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?

Every American child gets the story of thanksgiving:

The pilgrims left England to find freedom in America, sailing over on the Mayflower. They suffered and could barely feed themselves, but a nice Indian man taught them how to grow plants. They made friends with some Indians and the next year, they had enough food after the harvest for a feast.

Kids make paper hats with the buckles, because that was the style at the time. That’s the story of America! Freedom and turkey.

Of course that is not the whole story. There is more.

I’ve been doing a review of American literature, and I revisited the famous “City on a Hill” sermon by John Winthrop. Clearly it had a lasting impact on America, but I wanted a point of comparison. What literature was being published in England?

From where I sat, England had the glory days of Shakespeare then literature fell off a cliff until Johnathan Swift came out with Gulliver’s Travels. And he wasn’t even English! Victorians brought literature roaring back to life, but there was this hole.

Looking into it, somehow, I didn’t realize that there were Puritans left behind in England. It turns out that the Puritans played a dramatic part in British history that had nothing to do with Americans.
For all the Puritans that left for America so many more stayed behind in England and caused trouble. Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan, heading an overthrow of the monarchy.

The first of many revolutions to come, Cromwell and the Puritans had a Civil War that executed King Charles the first.

News travelled to America about these developments. Some of our turkey-eating Puritans founders went back to England to support the revolution. Really, isn’t this what they were looking for? If the Puritan religion was the religion in power in England, why bother with the NEW England?

Winthrop’s sermon was preached in 1630. Charles the first was killed in 1649. Charles the second was reinstated in 1660. Those were some exciting years for Puritans.

Revolutions are dangerous times. Cromwell, and then Charles II had some harsh censorship in place. War and censorship put a damper on the creation of literature. Political tracts and sermons were just about it.

Taking a wider view of the world, I have some new perspective on America and what kinds of dinner conversations were happening. There was a lot going on.

I chose to listen to a Shakespeare play done by the Royal Shakespeare theater. I had my earphone in while I was cleaning the kitchen. I wanted to escape into the lovely dramatic enunciation of the THEATAH.

I am not the only one. It’s been a lot of being home. We have not gotten much art in our separation.

What we do have is a lot of screen time and zoom meetings.

And masks. Not the fun theater kind–the kind that makes you wonder if other people are mad at you from 6 feet away.

I wanted a little break. Royal Shakespeare company, a comforting bottle of pine sol and my earbuds. I was cleaning my kitchen with world class actors speaking the beautiful old-fashioned pentameter.

But wait…I wasn’t paying attention. Did I miss something? Is that queen actually sincere when she is planning her support of the step-daughter? I thought she didn’t like her.

I wasn’t going to rewind to make sure I understood the intention. But then I remembered:

Shakespeare is not subtle. If that queen is plotting a demise but saying sweet words, the bard will have her do a stage whisper aside. My face cracked in a smile. Good old Will. He puts in the reversals, but he leaves BIG CLUES to make sure we can follow along.

And I did pause the play at that point. He got it right. He is as true now as he was 500 years ago.

Zoom meetings are exhausting, right? Everyone says so.

I’ve heard that a good policy in these tiring meetings is, when you have a question? Repeat it three times.

One time
Two times

Got that? Everybody ready?
No?
Three times

There are a lot of things competing for our attention. It’s crazy out there. It takes a few tries to make sure the message is heard.

I need to do my Zooms like Shakespeare showed us. You can get through all kinds of twists, substitutions and mistaken identities if you keep stating the facts. We can get through it if we stick to this idea:

“Speak plain and to the purpose.”

I’ve seen enough change to know that more will come
-Gloria Steinem

I’m looking for work again. I am a lot calmer about it than I have been in the past, because I realize I have successfully found work so many times before I can trust myself to do it again.

There is a name for that:
Experience

I have a lot of experience now. I’m not entirely comfortable with that, because it would be very comforting to look over my shoulder and ask someone else how to do this. It’s just…I’m that someone now.

One thing I’m good at after all these years is working with people remotely. That’s another hot trend right now “working remote” It means everyone is on their homes.

But it also has another meaning. When I am in my employer’s office building in California and I need to work with a coworker who is in DC, I am assisting remotely. I’ve had to do this kind of cooperation for all kinds of global work.

My work has to do with physical equipment, network connection and audio and video signals on each side. And very few of those things can I check remotely, only the network and that only a little.

Across time zone and language barriers, with the stress of the High up Executives wanting this all to work, I have to talk to my colleagues in all the other sites at the other end of the meeting and get it working. I have to trust the person who is there.

I know the equipment. I know which lights blink and how it all is cabled together. But I am not there. They are. I have to hear what they are telling me.

Even when it seems impossible and wrong.

But if my colleague is on the phone with me, describing the lights and the cables, I have to believe he is sincere. I’ve talked janitors into re-cabling entire systems for me. If we stay on the phone and trust each other it comes out all right.

I have heard stories that sound impossible. I know for sure how these systems work!

But I learned to listen. To ask questions and hear what my colleagues are saying. To trust them and ask again and again until we figured it out.

And we always figured it out. Because I did know how the systems worked. And they were telling me what they heard and saw.

Sometimes there were very big language and communication barriers. But I learned to use better words and be more precise. And to get confirmation from the remote colleague that she understood what I was asking.

There were a lot of tense moments, but every single time we did it. We just had to keep talking.

I’m thinking about that right now in my country. We are very politically divided. I am at home without a job and I’m feeling discouraged.

But I have experience. I’ve experienced how it can work out. We just have to keep working it. We’ll get there.

“Why should I vote?” Olga said. “It doesn’t matter.

It was 1993 and I lived with Olga in Yakutsk Russia. When I first moved to Yakutsk to teach English-language kindergarten in a Christian school, Olga was the music teacher. She adopted me and persuaded me to move in with her.

I had my own bed in a two-room flat with the other teachers. There were four of us, but they were all so much older than me. I had just turned 20. Olga was 18 and like most Russians lived with her parents.

The other teacher whispered to me that she’d heard Olga was in the middle of a divorce. But this seemed unbelievable. I had to ask her was it true.

Yes, it was. She had gotten married at 16, she said. In fact, the single bed we shared—sleeping feet by head—had been the one she shared with her husband.

Why get married so young?

It was the thing to do, apparently. But he wasn’t nice to her. And after he went to prison for reasons unclear to me, she decided it was time to divorce. Except the church she had become part of seemed to want to give her advice about it—or at least gossip about it. She said the pastor said he would not give her advice one way or another.

But she and I spent all our time together and there was an election. And I wanted to go with her to see what it was like. She was not at all interested. “My vote doesn’t matter.”

The word for vote is Russian is the same word for voice. This still charms me. My American self was sure that it was her civic duty. And even if it hadn’t mattered during soviet times, surely things were getting better. That was more than a year ago! She should be part of the activism of voting.

Plus, I wanted to see what it looked like.

I persuaded her. We never had enough excitement anyway. She figured out the site to vote, and we took the bus to a section of the city I didn’t know. I went with her and saw the little stations. I had voted once right before I had, but I’d seen my parents vote. It looked very similar. I was happy for the new Russian Federation.

Yeltsin was president, but this was a local election. My Russian was not strong enough to follow it but there was not a lot of press about it anyway.

She came back from her booth and grabbed my arm, “I saw him!”

“What? Did you vote?”

Yes yes yes, she showed me her inked finger. This was a vote?

“But listen! I saw my ex!” She was nervous, clinging to me as we walked out.

He had been out of prison for a while, which I hadn’t known. She said he had a new woman in his life, and she had been with him. On the bus, Olga discussed her a little. She was so much older!

She had done it. She voted, even though she thought it didn’t matter. I told her I was very proud of her: “You used your voice.”

It is confusing and there are a lot of reasons not to bother. But I still believe my voice matters.

2020: the year we acted like we lived in the depression. Staying close to home. Baking sourdough bread. We grew plants from starts and seeds

I got to know my neighborhood. I watched spring come with rains. I saw the baking summer sun crisp the grass.

About the time the neighbors started talking about birdcalls, I knew we had travelled even further back in time.

I picked up Walden.

My friends and I are looking to find the silver lining in the quarantine.

What is really important? Are these material things really what we want? COVID made me think about death and therefore how precious life is.  Walden does the same. What is really most important?

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately”

Yes. If I am holing up to protect life, what am I protecting?  What kind of life is a lonely solitude? Before I pout too hard about my situation, Thoreau puts the challenge out there. He lays it out: take the time to notice the beauty around you!

He went to the woods because he “wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”

Even in the shutdown, there is marrow to suck. There are skies and plants to observe, simple skills to practice and alternate paths to try.

There is richness in the things I have passed over. The sun in the sky is a marvel. I have learned to observe it in ways I never have before.

Big cities—New York, San Francisco—they are hollowing out. People are taking their lessons from the lockdown and moving house. Sacramento and Salt Lake City are filling up with new neighbors. Now that people can choose, can do their work from their homes, they are changing the homes.

Thoreau and his Transcendental buddies. were quite thrilled with finding new classics, and making up their own minds

“Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us and we will see if they know anything”

Sounds like the internet to me. I want to know all the things the world has to offer, and I delight in new ideas. I love to be the one to make up my own mind about their value. I don’t have to live by the expected wisdom. This is a time to explore and make up my own mind. The whole world awaits.

There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings movie where the village is being attacked and the children are sent to light the bonfire. It’s a system of fires set up to be lit across hilltops. This was the warning system.

This is the medieval 3- way handshake: light signal fire- far end sees signal fire. Far end lights signal fire.

That’s how the internet does it. But the internet hadn’t happened yet. There were a few more stops along the way between the signal fire and the internet.

The Post office changed everything. Ben Franklin had a great instinct for marketing, and the story goes that he invented electricity, white wigs and the post office, but the real breakthrough came from Victorian England.

Letters had been around since writing. The way it went is the letter writer would find some lucky person, and ask him to deliver it. The person would be paid by the person receiving the letter.

Remember that old saying “Don’t kill the messenger”? The value of a letter depended a lot on what was in it. There were risks involved.

Sir Rowland Hill invented stamps. England created a set of posts so that deliveries of these prepaid letters could be sent to anyone. And the letters were secret the envelope protected the message from strange eyes.

This was new in the world. Sir Rowland had to vision and got enough cooperation to make it a reality. No one had thought of it before, but once it existed it took off. It was so sensible it spread.

Until it was created, it wasn’t even a concept. It was impossible until one day it was normal. And once it was normal it could be made better and better until we have this internet that erases time and distance.

And we have a system that the whole world is riding on.

This normal amazing this didn’t used to be here. There are things just offstage waiting to be possible. I wonder what is next.

I just finished Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! Something in the air drew me to read it again. Faulkner was wrestling with his inheritance—the legacy of the American South.

He writes a fictional story that holds his experience. He lives on the edge of a conquered land. The story is not easy at all—at no point do we hear the voice of the main character. We hear the memories and the inferences of the people who were connected or controlled by him, by Thomas Sutpen, the demon hero of the story.

Sutpen controls the people around him and no one stands against him. They seem to admire what he can do so much they allow all the collateral damage.

He is the embodiment of a pure single-minded vision, and the people around him fall into it and give him what he wants. They are mesmerized, wanting to see what will happen. Will he make his dream come true?

The main narrator—not the only narrator—is Quentin. He’s not related to any of the characters, but his grandfather knew the demon Sutpen.

Quentin is trying to piece together what happened. Everyone from his hometown has their version of the story. No one can leave it alone.

They pull his sleeve, telling him what really happened.

He is stuck trying to make sense of it. What happened? Between all their versions he is not sure of the basic facts.

The others are sure. And he’s heard the stories his whole life so he knows the basic facts.

Until he thinks about it. He is trying to sort it all out with his college roommate. Now that he is not at home where everyone is so sure, he himself is not so sure.

He talks it over and over with his roommate. They piece together what he never saw clearly, what was hidden in plain sight, this dark dark dark story of the American South.

It’s a masterpiece and it is not for the fainthearted.

Here’s the piece that I can break off for you all:

I know there are stories I’ve heard and accepted my whole life. Sometimes, when I look at them now, they aren’t true anymore. They may have been true once. But they don’t have to be true now.

It is worth sifting out the jagged edges to find the things that aren’t true anymore. The assumptions can be discarded. I deserve to have the true truth.

This week I burned down a pumpkin spice candle. The date on the bottom said 2006. I don’t think I’m the only one who’s kept a decorative candle for years. It’s moved with me to several homes, but this year

I burned it all the way down.

This is the year I’ve learned to appreciate candles. I’ve burned down quite a few during the quarantine. I had forgotten about the little orange pumpkin candle, but after the other scented candle ran out, I found it and set it next to me on the desk.

It’s a friendly thing.

Lighting a single candle

My daughter has gotten in on it. The supermarket had some big fall candles and I brought a few home. I’d say the scent could be dialed back 2 or 3 notches, but Veronica loves it and lights it while she is doing her schoolwork.

I saw the candle growing smaller in its glass jar.

She asked “Where does it go?”

“It burns away. You can’t really see it, but it becomes smoke and floats away on the air.”

We stared at the flickering flame together. It was a quiet feeling.

Candles have been companions to worried people for a long time. They doesn’t ask for much. They put out light

Warmth

Kindness

maybe Hope

That little flicker is known all over the world as a prayer without words

When the hope is too fragile sometimes words are too heavy.

Or

When the imagination is too rusty and life is too rigid to conceive of another way, words don’t work.

I can light a single candle. I don’t even have to know why.

It helps. And I am grateful.

I remember.

I remember arriving to work at a specific time, settling in to my cube and starting my day. I had routines, an overflowing inbox and a clear understanding that, at a certain point, I would leave.

THIS is work

THIS is home

I remember rock-paper-scissors with my husband for which of us would pick up the child from school.

School was over THERE.

Now all the things are here. With a few more added on. There are intruding news stories and contagion reports.

I met a new friend on Zoom last week. I told her I was working on a new book, but…Covid.

“You must have so much time for writing now.”

Well, I do have time.

But whose time is it?

My job happily takes every second I give it and asks for more.

I find the starch to draw a boundary when it comes to my kid. She needs me!

And what is left?

Used to be I could leave the house for some uninterrupted time: a “break.”

Breaks are broken. Those cheap seats at Starbucks are illegal.

So, I’m nowhere. I’m not the only one.

We had a system. We had a lot of systems this. And every last one is unavailable.

This whole thing has gone on long enough. There is a lot I can’t control. And there are some things I can.

Repeat five times fast:

NoNoNoNoNo

I am not available at that time. I have a previous commitment.
Leave mommy alone. I am doing work.
MY work.
This is my time.
Other people cannot have it. Other people will have to wait.

In a blaze of irony, it’s going to take work to take a break. It’s still worth it. We’re going to be here a while.