French Christmas

What I Put on the Altar Tonight

This evening a long-forgotten feeling popped its head up like a prairie dog. It has been so long since it’s knocked on the door to say hello and yet my body, every spidery nerve ending and every singing skin cell, remembered and snapped to attention.

It is my mind that’s slow to the draw. It pauses, examines the evidence. It reaches back through rolodexes and filofaxes and old dusty mug shots. Bent and warped from lack of use, it is unsure of what to do.

In the back room, my body throws its hands up in disgust and starts making preparations. It begins the process of unfolding, of letting down, of melting drop by drop.  Only then does my mind finally locate and recall that sensation of being thrown off guard in a good way, of being a little exposed to this wide world, of feeling vulnerable.

The prairie dog, having found the ground thick and frozen, has already dropped back out of sight. And my body and my mind are left squinting after him into the horizon.

But spring is a mere six weeks away now.

This post is inspired by the #365Altars Project from @whollyjeanne.

Dragons

My friend Roslynn says today we welcome in the Year of the Dragon. I ask her what that means and she says:

“Dragons can be complicated and unpredictable because they are mythical creatures. But ultimately they are a symbol of luck. Get ready for a wild year!”

I try to imagine what this dragon looks like, coming up behind each one of us, ready to pounce. If he’s silent and stealthy like a tiger, or fast and furious like a crocodile.

I think my dragon has been breathing a little fire and ash into my life for some time now. And I think that while some people spend life chasing theirs, I will try to fit mine to the bit, palm the reins and ride him.

Altars, Part II

My dream altar attracts small elements like a magnet. The beeswax candle, stamped with a drone, for Fear. The two prayer cards, one anchoring each side, for Anxiety. The chipped metal tag, engraved with a Chinese character, for Happiness. They come as gifts, hidden in pockets, tied around a bar of homemade soap, spelling out the riddle. 

This altar glows in the moonlight next to my bed, spinning and catching whatever stardust seeps through the cracks in my mind.

And when I wake, sometimes one of these tiny objects catches a little more of the sun than the others. More often than not, it’s whatever challenge I have been chasing down that week with my binoculars and tranquilizer dart.

This post is inspired by the #365Altars Project from @whollyjeanne.

Weekend Lessons

I am forever spilling things on myself

white chocolate peanut butter
laundry detergent
pasta water

Because I will not take the extra two seconds to set down whatever extraneous object is in my hand.

Winter

Winter, you're finally here, you with your piercing eyes and icy breath. Tracy Mangold got it best, what I love most about you, your brazen stillness. You are the showstopper who walks into a crowded cocktail party and commands silence and respect with the tap of your heel.

I want to dive into the center of your frozen heart and be still with you. I will be so solid and unmoving, like an ancient ruin, that the snow will pile in drifts around me and the red cardinals will land on the tips of my eyelashes.

Altars, Part I

I have a fire altar in my living room.

Living perched in a bird’s eye tree fort, on a house of cards with a questionable foundation, I forgo the ability to have a proper fireplace. But I can place my candles in a circle. I can light them at night and squint at their flicker in the darkness. I can still sigh and stare and relax with them at the end of a good day. Or I can drop my seething, my frustrations, off there and watch them burn up into smoke.

This post is inspired by the #365Altars Project from @whollyjeanne.

Nesting

An early spring Robin has found her way north and landed in my heart. The urge to nest—to sift through my apartment, to pare down to the necessary, to tidy and straighten and organize—comes on strong and unexpected. They say pregnant women do this, but I am far from that – so what then? I can only wonder at what my subconscious seems to know is coming, why I feel this rising need to prepare myself for a journey or a challenge or a sight unseen. I can only wonder and guess and follow my impulse to wend and weave the twigs, the Autumn leaves, the small strips of colored cloth.

My palms cup this tiny nest I am building and I wait for its hatchlings to arrive.

This tiny birthday card arrived in my mailbox several years ago. I cannot think of anything more perfect than a nest built from artists’ tools.

 

Thank you, Reverbers

One of my college professors told me: You cannot really know something until you write it.

In #reverb, we write and we write and we write the year. We write it from every angle, every doorway, every hidden secret garden. We write it sideways and backwards and inside out. And in doing so, we find things we didn’t know we left in our pockets. We find buttons and feathers and scribbled love notes to take into the new year.

If you wrote a post, if you shared a prompt, if you tweeted a link, if you laid down a comment like an offering at the altar – thank you. Thank you for helping me, for helping all of us, learn 2011. Thank you for helping us tuck her in and wish her good night.

One More #Reverb11

What’s on your vision board for 2012?
(Prompt and badge via: http://www.themodchik.com/2011/12/reverb-11-call-me-crazy/)

One night several years ago, my friends and I had too much red wine at an secluded little Italian restaurant in Lincoln Park. We started playing a game: What land, sea, and air animal would you be?

Everyone agreed I would be a hummingbird, including me. But this year, I want to balance being this:

With a little more of this:

So I figured I'd start my vision board with those two aviary companions forming the axis, the baseline.

Then I added my word, which I has so much trouble choosing. I owe it to this blog post by Tracy; when I read it the word (Bazinga!) slid on like a glove.

My resolutions or goals for 2012 shoot off like little comets from the main axis. I have one for writing (daily, more fiction), one for career stuff, one for exploring (reading more, traveling), and one for volunteering--all things I want to devote myself to in 2012.

At the center is Akhilandeshvari. I would explain her, but this post does a much better job than I ever could. So check it out. :)

Sparkling off to the sides like constellations are the constants in my life that I never let go of: friends, family, yoga, and alone time. I think sometimes in the rush of the new year we are so focused on the changes that we forget the givens that need tending to all year long.

The result is my vision board for 2012, hanging next to my bed where I can wake to it for the next 363 days of the year, this Year of the Dragon. What's on your board?

#Reverb11: A Letter From Your Future Self

For today, I dug into the archives of #Reverb10 for the prompt that I felt had the biggest impact on me in 2011. It was this one:

Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead?

So here is a love letter received today, postmarked December 31, 2016:

Noël,

Keep walking towards me.

I know your grip on this year is tight. Which we both know is funny, since it was more rife with cyclones and avalanches that any year in recent memory. But seriously, drop that rose in the river, the thorns are tearing up your fingers. You can watch and send it a blessing as it floats by into the past.

Then turn around. Put one foot in front of the other. I won’t lie to you; you are a ways away from me. If I had to estimate, I’d say you’re at mile 7. But don’t think about the distance; that’s where the mind games creep in. Think about your foot on the pavement. Think about how good it feels to run. Think about the gifts the landscape gives you as you pass by: the smell of rain, a field of sunflowers, a patch of shade.

Be not in fear, be in amazement. I will be waiting on the porch when you get here.

PS 2011: Thank you for your many gifts.

Happy New Year, everyone!