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2022-12-21 - 10:55 a.m.
finding my way into the winter holiday.
i tend to write here only when i am deep in my feelings. after a year swallowed up by covid, long covid, a brief post-vaccination respite and then - enterovirus! a protracted recovery from the flu! but now i am beginning to feel better. good feelings are feelings too. meanwhile, my spouse just complains and complains. christmas stresses him out, makes him feel poor and obligated, even though we are not so poor as all that and his only obligation is to purchase gift cards for his family in a way that optimizes our credit card rewards. it surprises him to notice how he is really happy to see our children playing in their cute pajamas in our clean and decorated home.
***
a new renter moved into the vacant house next door, and a rat, displaced, tried to move into ours. it stole a lot of popcorn and cranberry garland from the christmas tree, dragging these spoils back to its small hoard in the garage. thank you, unwanted christmas rat, for the gift of spite, which inspired me to make our house so clean.so i put up decorations and cleaned and cleaned and kept the children fed and clean and occupied. at six and three, they play together happily for long periods and no longer require constant unbroken attention to keep them safe and well. what does this mean for me? more time in the day to breathe, and dream, and make plans for the future. time to try for some adventures before things go wrong again. it's not such a bad life, is it?
***
reading: my new year's resolution is to re-read all the fiction books i own, and get rid of the ones i don't feel like revisiting to make more space on the shelves. i'm so excited about this project that i've already started working my way from z to a. hello, banana yoshimoto. i haven't seen you in a while.covid messed up my vision, so i've been experiencing eye strain just like all the little kids back in 2003 who stayed up all night reading harry potter and the order of the phoenix so nobody could tell them spoilers at school.
listening to: whatever you get when you type "cozy christmas ambiance" into the youtube search bar, my kids love these barely-animated vignettes of bookstores and cabins and cafes, and for my part, i take great joy in their long collaborative tales about their wonderful adventures in these imagined worlds while i wash the dinner dishes in another room.
working on: packing for our winter holiday. in two days, we will leave for my parents house in new jersey.
in the garden: the water hole is filling up with rain. the dirt my dad packed into the sinkhole is washing out from the bottom - fascinating! aren't we lucky to live in such an interesting world, even when that world is sometimes so very small.
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