I bought a calendar for 2021. But I haven’t put it out yet. I have to say, I’m cautious about what this new year will hold.

I love making plans, but 2020 wadded up my plans and made me try again.

A surprise gift at the end of the year was taking up martial arts. The sensei asked us if we had the calendar for the new schedule starting January.

While we were all stretching, he admitted that the calendar he had created at the beginning of 2020 had to be changed pretty quickly. But that is no reason to leave the calendar empty.

I will miss every shot I don’t take. And I don’t want to give up.

My new age-y friends would say to set intentions. That’s plans with a lighter touch. I can plan to get a good nights’ sleep, but get derailed with family and pets. But my intention remains intact for me to try again the next night. It might be kinder to intend and see where it goes.

Plans are brittle, but intentions are resilient.

I do want things. Very much. I have ideas about what I can, should and will do. Often those come with expectations about how long it will take to get done and what it will look like when it’s finished.

Those plans can be very heavy to carry. Sometimes I disappoint myself when it doesn’t happen like I hoped.

Rather than lose energy carrying the plans AND the corresponding disappointment, I’m going to try for intentions.

That leaves room for surprises. Like I said, I was surprised by starting martial arts this fall. I almost didn’t start because I didn’t think I’d have the time for it. But after I came to terms with the fact that I had lots of time because I didn’t’ have a job YET, I realized I could enjoy my time now and learn something new.

I intend to find a job as soon as I can. But I want to stay flexible. I intend to put up the ’21 calendar this week.

I’m going to go slow, but I will fill up 2021 with good intentions. It will be marvelous to see what happens.

Not everyone celebrates Christmas. We are all learning not to be culturally myopic. Sometimes it’s a little forced, with Hannukah and the late comer Kwanzaa getting a lot of attention without having very many celebrants in a particular region. Still, I want to encourage everyone to celebrate in their own way to match their values and culture.

Everyone observes solstice though. You might forget it’s happening but the world turns with or without you.

All cultures from all times have observed it.

In fact, it’s because the of solstice winter observances that Christmas landed where it did.

Rome, as an empire, knew that it needed to build a big tent for its many conquered people. The Romans became Catholic and were working out the details when Pope Julius the first declared the date of Jesus birth as December 25^th. It was another layer of paint on the traditions that each conquered culture already celebrated. Also, it was a toe in the door for Christianity to be celebrated.

America was weird about it. The pilgrims wanted a NEW England, not the old crappy England with its church and holidays. They frowned upon Christmas, and Boston even outlawed it for a while. Those Puritans were no fun!

But not everyone came over on the Mayflower. Captain John Smith (was that his real name? Come ON!) came to America to have a good time. He was from Jamestown, a totally different kind of place and their New England included parties and servants (ahem..slaves) to support the festivities on any holiday they chose to celebrate.

Christmas was a personal choice.

But why let a good party go to waste? Washington Irving (pillar of American Literature) wrote a story about how England celebrated Christmas. America had swung around to liking England and these fictional reminisces made Christmas seem like a good time for Americans. An American minister wrote “Twas the night before Christmas” only a few years after Irving’s story. It took a little longer for marketing people to cast Santa as Jesus’ a co-star in this event. It was the Coca-Cola people who gave him THEIR color as his signature outfit a hundred years ago. He may have top billing now.

The long cold nights invite are asking to be lightened up by whatever we’ve got. My American traditions have borrowed from it all, and I’m happy to do the same.

I am glad to have traditions to share with my family and friends. It’s fun to know where they came from, learn new ones and tell stories about how things used to be.

It’s a cozy time of year. Happy Holidays everyone.

It has happened. Not often, but the pain is great. I’ve lost a book. Maybe on a bus or somewhere public and irretrievable. The story is lost.

What happened to those people? I was involved in their lives.
Did they fall in love?
Did they find what they were looking for?
Did they get the prize?
Did the boy finally notice her?

It matters to me. I know it’s just a book. They aren’t real people. But the author is taking me on a journey and it’s incomplete. When it’s cut off it feels like an amputation.

There are real people in my life too. That’s totally different, right?

Not really.

I’ve written before about the social contract. When I have become involved in a person’s life, I want to hear about the plot development.
How is your puppy’s house training going?
Did you decide to go back to school?
Is that neighbor still being creepy?
Did your kid try for the play/orchestra/beauty pageant? How did it go?

WHAT HAPPENED?

I want to know! I care about you and your life now. Sure, characters in a novel are more dramatic and the plot lines are usually spectacular. But I care about real people even more.

This is that time of year, when all the plot lines are updated.

‘Tis the season. A new season! All the Christmas letters come in. There are some with very thin updates.

Not much more than a signature. E. is still alive and she likes me enough to send me a card. That’s nice!

Others send pictures. Ooh. She has glasses now. My goodness! The kids are so tall!

K. got a dog. And she’s still at the same house. She loves that house.

Some send letters. The letters require some interpretation. Is the author a reliable narrator? Is there something between the lines? Are they happy? Are they happy with the facts of their life?

The classic look-at-my-successful-life tone for Christmas letters of yore spread easily into the social media environment: fabulous filtered selfies, vacations and accomplishments.

This year I’m behind on my Christmas letter. It’s 2020. Not a lot of fabulous to report.

My filters have never been that good anyway. My “wonder” is more about wondering than wonderful.

I have been wondering how everyone is doing. I am glad to see the faces, the ones I’ve known so long. It’s okay that most of us are grayer and chubbier. I don’t want to lose the story.

I’ll send my update soon. I don’t want to leave anyone hanging.

Christmas has come early this year, because there is nothing else to do. We’re listening to carols, and the same songs seem to be sung by everyone. My husband especially knows all the crooners. Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Gene Autry, the old school voices that sound like Christmas.

They sing their version of the same songs.

But right now, I’m obsessed with some music by Bach. He wrote these Cello suites—at least we think he did—that only survive because of some music that one of his students saved a copy of. His wife had a copy too, and they were preserved.

Cello Music. Very sonorous and beautiful. Cello is a sparse music, because it is a melody line only. You can’t play five notes at once on a cello. Two notes can be done, and that’s about it.

That’s how cellos work.

I play keyboard, and I can play the piano. The piano is percussive, so I have to hit the key to make the noise. Bless that sustain pedal, I can get a soup of resonance going when I push the pedal. But I have to hit the keys.

Unlike the cello I can hit a lot of keys at the same time. I usually have an octave on the left and a chord on the right, and I’m rushing on to hit more keys to keep it going.
When I play an organ, it’s different because I can sustain the note by holding it down. It keeps singing. Not like the thin soup of the piano sustain pedal, the organ gives full voice to every key pressed. And there are so many keys to press! TWO keyboards, AND the foot pedals.

Organs have so much going on. No wonder they are the only instrument in a lot of churches. They can fill a room easy.

Pianos fill it up too, but it’s John Henry work to pound it out.

One cello in an auditorium—well, it could be loud enough but everybody better be quiet and listen. There is only the one melody to listen to. The empty space comes with.

Pay attention. It’s as plain as a vase on glass table. It’s right there.

The performance I am listening to is by Eleonor Bindman. She is a pianist and she taught her piano to speak cello.

I don’t think a cello could speak piano, and it certainly could not speak organ.

But Bindman taught herself to speak cello on the piano by translating the Bach music into something she could play on piano. It’s so different, so arresting. I can’t stop listening to it.

I am wondering what small changes I could make to lift up familiar things I’ve grown tired of.

Art can be as simple as trying things in a new way. If it is good to begin with, cleaning it off with a little twist will only make it better.

How many new Christmas albums do exactly that? And I can do the same.

It’s December! Have you done all your Christmas shopping yet?

At the start of the lockdown, me and everyone I knew was acting like depression era families. Saving margarine tubs and fostering a sourdough starter to ensure that we could have enough.

There might not be enough.

Now that Christmas is here, it could be that we are all ready to make our own O. Henry stories in which we fashion presents out of dirt and lumps of coal–gifts so perfect our loved ones preserve them and pass them on to multiple generations as the Christmas miracle of love.

Being poor is kind of a game, you know? I remember poor very well. I wasn’t unhappy. It can be a game. How will I piece together what I need from this restricted set of things?

This is the game they played in the depression. What can you substitute if you don’t have eggs? How much water can we add to the soup?

There is church in Russia built entirely without nails. They had nails 300 years ago. But over there in Kizhi they didn’t use them, and instead created what would become and international monument.

We’ll make up obstacles to make it more fun.

How good is your pig latin? EedNay ActicePray?

Christmas itself is a game we agree to. THIS day, we decided to surprise everyone with special gifts. Sneak around and figure out what people want. No peeking and no telling anyone else if you know what they are getting. It’s the Christmas spirit:

What will make people smile? Favorite traditions and new treats are all gathered and specially presented. It’s a good game, and we do everything we can to keep it going

I doubt that there will be very many new treats this year. But it’s an old Christmas tradition to find a way to make do and save Christmas no matter what.

The game’s afoot. How will I take this little supply of what we’ve got and make something fabulous?