Remembering the old, looking to the new

The old  

Good morning.  Welcome to my new laptop, whose predecessor, my 12-year-old standby, lost its motherboard to old age one morning, just as I was about to post another travel journey.  It's not so simple buying a new one...not even time to mourn the old...but somehow at the end of the new year, and at the end of a decade we'd mostly prefer not to have written up in the history books, it's symbolic to begin with a new keyboard, no?

So I dug in, asked questions of expert family members, looked all around the web reviews (you know the drill) and found this one, which I ordered in the car while still parked in front of the fixers who had given me the news, polite sadness in their voices.  I had to wait a few weeks until it arrived.  When it did, I was out of town giving my sister the birthday she asked for (more about that later), but Joseph brought it to me, so I could at last admire it in its handsome, Brooks Brothers-like gift box.

Once home again, I took it straight to the fixers to ready it, and, voila, in an hour I had a call that it was ready.  An hour!  I baked them cookies for their kindness in a rushed season. The attendant (called the "agent", though I would have changed that to "elf") genuinely admired what I had chosen...really well built, easy to use, enjoyed working on it!  I went out proud of myself, and hoping they liked the cookies...chocolate thumbprints.  [This is a photo of what they would have looked like if I were a better baker, but it's close enough.]

So you all are kindly and, I hope, with some patience, helping me practice on the new keys, which seem to want to fly faster than my fingers.  I apologize for the long delay.

There!

Now we can get to the subject of the season...not the unexpected (ouch) gift to myself, but the nice things we count on when fall turns to winter and suddenly the end of the year brings us closer in lots of ways.

We have had a couple of cheerful, cluttered holiday events, and a special few evenings and outings  with Alexander who lit candles and flung wrapping-paper with the best of them, pulling out his new camouflage boots, and saying, half asleep, awe still in his voice, "I can't believe you gave me an archery set, Nana!"  He spent all night playing with a sort of helicopter landing game.  He's been, as children are, all about presents.

Earlier that day, however, after school, after he had shown me the reindeer he had made in woodworking, justifiably proud of it with its delicate twig antlers and a tree, its arched neck, its tiny tail...Scout Reindeer, he named it...

...he and I went shopping for gifts of another kind. As it happened, he was wearing his new cub scout hat and talking about the scout rules he had memorized, so we decided to practice one of the most  important rules, kindness. We talked about how much we have and what others don't. At the drug store he pointed me to, he lead me purposely through the aisles as we gathered a gift bag of necessities for moms and babies and dropped them off at the door of the women's shelter.

 I was so proud of him for stepping up to my prompt to think about the rest of the world with another scout rule, cheerfulness.

After our celebrations, we scooted away, each of us, to our own destinations...he to visit his other grandparents and cousins in Florida, and I going west for Eileen's birthday (the winter solstice, the longest night of the year). Joseph would follow after work.  We miss Alexander when there is something to celebrate.

That birthday brings about another good prompt, this time to ourselves, especially this time of year.  Eileen's wish for her day was a good one, considering how busy she has been doing holiday sorting and labeling for her Council on Aging thrift shop (a task that goes on all year behind doors and comes out shining, thanks to her, around Hallowe'en), playing bingo and singing with the seniors in the Assisted Living center she also volunteers for, driving with Jim for Meals on Wheels, and baking and neighboring at home.  All good works, certainly, but enough, as we say, when the celebrations become a bit draining--and as she herself said when, several times, a party for her was suggested.  No.  She just wanted a sister or two around, to sit half the day in our pajamas and do nothing.  It sounded perfectly reasonable to me.

So we did. Ann visited for a night and morning on her way to West Virginia (we missed our other sister, Mary Ellen, who really should move south soon).  After lunch, Eileen and I took a trip to the grocery (surprised?) and a side track to her favorite coffee drive-in, for which friends and family did her proud with many gift cards...

Joseph made his latkes for dinner, we worked a puzzle and Scrabble and Boggle, watched a holiday movie, and she was happy.  Meanwhile, I was happy sewing her a new set of napkins and untangling a huge skein of beautiful hand-spun yarn she passed along to me...such good winter things to do...

Despite rain.  I ate too much chocolate, and the rest of them ate too many cookies, and then drove home to get up a cocoa and waffle party for some small friends coming to bring me (more) cookies; I was thinking I had best stick to tea while they indulge, but I'm afraid I did not.  In between bites, they hit my stash of oddities I work with for art ("Why do you have all this stuff?" asked the oldest, though he was the first to rummage around in it) and got to work making things.  I love the way they think as they rummage, and what comes of it.

The next evening we were due at my niece's for more family, more food, more merry wrapping paper clutter, and, as it turned out, lots more lovely and colorful yarn for winter evenings.  We drove out to the farm for more of the same, at Angie and Jim's elegant table and country brunch, lots of catching up.   And look at the wonderful gift I received!  "Can you guess what this is?"  Angie asked me. (I couldn't, so I am giving you this hint...)

Clearly this is the memo going around. Fortunately I already have a rocking chair.

There is plenty of time, too, to look again on those holiday photos, the far away ones, especially.  Here is my latest favorite (it changes every time the mail arrives)...my friend Pat's grandchild at work in her talented grandmother's kitchen.

At the end of the year, the sun, after a few clouds, is out, the sky is blue, and I've almost got this new laptop under control.  Almost.  I go out to coffee with a friend and later a dose of sushi, then sit with Alexander sleeping beside me while the new year's eve sends up its sparkles and pops.

May every tangle of your season become a moment to sit quietly while you undo the knots and enjoy those around you.

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The new 01 01 20

Good morning, again.  

Just in time for the new year, our new bundle of hope comes along.  (Her name is Riley Thomas, but...don't tell her grandmother...I'm going to call her Hope.) May we give her a world she can live safely, healthily, protected and with every reason for a future in which she can spread her arms wide and take it all in.