Wishes of Happy New Year, on Twelfth Night
The problem with falling out of habit is that it’s so easy to stay there. It has been some time since I’ve posted. My monkey mind is crying that there are many, many things on which to spend time and attention, most notably a very engaging novel. I will resist its siren call, however, and instead throw myself back into writing.
Guilt nibbles at the back of my consciousness; perhaps I should be attending to another habit that’s been lying fallow for longer–my yoga practice. Alas, it must continue to wait. There are also the matters of thank-you notes and holiday un-decoration. I forget exactly who is was that once said that Twelfth Night is a good deadline for these tasks–my high-school algebra teacher, I think. I agree that it’s a good goal, but I’m not sure I’m going to hit it this year.
Our wee family took a quick jaunt to mid-Ohio to visit my parents for New Year’s day. Power had been restored the day before we arrived; they had been without since the storm the week before. Mid-Ohio was a mess–trees split and down everywhere. Minnesota gets a bad rap, weather-wise, but in my nearly seven years here, I have not seen the kind of winter devastation that Ohio is digging, chopping and sawing its way out of right now.
G. Grod and I spent New Year’s Eve with my parents, sister and brother-in-law eating good pizza, playing poker and watching some of the Law and Order: SVU marathon. I continue not to love L & O, and am sad for Jerry Orbach’s passing, but I enjoyed bits of the marathon in any case. On New Year’s Day, we ate pork and sauerkraut for good fortune, the latter of which is one of the few vegetables that our sixteen-month old son, Drake, will condescend to eat.
In spite of its short duration, our trip allowed us to see many friends, family and even to meet a new baby. It was a good beginning to 2005.
Lots happened in 2004. I resigned to stay home with Drake, we sold our condo, bought a house and moved, during which time Drake and I had two extended visits to family during our real-estate transactions. I was a winner at Nanowrimo with 50 thousand words of novel #2. My husband was laid off from his job in November. His brother came to visit during December, managing the impressive feat of staying four weeks and still having us be sad to see him go.
Two things stand out for me. One, Drake was not yet crawling when we began to look at houses; he was walking confidently when we moved into one. The transition out of our condo and into this house was a long one, during which all three of us developed and grew.
The second is my most distinct experience from 2004. In May, I flew to England for a friend’s wedding, leaving Drake, whom I was still nursing, home in Minnesota with my husband G. Grod. I pumped my breasts while I was away so that Drake could still nurse when I returned. Midway through the nine-hour flight home, I had just begun to pump in the lavatory when we hit turbulence; the light came on saying I must return to my seat. What a way to go, I thought, hooked up to a milking machine over the Atlantic. As calmly as I could, I disengaged myself, powered down, cleaned up, gathered myself and my things and returned to my seat. The turbulence passed, I returned to the lavatory, though more trepidatious than before, and I completed my task, lactating in the face of adversity.
That experience feels emblematic for a year that was full of difficult, bizarre, funny, scary, yet mundane experiences that I couldn’t possibly have imagined in advance. I’m hoping for a smoother ride this year.