The year starts, and the workday starts. There is a ton of stuff to do, and by all means do not let it get ahead of you. There’s the urgent, the less urgent but still vital and the emergencies.

I got some books on how to work hard and how to work smarter. I can think about them and the systems of efficiency and order and accomplishments they preach. And yet I can barely get past my emergencies.

There is so much to do! How on earth am I supposed to find time to do it better?

I’m so sick of it all. I want to just stop.

Sit on something soft, and pet a cat.

Cats know.

Take your ease. And if a toy bounces by, wap at it. Life’s a game!

Cats play it well. A string does not get past them. Quick paw darts and pins the string. No opportunity to play is missed.

Don’t stress. Stay loose and flexible. Those chances for playing should not be missed.

Cats know.

It’s all about playing. Because for a cat, the difference between playing and work is invisible. It is a string…maybe. Or maybe it’s a mouse. Which is work? The string? The mouse?

All of it is fun. And all of it is work.

There is a better way. Not my best-selling books for getting it right and keeping it that way.

Cats know.

If I play it right, I’m working. And if I’m working right, I’m playing. All the elegance of a perfectly timed attack is in the joy. And all the inconsequence of a failed pounce is in the play.

All of it is practice. All of it can be as hard as I can make it, which is the fun of it. The fun of knowing this one is not so tight and stressful.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cat get frustrated.

Cats know.

Who doesn’t love getting something new?

New seems so full of promise. Here comes a new year! It’s never been here before. What will it contain?

I know I love to think about new things and what possibilities could be created.

Many many times I’ve looked and new years and said “THIS year I will be different and change..”

Reminds me of that old joke

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

One

But it really has to want to change

I’m sick of feeling shame and regret. I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to be motivated by self-disgust or a feeling that there is something wrong with me.

I’m just who I am, and pretty much who I always have been.

I want to fill this year with stuff that is fun and even more me than I’ve ever  been before.

Which things on my ‘bucket list’ will get crossed off this year?

Which will get added?

That’s probably the best part, I think. Coming up with new ideas of things I’d love to do.

A friend of mine went on a rant about how some people annoy him, giving little biting indightments of their flawed behavior. I said “You have so many things you could make with your brains. Why use them to be irritated? Especially since I know you can work up an irritated annoyance to last weeks, with a half life of years.”

He laughed at himself.

We are all like that. I know I can hold on to a slight or an annoyance and polish it, bringing out in my mind facets of how WRONG this or that person was.

What a ridiculous use of my thoughts.

I would rather thing of good ideas than rehash bad ones.

Next week comes Christmas. It’s a big deal where I live. We set aside this time to appreciate and delight each other.

Somehow, my attention is focused on all the other things that need to be DONE. FINE, I’ll give you a list of presents I would like to receive. Oh NO, I need to create a list of presents my daughter wants. Look at the calendar! I am SO BEHIND.

All this for the Christmas morning. The morning of preparation and delight and surprising each other and being surprised.

I caught myself thinking that kids have the best of it. That I have to lose sleep and work to remember all the things.

Last weekend I found myself crawling away from things every chance I got, burying myself in a new book.

It was a really good book.

And I would read as far as I could, then pop up when I had to (usually a bit late) and rush to do the next MANDATORY thing.

By Sunday night I felt impossibly behind and resentful. Kids have the best of Christmas I thought. I’d heard this sentiment before. I sat down to eat dinner, since I’d barely eaten all day. Of all the innumerable things I had NOT done and still had to do, how was I going to finish my weekend?

I could have wrapped myself in my book again. I had stayed up too late the night before because it was so fascinating. It didn’t feel good anymore. I regretted the loss of sleep.

What did I WANT to do?

I ended up putting my headphones on, and closing my door to be alone. Me. Alone. I would wrap presents.

Such a small thing, to ask myself what I wanted. Isn’t that what Christmas is supposed to be about? Wishing? Wanting?

I had told myself that wanting was for other people, and that I didn’t have time to ask myself what I wanted.

I decompressed, and felt really good about wrapping all the presents I had already bought my family. I DID want this Christmas to be a certain way, and I had made most of it happen already.

It was also ok for me to want things for me. Delight and surprise. I surprised myself to discover I just wanted to get something ordinary things done, uninterrupted. It felt good.

I am willing to give thought to what else I might want. Maybe next year I’ll go get them.

The kids all being pushed and pulled into the positions for pageant rehearsal.

“Am I supposed to sit here?”

The director Amanda would say, “I still haven’t decided yet.”

She was molding the story, the action, fitting the people and the play to each other. It took a lot of different people to realize her vision.

I could see her little girl, not quite talking yet, wanting to be the star. Mommy Mommy! Me me me! But mommy had to push all the other big kids into their place, to learn their lines and hit their marks, and the toddler wasn’t the one on stage.

Which drove her over the edge.

And the people on the stage had to share the stage and perform. For this time, it was not enough to just be themselves; the show had to be created.

I sat.

I was a stage mom that day. Not the first time. Not loving it. I would have like a stage. I could sympathize with the toddler.

I could see my unboundedly creative daughter struggling too. She was making nonsense words while Amanda was trying to speak and give direction. It stressed the seams of her being to have someone else being so powerfully creative while she sat.

She knew she had things to say and be, and while she was submitting to the directions she just had to add her own flavor, her own noise to the mix.

Veronica may not have had a vision right then but she had a drive. She was compelled to express herself.

Amanda not only had a vision, she had an imperative. She had taken on this responsibility, and had to put all this jumble together into a performance. It was constantly in motion too, as the little girls went tearing away into the balcony when they had the merest second to themselves.

“Girls! Come back! It’s your line! Don’t you want to be Queen?”

I remembered the chaos and excitement of the pageant rehearsals when I was a girl. Sometimes I would even have the solo.

I was in the seats this time, wishing I had planned better to have something productive to do during the wait.

There was a thickening in the air, excitement and boredom and terror. Creativity and performance sent unfamiliar juices through my little one.

And me. I wished I had a solo.

But the day dragged on, and I had to make sure she could handle it. Stay calm, sorry your head aches, here’s some water.

The recorded song was played again and again, just the one section. What is that chord progression? I wonder if I could find it.

When they were finally done, I went to the piano, and tried to find it.

Not three notes played, and Veronica pushes me aside. “I want to play!”

I just spent ALL DAY watching you, kid. Don’t I get a chance to finish an idea? When is MY moment?

Not today.

I write. Writing is lonely. In writing, I am the sole creator of my universe. In the messy world of collaborative art like theater and music it’s something else altogether.

I’m not sure if I’ve figured out how to share the stage of life comfortably with my daughter. I remember Amanda was figuring out her show as she went along. She had a clear vision, the bones of it. I’ll have to be a little looser with my universe I think, or it will shatter on contact with real life.

I read a Facebook post the other day:

“I woke up this morning thinking ‘I need to charge my laptop!’

Then I woke up and found it was already plugged in.

Thank you, last night me!”

Isn’t it funny how some little thing, or some series of little things, can add up to a very wonderful now?

Every day, every moment we choose what to do and what not to do. The choices seem small and unimportant. Yet over time, they stack up into something substantial.

Good habits, or bad. Small perseverances that shape a whole life.

The version of my life made of diversions, reversion and perversion.

Habits and traditions begin with accidents. The best plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy.

Which is why

I am so grateful to the me of five and a half years ago. The me that started writing this Weekly wonder, and let it be exactly and whatever I wanted it to be.

I doubted and despised what I was doing. I judged it harshly, and appreciated it sometimes. I disregarded and discounted my little essays.

But I still wrote them. I wrote them for me.

And then I wrote them for you.

Thank you me, for writing this for 5 years. Thank you for allowing me to arrive at this moment of appreciation.

And very very thank you all for reading these, whenever you do, whenever you can, and for however long it’s been since you’ve discovered it.

We are all doing something unique. We’re letting thoughts pass through our minds and leave us the better for them.

This is a time of tradition and remembering what happened last year and last time.

It’s been a pretty ugly crazy beautiful year with all the things we each did and didn’t do.

Thank you all. I love how this adventure is turning out.

Should I be learning the recipe for your mom’s Gravy?
He shrugs. I don’t like it as much as the Gravy my grandma made. But she probably filled it with all sorts of things you can’t get anymore.
I smile. Like arsenic.
Chris smiles.
And lead. Delicious lead.
Oh for the good old days.

This Sunday I visited a holiday fair that specialized in charities that needed help for the holidays: thanksgiving and Christmas.

My daughter said, “Hold these.” She tore off to the bathroom and I tried to get out of the way.

“Would you like a chair?” a woman asked.

“No, I’m good.” I could only see the back of her display from where I sat. “What are you here for?”

“This is to help people with clothing and shelter in emergencies.”

“Wouldn’t any time you needed shelter or clothing be an emergency?”

“Sometimes a woman might go to the hospital early and not have an infant car seat or a place to take the baby home. We help with that.”

I was silent a moment.

“You know, ” I said to the woman. “There have been a number of times in my life when I’ve been pretty close to the edge.”

I was remembering when I was first married to my first husband. I had no margin at all. I had quit my job as cook for a daycare, so I could go to college full time. I missed that job as cook because when I had it I could take extra food home with me.

It was a YMCA daycare, and most of the food I cooked with came from a food bank. I never knew what food they’d have, so meal planning was tough. There was always some kind of leftovers I got to take home, so my $7.50-an-hour paycheck didn’t have to pay for food at least.

I hadn’t quit my job cold turkey. I had found part time work. Three part-time jobs, as a matter of fact. Their hours still left me time to take classes. But I had to buy my own food.

It was after Christmas, and we’d still had some things left over from the cook job in our cupboards. Good thing, because we had run out of paycheck and with a couple days to go until the next one.

We had flour, salt, and a few bags of leftover stuffing mix. And food coloring.

The stuffing mix tasted okay. Then we had nothing but flour and salt. We made homemade noodles.

With blue food coloring. We pretended they were some kind of space alien food.

I looked at the woman next to me, “I have learned a few things since those times, and I have thought that the world had changed and become easier to survive in. But I’m not sure if the world has changed so much as I have.”

She said, “It’s probably that you have changed.”

When I think about those times, and how long they lasted and how they should never have happened in the first place, I feel shame and I remember all the ways that I was a victim of….. what?

Exploitation?

Abandonment?

It doesn’t even matter what, now that I think about it. Sometimes things happen in this adventure of life.

I know what they mean when they talk about food insecurity. And I could give tips on all the ways that I survived being poor and cast out. I could be proud of how I climbed my way out.

I am.

And I can see how, if you’re working hard in your 8th month of pregnancy and counting paychecks until the one that lets you afford the car seat you have to have

and then you’re stopped cold because baby came early and there aren’t going to be any paychecks for a while

you could use a little help.

I’m pretty grateful that things worked out for me. I’m thankful for my car, and my house and my job.

I’m thankful for my savings account and my coat and my boots.

It’s a good time to share some of what I’ve got with others.

My first grader has learned about fiction. Somehow her teacher introduced the idea and it stuck. Some stories are imaginary and NOT TRUE. Some are true.

It had a bigger impact than I would have thought.

I was reading to her from a chapter book, the story of Dr. Dolittle. We were well into a conversation between the doctor and his animals, and she interrupted to declare: “This is not true. This story is fiction.”

What could I say?  “Do you want to stop reading it?

“This is not true.”

“You are right. But let’s see what happens next.”

Some stories are fiction. Some are true. Then there are the stories that are neither and both.

I’ve been listening to some lectures about King Arthur. Some historical sources have stories that are somewhat inconclusive. This proffessor says that everyone asks her: “Is the story of King Arthur true?”

She likes to quote Churchill “Even better and more besides!”

That’s what stories are. True stories, Fiction and all of it. The Adventures of each and everyone.

Veronica and I were playing at writing stories this week. I asked her to tell me a story, and I would write it for her. We wrote one, and it was great fun. I asked her to tell me another.

“Come on! Tell me The Adventures of Veronica.”

As excited as she’d been, she squirmed. “Mommy…”

“What?”

“Well…You know this whole life I’ve been alive? Those are the adventures of Veronica.”

No kidding.

Just like that.Her life…Our life…those are the adventures. Truth is the best story, even better than fiction. What we do, in all the ways and means that we do it, that’s the best story. And it’s all true.

Even better and more besides.

Once upon a time, there lived a king. His land was prosperous. He had a lovely castle and plenty of money. The people of his land were just people, no better of worse than other people. Some of his neighboring kings envied him.

However, this king was unhappy. Things were not the way he wished they would be. He hates all the expectations placed upon a king.

The unhappy king tried to do his kingly duties. After all, he used to like being king. At first it was interesting and challenging, and the councilors appreciated him.

Then these same councilors reminded him of his kingly duties, the ones he wasn’t doing so well or the ones he should do better.

He didn’t like that. He knew they were mostly right, and a little ridiculous.

Then it seemed they were mostly ridiculous and only a very little bit right.

He tried to be a kind and benevolent leader for his people, and he still was.

Mostly.

Sometimes though, he had to let out his frustration.

He was unhappy.

His councilors started to be careful around him. They tried to keep his people away from his except in emergencies. Now the unhappy King only saw his people when they were in crisis. He grew even more unhappy.

The unhappy King stalked his chambers alone, unable to stop feeling miserable and frustrated. He walked from one end to the next, his thoughts filled with his favorite unfairnesses and travesties.

Turning again to the other side of the room, he spied a little calico cat cleaning her face.

“Great! What is a cat doing in my chambers? Can’t the castle keepers even keep my chambers free of pests?”

The cat looked up at him. “Aren’t you the king?”

“Of course I’m the king! Why else would I be stuck here in these rooms?”

The cat licked her white paw. “I thought kings were powerful.”

“Lot you know!” the king replied. “There is nothing but rules and obligations to being a king. And none of them even make sense. This whole thing is ridiculous. Every day I think I should just run away and leave them to their rules.”

“Why don’t you?”

“If I did, then this kingdom would collapse into revolution and chaos. That’s what the councilors say. But I don’t matter at all. These rules and responsibilities could all be done by anybody. I don’t matter at all.” The king sighed. “But I wouldn’t want the people to suffer. So I stay. For now…” and his eyes glowered.

The calico flicked her tail. “Aren’t you the king?”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means. You think king means you have power and can make decisions and get stuff to happen. It doesn’t. It means sitting down and listening to other people tell you how to behave and which hand to use to scratch your nose. It’s ridiculous.”

The cat rubbed her nose with her paw. “What would they do to you if you used the wrong hand to scratch your nose? Would they run you out of town? You said that was what you wanted.”

The king turned on his heel. “It’s more complicated than that. You don’t understand.”

“Cats always understand more than humans know. Your councilors are doing their job and counseling you. It’s your job to be king and not listen to them every time, but to see what needs to be done and make it happen.”

The king slowly turned to look at the cat. “I have to listen to the councilors. That’s what they are there for! To keep me in line.”

“Do you like the line?”

“I’m sick to death of the line.”

“Who does like the line?”

“Nobody, so why are we keeping it? It’s ridiculous.”

“Aren’t you the king?”

“Stop saying that! I have to do it this way to keep those poor helpless people from descending into chaos and hurting each other.”

“A king would find a way to stop the ridiculousness and still keep the peace. That’s why people have kings.”

The king stared at the cat.

The cat stared back. “This is a nice castle. You should learn to live in it.”

The unhappy king looked down at his feet. He felt small. He had not been living like a king. He’d been waiting for someone to show him how to be great.

The calico told him he had to make it himself. He swallowed, ready to thank the little cat.

But when he looked up she was gone. It was only himself.

He began to pace his room again. This time he was thinking of what he could start with. “Just one thing…If I could start to make it better. That could make all the difference.”

My friend is taking a tap dance class. I am envious.

She is a performer. A fantastic one. She acts and sings and writes and composes, and shimmers with all those fascinating talents all of the time.

She’s also a mommy. A fantastic one. Her youngest is not yet two.

“I had forgotten how great it feels to stand in front of a mirror wall and dance!” she told me.

“I’m so glad you can do that! It’s so hard to have to leave it behind while you mommy.”

It reminds me of the old story.

How the grandfather tells the little boy:

There are two wolves inside your heart. One is strong and brave and kind. The other is mean and vicious and ready to hurt you any way he can. Which one will win?

Tell me, Grandfather. Which wolf will win?

The one you feed.

I think there are way more than two wolves howling for food in my heart. Yes, there is the wolf who is kind. And the one who wants to tear everyone’s head off.

Then the wolf who reads voraciously. There is a very hungry wolf who needs to write, and another who needs to travel.

I have a very silly wolf who pops up a lot. And a wolf who works way to hard.

All those howling needs and passions that demand from me. What one is hungriest today? Which one am I listening to?

Maybe they take turns. Maybe one or another of them get out of hand.

Inside of my heart, there are a lot of animals to feed. Some of them are still waiting to be discovered. I have to listen to hear which one needs to be fed next.

I’m wondering if I need to feed the tap-dancing wolf. That one has something to show me.