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December 3 – Moment.

Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Just about an hour or so ago, actually, I was out on a walk. It’s crisp and grey with bouts of golden and occasional yellow. I wasn’t wearing my headphones, and instead was hearing what my normally overly-stimulated ears never get a chance to hear above the earbuds. A cacophony of birds. Not the usual doves, but cawing birds. Maybe crows, but I never could find where the sounds originated, and crows just aren’t that common around here. There was that and the rattlescrape whisper of the few leaves clinging to the last bit of brittle life, and those who preceded them to the ground along the asphalt. And chimes and chimes and chimes, reminding me to appreciate people and their desire for beauty in spite of it all.

And I heard these things loudly and pervasively until my mind got lost in them and then some more abstract, inner noise distracted me from focusing on those sounds, and soon I realized there was no more call-and-response of man-made vs. natural beauty, but just the whooshing of cars the whooshing of cars the whooshing of cars and my own thoughts, whooshing, drowning out that which I should have been directly experiencing. And I wondered if the sounds truly didn’t exist…or if I just wasn’t hearing them anymore.

Three songs I heard driving home from Kate’s house today:

Yaz – Winter Kills

Someone once put this song on a mix tape for me, and I’m so glad for it, because I never ever ever liked Yaz, and I would have never heard this song had it not been smooshed between other, more familiar songs. Which is really what a mix tape is all about, isn’t it?

The Smiths – Well I Wonder

Makes me think about an old high school friend who recently emailed me because he was listening to the first Smiths record and it reminded him of me sitting behind him in math class. Or him sitting in front of me in math class. Or whatever.

Kate Bush – Hounds of Love

I always hated Kate Bush because she seemed so affectedly waif-like. But something about the Decemberists’ live cover of Wuthering Heights (which is arguably just awful, but still somehow catches the essence of the song and the book) made me listen to her again with different ears.

December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

I don’t know that there is anything that doesn’t contribute to my writing. I guess I could say television, but even that serves as an inspiration at times. I have started to cut back on television viewing, randomly declaring “no television days” a couple of times a week. But, really, my writing (when it happens) is about life, and life is all around me and cannot be eliminated.

December 1 – One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

 

Stability.

I’m so thankful to have attained a degree of stability for myself and my family in 2010. Partially due to my hard work, partially due to luck, partially due to my community.

The last 10 years of my life have been pretty difficult. I never wanted to be a single parent. I never wanted to have a regular job – a career. I never wanted to have to worry about all of those things that adults worry about: mortgages, saving for college, mouths to feed, etc.

Having children really shifted my priorities, and just as I was adjusting to that shift – getting a divorce shifted them even further. These past 10 years have been difficult because I have been faced with the fact that even though I always felt like The Responsible One before – now I actually am forced to BE The Responsible One. With real people relying on me. Little people who can’t be expected to take responsibility for themselves. This realization coincided with me, for the first time ever in my life, being faced with immense difficulty providing for myself, much less these little people I brought into this world.

Thanks to family and friends and a fuck of a lot of very good fortune (not to mention a whole lot of unearned privileges…but that is an entirely other post altogether), 2010 is the year in which everything started to come together, and rather than losing ground or running to stand still, I have finally begun to really STABILIZE.

Who knew stability was desirable? I have always been an avid fan of chaos, but I’m finding there is a great deal to appreciate about knowing that I can pay my bills and feed my children and have some money and time left over to help a friend or start to pay forward all of the kindness that has been shown to me over my most difficult years. I am as thankful for the privilege of sharing as I am for the privilege of having. In the coming year, I look forward to sharing more.