, from uterus transplants to space exploration; on ever-record-breaking salaries and bonuses for CEOs of sinking ships; on megalomaniacal interjections that kill plenty (34,000 in Iraq last year alone, the U.N. says) but hardly enough to balance the globe's ever-burgeoning population. We spend billions on foreign wars and foreign oil, yet refuse to drop our relative pocket change in the bucket of family planning organizations that could help stanch the world's hemmoragghing growth rate.

I'm not a mother. Biologically, the odds (physical and preferential) are great that I never will be. So I come from a different mindset than that of the majority.

However, I cannot for the life of me comprehend why a woman would rather take in a dead sister's uterus, at great physical and financial cost, to bear a child of her "own," when she could instead bear joyous responsibility for what we, collectively, have already conceived.

------------------------------------

My frustrating, self-imposed censorship on writing about anything of real importance in this world is already disintegrating. How long will I hold out? Place your bets …

Miss Cellanea.

GASP!

Miz K just informs me that Jolie Holland's at Knickerbockers Thursday night. "Poor Girl Blues" is one of my theme songs ... so grateful to Jeff @ O'Rourke's for turning me on to her. Can I afford a $12 cover? Yes, I think I can. Can you???

----------------------

My weekend in tacticle experiences, using the letter "S":

Solitary: Another weekend in voluntary self-confinement thanks to the snow. It was lovely, quiet -- though I did hate missing book group, even though I hadn't read the book.

BliSS: The best part of solitary was an hourlong bubble bath. I have the world's best bubblebath tub: Deep and cast iron, so it holds the heat forever and covers me completely, or nearly -- nothing showing but nipples and knees.

Snow: Big, light, fluffy flakes this morning, pouring down like a constant stream of confetti. Drier than the last storm, so easy to push to the perimeter. Yesterday's lighter flakes perfect for walking through the 'hood. Everything looks cleaner, sounds quieter, under a think blanket of snow.

Soup: In the end, it was gelatinous blob that couldn't really be called soup. Good practice, though. The flavors melded nicely; the rice and lentils just kept sopping up the liquid without getting close to al dente. I have some ideas for adaptation; need to run them by William and Miz K. Not a failure, but a lesson!

Sonata: Alarmingly wide awake in the middle of the night, I took another of those pills to get back to sleep. And had another hallucinogenic experience. It seems to be a combination of sleep aid with late-night laptop use. Such pretty, pulsating colors, and a feeling of being on a very slow, child-size roller coaster. I'm aware enough not to be scared by it; though should I be scared that I find it somewhat entertaining? (This may not seem to count as tactile, but I'm telling you the 3-D colors leaping out of my laptop *seemed* as if I could not only touch them, but walk right through them. Like a wall of PowerGel.)

Sera Cahoone: Surely a voice so sweet it hurts your heart can also count as a tactile experience?

Sensation: Well ... not everything ought to be blogged about ... but in the end the weekend wasn't entirely solitary after all ...

----------------------

Leave for Nigeria a week from today. It'll be rewarding, I know, but also hectic. Grateful for this quiet and introspective weekend. But think we should all plan an outing for next weekend!

A fan letter.

I owe huge debts to columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, enough so that I want to track down an address for her and thank her properly, like a slobbery groupie hanging around backstage, hoping for just a glimpse of Mick's sweaty spandex.

Just finished reading "Buying the Night Flight," a rather dated (last updated mid-90s) memoir of her years as a foreign correspondent and columnist. She started in the early '60s, at a time when women just didn't do that kind of thing. After proving herself by traveling with the post-Che guerrillas in Guatemala, she still had to beg to be sent to cover an in-the-end minor revolution in the Dominican Republic. Too dangerous for a lady, her editor told her. Tell you what: If you're hell-bent on covering foreign conflict, I'll send you to Vietnam.

She's covered Cuba under Castro. The near-resolution of the Palestinian conflict. The height and death of the Cold War. She coaxed previously untold information out of Fidel, Arafat, Sadat, Saddam -- all precisely because she was a woman. They trusted her as they did not her male counterparts -- and repeatedly told her so. She listened. She made them feel safe. I doubt the same is true today; it likely was more a reflection of the cultural identity of the times than some intrinsic gender difference. But what an original tool to have held in her grasp! She recognized it, and she worked it. That may sound base, but I find it practical.

In addition to her work as a groundbreaking journalist, she was of that generation that paved the way for the kind of life I am fortunate to live so casually today. She, and others like her, managed to break the mold of marriage/motherhood/loss of self as the only accepted model for women to live by. To love freely, to follow one's professional passion, to live beyond accepted boundaries ... while she wasn't exactly a social pariah, with a scarlet A on her blouse, she was a social question mark. People simply didn't know what to make of her. Thanks to the trail she blazed, I can live however I wish -- and alter that life, as I wish.

Yet after reading this collection (it gets a bit self-congratulatory at the end, though the chapters on how she covered various world conflicts are fascinating), I also realize that I could never permanently live the life of a foreign correspondent. It sounds romantic -- the travel! the escapades! -- but in reality, it has to be a drive, a passion above all others. One doesn't cultivate a garden, or a home, or little hobbies, or lifelong friendships (much less a relationship) in a life on the road. I don't have that drive to put one passion above all the others. I prefer to taste a little bit of everything.

She's still writing, at 70-something, by the way:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucgg/20070112/cm_ucgg/incongruousmovesfallintoplaceforbushsnextsurge

-----------------------

All I remember of this morning's dream is that family was floating through it -- my father, my Grampy (my mom's dad). I was asked to make the salad, but when I got the bag out of the fridge all of the "good" -- young, crisp, sweet little green and purple leaves -- fixings were gone, and all that was left were wedges of dreaded iceburg and thick, water raddichio (not a fan of the raddichio). Then Grampy gave me a fresh new head of leaf lettuce, and I saw that it was good, and plentiful, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of tearing it up into salad bites (lazy, much?), and also it didn't "go" with the existing leaves.

I did go to sleep last night making a mental note to check the lettuce before I run errands today, see if it needs replacing ...

-----------------------

Closing out my current journal today. Usually I fill a 250-page, 7x11, unlined, recycled-products book in a month, two tops. This one has been in my hands for an embarrassing three months, a long stretch that went unannoted (and thus invalidated?). Not a good sign -- failure to journal generally means distancing myself from my own emotions, and that can't be a good thing. Best to stay connected at least with oneself.

I still journal in longhand, partly because I'm romantically attached to the Dickinsonian (?) nature of it, the wild-haired madwoman in the attic scrawling away with abandon, and partly because I have found that it forces epiphanies to the surface, out of my arm, my wrist, into the ink and onto the page. I cannot write quickly enough to keep up with my thoughts, which can be frustrating, and yet I am more often than not surprised by what comes out of me when I just keep going, keep hand connected to paper.

This particular journal was launched with two rather disparate quotes I'd found at the time:

"Man has not one and the same life. He has many lives, placed end to end, and that is the cause of his misery." -- Chateaubriand

and

"I don't want my tombstone to read: 'She kept a clean house.'" -- Ann Richards

What shall be the theme of my next volume? Maybe this:

"Follow your love. There is no other happiness." -- Georgie Anne Geyer

-----------------------

Snow days. At their best (when not overwhelming, as on New Year's Eve), they are a welcome, forced slowdown. I can still get out today -- to run a few errands, go to the gym -- but I expect less of myself than I otherwise might. It's not lazy but practical to stay inside, curled up with a book, watching white fall from the sky. If it stays this light and fluffy, maybe a walk later, maybe by twilight. And I plan to make soup, a first for me.

Are you missing anything?

-- edited for content --

A few days ago, I thought I saw a crumpled piece of blue paper in the street in front of my house. A day later, I realized it's a pair of panties -- a thong, pale blue with black lace. The next day, it had migrated from the curb to the edge of the driveway. Tonight I get home and see someone has helpfully placed them smack-dab in the middle of my lawn. Which either means that some judgmental adult on the block thinks they're mine and is calling attention to my slutty divorcee ways ... or that one of their children actually was playing with skanky used panties found in the street. Either way, it was too damn cold tonight to go find a stick long enough to collect them and drop them in the trash. Blegh.

--------------------

Africa news alert of the day:

The Gates Foundation is well known for funding global health programs, especially AIDS education and other disease treatment/prevention in African countries. But check this out:

"The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe."

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-gatesx07jan07,1,6935188.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true

---------------------

Just found out one of my Oaxaca friends is about to leave for a Peace Corps posting in Paraguay. I'm intensely jealous; it's nearly all I can think about the past few days. I've thought about it off and on for years now, stopped by a combination of fear of change and dread of being associated, in any way, with the current regime/government.

But I still daydream about it. I think I'm past the fear ... think I could actually do this. And one of the coolest things about the semi-official trip to India in '03 was surprising people with the idea that not all Americans support the president.

When I get back from my trip, I think, I'll seek out the Omaha recruiter.

Anyone know anyone who's served in the Corps? I'd love to have some contacts.

The cranky Good Samaritan.

-- edited for content --

Gave blood this morning – the Africa trip means I’ll be banned for at least a year, so I wanted to give it one last shot, so to speak. I’m O negative, which means anyone can use my blood (yeah, I’m easy that way), so I feel like I ought to do it even though I hate it. Usually I’m a gusher, but this time she nicked me and so I bled too slowly and started clotting before I filled the bag, so they can’t use it. And another lovely bruise to boot!

--------------------------------------

Got a very preliminary itinerary for the trip yesterday. Too many meetings with “officials” and not enough reality, imo. A tentative meeting with the current president. And though we’re only two days in Lagos, a visit to the slum communities on the lagoon. That afternoon and evening are supposedly free, so maybe I could indeed spend some time with a family who lives there? Though we leave “early morning” the next day by bus for Kaduna and Kano.

And another kidnapping at an oil rig in Port Harcourt today. And though we are not going into the delta, for obvious safety reasons, they are trying to set up a meeting with oil industry reps. But oughtn’t we try equally hard to meet with someone from the militants’ side – or at least with the residents of the delta who, while the world sucks away their valuable natural resources, barely subsist without agriculture or potable water or decent housing, much less such luxuries as education or job opportunites?

Read the Vanity Fair piece by Sebastian Junger: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/02/junger200702

--------------------------------------

More travel fantasies: The school where I “studied” espanol in Oaxaca has new rates – only $75 a week for group lessons. I’m sure they, like the rest of the city’s tourist-based society, have suffered greatly from the government-induced violence of this summer and fall.

http://www.instculturaloax.com.mx/

I daydream regularly about going down there again – a road trip, this time, as the only real expense in’04 was the $1,000 plane fare. I suppose it was idyllic mostly because it was such an escape from “real” life – no job, no stress, few money worries, the true escape of not even being able to understand the cacophony of noises surrounding you. Would all that translate to a more permanent move? I wonder …

I'm embarrassed to share this.

-- edited for content --

OK, analyze this dream: I am wandering through a large, multi-storied house – apparently my house – after a snowstorm has isolated me there. I am waiting for my lover, who turns out to be some floating combination of a former boss and an adorable little Indian man who’s a friend of a friend of a friend – neither of which I’m remotely interested in in real life. We are wandering separately through this house, coming together and then losing the connection, repeatedly, until finally we are there, together, for real.

He leans in to kiss me, and as he does he’s morphed again – into Cindy Lange-Kubick.

Who I’m also not remotely interested in. Honest.

And who was one of the first faces I saw this morning. I felt so embarrassed I couldn’t make eye contact.

-------------------------

Miz K’s new issue of Vanity Fair has an article I can’t wait to read. “Is Nigeria the next Iraq?” the cover blurb blares. The piece focuses on the militants trying to take back the country’s natural resources from the oil industry – or at least debilitate the industry itself. There’s also a good piece on the nation’s overwhelming poverty and overpopulation in a November issue of the New Yorker. Strange how the world is starting to pay attention just as I’m about to embark on this trip – or is it I who have only begun to pay attention?

-------------------------

Sending love, support and a big salute to Miz N of the Big O, who is embarking on a big new journey of her own. I see great things ahead for you, darling! Will write more when I get a chance.

Over consumption.

As in, I am so over all this consumption!

I spent Saturday afternoon in a desperate and futile search for lightweight, long skirts for the trip. Not exactly the kind of thing one finds in Nebraska in January. (I’m told that the country Im visiting, which is 50% Muslim pants are acceptable on foreign women but frowned upon, and no short skirts. What classifies as short? Need to put the question out to my international-traveling friends … are pants really not cool? Is below the knee long enough for a skirt?) Blegh. I still have mall rash from Saturday’s escapade. Buying things I neither want nor need, with money I don’t really have – hey, it’s the American Way!

And now I think I’ve officially killed my iPod, and this just makes me angry. Three hundred dollars and not even three years old, and I'm told it's not “worth the trouble” to fix – just buy a new one, lady. I remember when I was a kid (WARNING! OLD FOGEY RANT ALERT!) if something broke, there was someone to fix it. You didn’t just go buy a new TV, toaster, calculator – you had it repaired. It wasn’t ending up as electronic toxic waste in India or Nigeria, polluting someone else’s kids. We’ve accepted/created a throwaway society in which expensive toys are no longer luxuries but necessities, and we’re well trained not to even expect them to last. Yet here I am playing along.

On the other hand, I happily binged on a bunch of new music yesterday, much of which I haven’t even listened to yet.
Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar (I’d been meaning to get this for a while; innovative jazz, pared-down yet still sounds multilayered)
Sera Cahoone, self-titled (folky/indie chick with a simply lovely voice and a kickass drummer)
M.. Ward, Post-War (lushly orchestral indie singer-songwritery (the fantabulous Neko Case shows up here, and I think Cahoone does, too; also, he produced Jenny Lewis’ solo debut)
Be Your Own Pet, self-titled (screamin’ girlie punk from Nashville, I think; this’ll kickstart my a.m. gym workouts … WHEN I get a new iPod!)
Lilys, A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (they had a new recording out last year, but I like this 12-year-old EP better! Usually compared with My Bloody Valentine)

And Miz K scored me some Joanna Newsom and some other cool stuff!

I’d have created links to iTunes, but I don’t know how. :-(

In pursuit.

My sister-in-law took me to a movie tonight. "The Pursuit of Happyness." Advice? Not the feel-good flick to go to if you're already feeling a little shaky in the solar plexus. I mean, you know from the commercials that the happy ending's a-comin', but the thing takes you on a hell of a wild chase for it -- and, as Paige pointed out, about two hours of heartwrenching to about 30 seconds of happy. Not a wise emotional expenditure in the name of entertainment, if you ask me.

But then, I can be overly susceptible -- to film, to music, to 32 ounces of free late-night caffeine, to life.

-------------------

On the drive downtown, Paige was telling me about the little household drama she'd just had, putting the kids to bed. They were excited about going swimming at the Y tomorrow. But Emma was emphatic that they leave baby Ryan with Nana. Paige said, Oh, no, we'll bring him with us. Emma seemed resigned; but later, Paige could hear her crying in bed -- and knew she was meant to hear.

She went in and sat on the bed and let Emma talk. (I'd assumed it was because Miz Em didn't want to share the spotlight, but I was 180 degrees wrong.) She'd worked it up to the worst-case scenario: Paige would drop the baby, or forget him, and he couldn't swim, and so he would drown. She was beside herself in tears, able to calm down only when Paige managed to point out that maybe there could be a very different outcome: That she had taught Emma to swim, and Chip, and hadn't dropped either of them even once, and that it would be Ryan's first time in the pool and maybe, instead of drowning, he'd have a wonderful time and love the water as much as she does.

I see so much of my young self in my niece. We both overthink a situation; we both keep our emotions closer to the surface than the people around us. It is instructive to watch the possibility of a different outcome, of having a parent who might be able to explain rationally to her, and help her to calm herself down, instead of screaming at her that life is not a soap opera and she'd *better* stop crying.

Miz K talked me down off a similar ledge today, but I can't seem to hold on to her wise words, can't even hear my own over a panic-pounding heart. I'm so quick to go to the worst-case scenario. I too often can't see the joy of the water, only the possibility of drowning.

-------------------

Walking back to the car after the movie, we came upon a young thing crying, her truck pulled only halfway out of P Street traffic, asking if she could borrow our phone. I let her. She couldn't get an answer and didn't know what to do. It sounded as if her battery had died. She was shivering in those tank tops college girls will wear, coatless and probably drunk, in the dead of winter, so I draped my coat around her, had her put the truck in neutral and shoved her into a parking space. Then we drove her down to Chatterbox, where I mediated between her and a friend who apparently was the truck's owner -- also drunk, also crying, something about being kicked out of her house that morning. We all agreed we'd had a damn shitty day, I talked them down, told them all they needed was a sober friend with jumper cables, and left them to their own devices.

I just wanted so much to be able to help someone else today. I'm not sure I did ... but the little episode, like the film, was a good reminder that a situation can be as big, or as manageable, as one chooses to make it.

And so I keep practicing on managing myself.

Something lives in my yard.

Came home from a (self-inflicted) rather trying day, to find this creature in the front lawn. I assume it's the work of the little darlings next door ... but who knows? WIth the snow melting so quickly, it's almost as if it emerged out of nowhere. Whatever it's supposed to be (a snowman with cat ears?), it made me laugh ...

Bottle rocket.

Just making sure I can post photos. This is from New Year's Eve ... some smartass referred to it as my "bottle cock."

I want to go slumming.

The more I read about Nigeria, the less prepared I feel for this looming trip. I have tons of extremely vague story ideas, and mostly a zenlike (or is it lazy?) sense that I will just have to wait and see what opportunities I stumble into. It's a short, formal and likely extremely regimented visit; any time to go off and do my own thing will be quite limited.

But I've gotten into my head the idea that I must figure out a way to spend a night in one of Lagos' slum cities.

Lagos is Nigeria's major port city and former capital. With 15 million people (skyrocketing from 300,000 in 1950), it's the world's sixth largest urban area -- and it's expected to rise to No. 3, behind only Tokyo and Mumbai, by 2015. This is not a milestone to aim for. The majority of those millions of people are living off the official grid, in self-constructed slum cities with no government oversight -- and thus no sewers, no water, no regulations, no protections, and no guarantees.

I saw plenty of slum cities when I was in Delhi back in '03. If there was a square foot of space, at least one family was living on it. Medians of every thoroughfare were crowded with shacks made of corrugated tin, cardboard boxes, plastic tarps. Imagine living in a homemade tent on the grassy strip separating westbound and eastbound Highway 2 -- with at least 10 times the traffic -- and conducting your business, whether it's barbering, dentistry or panhandling, from your front door. About a billion people throughout the "developing" world live like this -- and that number is expected to double within 20 years.

Nigeria provides something like 8 percent of the world's crude oil; oil exports brought $50 billion into the country in 2005. But the average Nigerian lives on about $1 a day. The oil money doesn't trickle back into the economy, creating jobs or government assistance; it's all industry and government kickbacks and corruption. There are no jobs, there are just people, millions and millions of people. That's why the booming business in kidnappings and siphoning ... not to mention the internet financial scams for which the country is so well known. Everyone's gotta make a buck -- at least -- every day.

And what's that buck gonna buy you? Not a home; not a trip to the grocery store; not government services like street repairs or police protection. Not even the security of knowing your home will be there when you return in the evening.

No one lives in a slum when any other option is available to them. And the only way to truly understand that is to experience it. I think it's a doable idea, if I can meet a fixer we can trust. I hope I get the chance.

---------------------

On a more mundane note, I'm trying to decide whether to change my return ticket and fly back the night of Feb. 1 -- with less than four hours between our return from Frankfort and the last flight to Omaha, and having to clear customs and allow for any delays on the international leg, that might be a tad risky -- or go ahead and book a ridiculously overpriced hotel room in DC that night.

-------------------

On an even more mundane note, I fell a second time this evening, in front of my own garage door, on the same cushy cheek that's already blooming with a charming bruise from this morning's fall.

ouch.

Out of the house (for the first time in two days) for all of 15 minutes, and I've already fallen on my ass.

I can feel a lovely bruise developing on my tailbone.

On the up side, at least I have someone to show it to later!

New year, new blog

The new year, an ending and a beginning. Or is it? Why is it we believe this day, in particular, brings the opportunity for a fresh start? I know little about the origins of the Gregorian calendar, but I assume it is linked to the change in seasons. Why, then, is winter solstice -- when daylight begins to grow again -- not the day the world turns over and begins anew? Or, even better, the spring equinox -- much more symbolic of rebirth?

I don't know. I just know that it's always refreshing, the idea of starting over, and so why not now?

Quote of the day, and every day (thanks to he who shared it with me!):

"Every day you must say to yourself, 'Today I am going to begin.'" -- Jean Pierre de Caussade

Or a wordier version, a constant reminder posted throughout my snowbound little house:

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” -- Emerson

-------------------------------

Today has been spent, after saying goodbye to last night's last guest, in solitude -- the welcome kind. I have picked up the detritus of last night's gathering. I have washed dishes (another fresh start, like the promise of a new year or a blank sheet of paper). Laundry (if not a fresh start, at least a fresh-smelling one). I have napped (oh, the decadence of a midafternoon nap when one has already slept well!). I have stood in the window, examining in detail the tangled blanket of snow draped over my backyard. I have repaid the relative who dared to break the new year's silence by calling at an ungodly 10:30 a.m., by returning his call during "the" game. (Apparently, "we" are losing.) I have read with the abandon of a day that brings no obligations. I have stared into space. A day well spent.

-------------------------------

The New York Times website today has a couple of op-ed pieces on new year's resolutions. One citing two types of resolutions: "those that are reasonable, and those that are not." The supreme example of the type that is not reasonable: the resolution to be happy. Yet isn't that the reason behind any resolution, behind any human drive? First, to survive; then, to be ... well, if not happy, at least content. Yet we can't will ourselves so; "happiness has a knack for indirection, coming in the middle of the most ordinary day or disappearing at the height of one’s career. It is a matter of luck, almost of grace, a visitor who enters the house unexpectedly and vanishes on tiptoe."

I was joking, last week, about making a certain resolution -- something I rarely do, at least not linked to January 1 -- and a friend asked why I would set myself up for disappointment, suggesting that's exactly what resolutions do. It's a good point.

Maybe not resolutions, then, so much as a "wish list" of things I could and can give myself:

I wish to be kinder to myself, more forgiving. I wish to be healthier, in the foods I ingest, the physical activities I undertake, in the people I share my time with and the outlook I adopt. I wish to stop looking backward, and I think I am finally ready. I especially wish to let go of the time-wasters so easily succumbed to in daily life, and give myself up to what I really want to do in the moment -- whether it's to write more or to meditate or to simply lie here and *be*.

And yes, maybe it's too big, but I wish to find what I'm looking for out of life, or at least the next incarnation, and I'm not afraid to say that of *course* I'm iso happiness, wherever it may pop up, in moments large or small. Plenty of reasons to be optimistic, I think.

-------------------------------

Don't know why I feel compelled to start another blog. Why does anyone? What could anyone have to say that hasn't been said, and who do we hope will hear it? It seems I remember someone saying that each writer is writing only for a future him/herself ... or maybe that was just something I told myself.

I had good reasons for abandoning the last one, and I'm leery of my abilities to resist temptation in avoiding those old pitfalls. Maybe this is a test of strength ... or maybe one of priorities.

Or maybe I am just like all of the other billions searching for a voice, yearning to be heard, for to be heard is to be acknowledged, and perhaps even understood.

This time of year, with its long, slow, dark evenings, and especially now under a heavy white drapery that forces us to slow down, gives us time to think. Not such a bad time for new beginnings.