Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire

I'm having trouble writing lately, or rather I'm writing things and not publishing them. I suspect many of my blogging friends are in the same boat, and that boat is full of elephants, and do we talk about those? Do we distract ourselves? What is the Right Thing?

I wrote about suicide a couple of weeks ago, in part to let people know I'm okay since I've come out of the suicidal ideation closet (I'M OKAY!), but what the whole thing boiled down to was "love is an active verb, not a commodity to be given, received, earned or deserved" and "what if all that REALLY matters in the end, when your heart is weighed against a feather or Saint Peter consults his heavenly Moleskine or whatever it is that happens, is how you treated other people?" *

It pretty much sounded like your stoned friend yammering at you somewhere between the bong and the biscuits, and so forever shall it remain unpublished, alas.

I also tried writing about one of those other elephants but THAT kept turning into a story about how my privileged, white, US-citizen daughter H was (and still is) completely and utterly fearless and how every time we took her to the emergency room, which was A LOT OF TIMES, I was terrified Child Protective Services would be called in to take her away from us, and how my very first thought when I woke up on the morning of her 18th birthday was, "Now no one can take her." And about the unbelievable relief I felt over that. Which had nothing at all to do with the horror of what is happening in this country and my state right now and, in fact, bordered on appropriation. So yeah.

Since last we spoke, C isn't doing so great, or rather he IS doing REALLY great but only because he currently has zero demands placed on him, WHICH ISN'T GREAT. I've stepped back my involvement with the food pantry to deal with this situation, also not great, and my dealing with it isn't going great because life keeps getting in the way, and I'm spending a lot of time feeling like I'm failing all the people I most definitely do not want to fail and then beating myself up over the fact that I'm beating myself up over that. This is what it's like to live in my brain. Now you know how surprised and delighted I was to make it to 50! (Fifty-one now!)

H moved out of our house again and I think/hope she's doing okay but I don't get to see or talk to her nearly as much as I would like (I would like EVERY DAY please). I miss her more this time than I did last time, what's up with that? I think I just want all my chicks in the nest.

P and I aren't traveling anywhere by plane this year as far as we know, and I am both relieved and disappointed. But mostly relieved. We're taking a couple of car trips this summer and fall, one to visit family and one to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and I don't know where we're going other than "west". For the second one, I mean. That first one is "east" until we hit beach.

I'm knitting a sweater, which is kind of a milestone for someone who up to now has knitted only shawls, scarves, cowls, socks, a few baby items and one ill-fitting hat. It's not at all appropriate for the current season but I've bought the yarn to knit another sweater that WILL BE appropriate for the current season except we're likely to be firmly into the NEXT season by the time I start it, but whatever, I knit sweaters now and I'm kind of excited about it.

I don't know what else to say. I hope you're all doing well. I'm surprisingly good in spite of it all. I'll try to write more often even if it's stupid.

* I'm pretty sure it IS the only thing that matters, and that I have a lot of work to do.

The close and holy darkness

Right, were'd we leave off? End of October?

In November H moved back home and we had Thanksgiving and H turned 20 and I had a bit of a moment over that what with her being my youngest and all. In December it snowed and we had Christmas and we didn't travel anywhere and it was nice.

And now you're all caught up.

Traditionally at the end of December I'd talk about all the books I'd read the previous year, but the truth is that in 2017 I didn't read a whole lot of new-to-me books. I DID re-read a whole lot of books I'd read before, I think because I needed the comfort of familiar words this year: all the Harry Potters, all of His Dark Materials, The Handmaid's Tale (not comforting, that last one, but I hadn't read it in decades and was due for a refresh).

I did manage to read a few new-ish ones, though, and these were my favorites in fiction: Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters, The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, News of the World by Paulette Jiles, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy by Rachel Joyce, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix, and The Good People by Hannah Kent.

Excellent nonfiction I read this year: Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup, Dark Money by Jane Meyer, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Washington's Nightmare by Scott B. Christmas, Lion by Saroo Brierley, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and I'm Just a Person by Tig Notaro.

Huh. I guess when you throw in all the three- and four-star books I read (only fives for you people, ONLY FIVES FOR YOU) and the re-reads, that DOES add up to kind of a lot of books for 2017. Well, hell. Go me! (That last photo is of some recent purchases. So far 2018 is looking pretty good, book-wise.)

Honestly I feel like I spent most of this year knitting. I made a little green scarf, a much bigger scarf in fall colors, my first completed pair of socks, a pair of socks for H, another pair for me, a very fun-to-knit hat, a cowl for my mom, and half of a mosaic shawl that I had to frog due to it being part of a poorly curated kit. Currently on the needles: a second attempt at said mosaic shawl (but this time with MUCH more suitable yarn), the second of my first-ever pair of toes-up socks, and a cowl I'll probably never finish if I'm being honest because the pattern is kind of boring and I'm not loving the yarn, oof.

I'm not making resolutions for the new year, but I do have two hopes. Just two. First, I hope I can be a vessel for and an instrument of Grace, and by Grace I mean Love and Compassion and Kindness. (My concept of the Divine is pretty broad and as a result it's unlikely that I believe in and revere your specific god, but I do believe in and revere these things.) Second, I hope I can see and recognize Grace in other people. That's all. If I can do that, at least most of the time, I think I'll be doing okay.

Happy New Year to you, my friends! Here's to the resisters and the fighters, the peacekeepers and the healers, the carers and the thinkers and the dreamers and the hopers. Here's to the innovators and the implementers. Here's to us.

A conversation with my parents yesterday afternoon

Dad: Has your mom committed random acts of decoration on you yet?
Me: Um, do what now?
Dad: You know how people decorate trees on the roadside this time of year?
Me: Yes.
Dad: Well, your Mom does that with other people's houses.
Me (to Mom): You what?
Mom: I have too much stuff, so I've been taking little things from our house and leaving them at other people's houses. Kind of blending them in with the decor.
Me: ...?
Mom: Just little things. Like refrigerator magnets.
Me: You bring magnets to people's houses and put them on their refrigerators?
Mom: Yeah.
Me: I have OCD. Don't do that to me. I'll either notice right away or it'll drive me insane.
Mom: I stuck one to Lucy's* fridge weeks ago and she still hasn't noticed. I might have to start doing it with bigger things.
Me: Wait, hang on. You actually bring stuff from your house to other people's houses and just leave it there without them knowing?
Mom: Yes. And then I take something!

* Names have been changed to protect the victims. If you're a friend of my mom's and you're thinking Lucy might be you, you're probably right. Check your fridge. And maybe your valuables, although I'm like 98% sure she was kidding about that last bit.