Monthly Archives: December 2016

Going “home” for Christmas

30 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Dreaming, Gratitude, Grief, Traditions

≈ 1 Comment

I spent Christmas 2016 in Santa Fe with all three of my adult children and their families, plus some of their extended families (in-laws, cousins), and my brother. I have spent the last three Christmases now with some of my kids, but this was the first time we have all been together in over 2 years, and it’s maybe 10 years since we all celebrated Christmas together.  I am adapting to the holidays without Kevin, but it’s not just about having distractions to keep me from thinking about him.  I found more of me this year, which I suppose is another step along my grief path to the rest of my life .  It was an awesome holiday vacation, and they just keep getting better.

family-2016

I lived in Santa Fe for 17 years as a young woman, wife and mother. We moved there when our daughter was 2 months old, and both of our boys were born there.  I’ve been back a few times since I left over 20 years ago, especially since the youngest son moved back there. When I left, it was a few years after my divorce from my kids’ dad, who still lives there.  I had always struggled to fit in, never quite feeling like I belonged there; not unaccepted but not embraced.  It was always a nice enough place to visit after the divorce, yet I never wanted to move back.  But now I think about it, partly because I have found some peace within myself about that the relationship he and I used to have and the one we have now.  Now I am more sensitive to the shortness of a life span, more aware of what makes me happy, more interested in thinking and being than doing. This trip I even went to see him for a few minutes and wish him and his girlfriend a Happy New Year.  (It wasn’t creepy; she had already given me a Christmas present, and my kids and brother were there also.)  How I feel about him is fodder for another story someday. Suffice it to say that I can now appreciate my own life differently.

Anyway, in these intervening years, I went back to college and completed a both an undergrad and graduate degree. I moved three more times, always for more progressive employment opportunities. I married and buried a second husband. I lost both my parents and a stepmother. I have traveled to nearly all 50 states, and been to Europe, Canada, and Jamaica. I learned how to drive a motorcycle, and I adopted two furry four-legged boys. I have read probably a thousand books. I’m now starting my own business. In other words, I have expanded my world view significantly, reprioritized my life a few times, and changed a lot. I like myself and the life I have created, and I have released old ideas of who I was and what my role was supposed to be. I had more confidence about this visit to Santa Fe than I have ever had.

I

kids-2016

Gabe & Kelsyn, Renae & Andrew, Tino & Jenna Olivia, Ava, Isla, Mayzie, & Nikos

 

always hate to leave my kids and tear up when it’s time to say our goodbyes.  I fantasize about moving to be with them all the time.  I scope out real estate ads and contemplate other job options. I daydream about a Waltons kind of close family (ironically, Waltons Mountain is here in Virginia). I imagine the kids think about it some, too, for me.

 

And then when I get on the plane, I feel myself relax, already anticipating the peace and quiet of my own home, with my own stuff around me, making the mental move back to my regular life. The freedom of not having to be in full-on parental mode and the independence of coming and going as I please without having to be accountable to anyone else.  When I get in the door, I breathe a sigh that comes from deep within and says “you’re home now.”  Is it the lure of Virginia and my house? I don’t think so; it’s my lifestyle. Which is portable. As am I. Portable, I mean. I would bet the kids are also happy to get back to their own lives.

I don’t think I am ready to move, and for sure the idea of packing and doing all it would take to make another cross-country move is daunting. So it’s time for a little transition or compromise of sorts on my part.  One easy thing I can do is to initiate more contact with my kids by phone and email, or preferably by Face-time or Skype. I also can re-evaluate my budget and see about more trips to see them. Although I whined that my flight yesterday left at 6 am, I was home by 2:30 local time, so a bit less than an 8 hour trip door to door. I have driven further than that and not been anywhere! I also introduced a tiny bit more Santa Fe style to the house.

pottery

Acoma on left, Jemez on right

I added a gift piece of Acoma pottery to my little collection that includes Jemez and Santa Clara Pueblo pieces already.  I bought two colorful ceramic light switch covers and installed them.

lightswitch

Lightswitch

And I brought a Native American wool blanket out to my family room so I can enjoy it daily. I can have it all, in a way…it’s not eccentric, it’s just me.

The “reason for the season” reminds us of the goal for peace on earth, which begins with me.  I think I have finally achieved that, or at least I can see it.  I don’t have to GO home again, I take the sense of home with me where I go.  I felt at home there, and I feel that now here.  The best gift I got this Christmas is knowing that.

 

Holiday spirit

09 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by in Sabbatical, Uncategorized

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There used to be years when I had all my Christmas shopping done and packages mailed by the first weekend in December.  The cookies baked while Christmas music played. I put up Christmas villages and multiple Nativity scene displays.  I decorated every room in the house; I even had Santa shower curtains and rugs for the bathroom!  I don’t think it was just because I had kids living at home, or family coming to stay for the holidays, but that might have had a little to do with it.  That has changed.  Last year I was planning to go be with my kids out of state, so I limited what I put up, but there was a small tree. I still wasn’t really in the mood to celebrate holidays, even though I had started my sabbatical and thought I’d have all the time in the world to enjoy the season.

This year I planned to change that, except now I’m going to go to the kids again. And I have this dang business to run, and a Showcase Speech totable prepare for a Speaker’s Academy I am enrolled in.  I did take down the fall decorations but they are all on the table patiently waiting for me to actually put them away.

That doesn’t mean I have done anything, but just that I haven’t done much compared to what I … want? need? like?  I just can’t quite find the peace I used to enjoy during this season, even amid all the hustle and bustle and baking.  So far, no tree but there is a Santa, some reindeer, and a few nutcrackers. Santa is not in jail, by the way, he’s peeking out at everyone who comes in the front door!

All is not lost, however.  Some traditions remain, if not intact in their entirety.  The reindeer with Santa I have had since my days living in New Mexico.  I got them at a craft fair in Albuquerque at least 20 years ago, and I just love those wooden little guys. They are like a puzzle, with pieces that have to be put together.  I remember the first year Kevin saw them, and he laughed because apparently I had been putting the legs on wrong. I thought there were two matching sets, one for each reindeer. It turns out one is front legs and one is back legs, so I had given one deer two fronts and the other got two backs!  Forever!!!

The nutcrackers have a story, too.  On the bottom left, the bandito, and the soldier just up a step from him, I bought in Germany in 1977.  I gave the bandito to my dad for Christmas that year, and the solider went to my Mom.  Now that my parents have both passed away, these have made their way back to me.  The other chubby ones further up the stairs I only bought last year here in Williamsburg.

I have boxes (big boxes) of “themes” like this. I could open my own small Christmas Mouse store, I think!!! One year I might just put up snowmen, for example.  This year it’s nutcrackers.  I also have different kinds of decorations. Once I married Kevin, we used to put up 2 trees each year. His was a South Dakota tree with wooden animal ornaments, rustic bells, “barbed wire” garland, pheasant feathers, etc.  My tree is usually picture ornaments of everyone in the family.  Kev and I also collected a special pewter ornament each year, with a single word or phrase that summarized that year. One year it was Mr. & Mrs., and the year Layla and Isla were born, it read Grandma & Grandpa. Another is Pierre Pressure, and it was followed by Pierre Pleasure; that was when I moved and he stayed in Brookings, but then he joined me after Ethan graduated high school. There is Honda Highways, when I got my motorcycle. I have a Nativity that was handmade and was a wedding gift the first time I got married almost 40 years ago. It’s kind of ugly, in fact, and the pieces aren’t proportional, but I am grateful for the fond memories it evokes of George (the one who made it), the joy of my early days of married life, and what it was like to be 19 with a husband and baby.

One thing I used to love to do at Christmas time was make time to go to local concerts and enjoy the music.  Right now I’m listening to a CD of South Dakota Acoustic Christmas Band’s annual show. I think I probably saw them a half dozen years.  I have a CD from a Tonic Sol Fa concert I took my mother-in-law to in Brookings one year.  That’s one is on deck for when Acoustic is done. And so last night I heard about a performance of The Ford’s Colony Dance Band, who would be playing big band-style Christmas music in the library’s theatre.  It was 90 minutes of wonderful uplifting fun.  I’m so glad I went. (No CD’s for sale.)

My traditions are sorta-kinda out the window these days, but I’m grateful that bits and pieces of them are still tucked away in my heart.  I guess I’m proof that that the only certainty is change.  And since life goes forward, not backward, I have to agree it’s okay. I think I might put away the fall pumpkins and hang a few lights outside around my door later today when it warms up a bit. I might even try and do some Christmas shopping. Heck, I still might decide to put up a tree!