Category: Essays

Happy Now Year!

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

I have a New Year’s tradition of great melancholia that would seem as etched in ritualistic stone as high mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  At this time every year, I swim in thoughts of days gone by and wrap myself in the blankets of memories, both happy and sad.  I am “Auld Lang Syne” personified.   I contemplate where I have been and ponder where I will go.   I repose and reflect and resolve.  This melancholy is almost painful.  Whatever it is I am remembering, focusing on, mentally chewing up . . .  no longer is.  I attribute all kinds of importance and solemnity to something that doesn’t even exist anymore.  And I have done this every year about this time for as long as I can remember.

Except this year.  This year is different.  And I think I’ve figured out why.

About a week ago, Susie and I were having a conversation and this sentence came out of my mouth, “The purpose of life is learning how to be content.”

Does anybody else out there act as your own teacher?  Do you learn as the words come out of your mouth, as if you are audience to your own lecture?  Two truths came to me almost instantaneously with this sentence.  First, the purpose of life is different for each life.  Second, the purpose for MY life is to learn how to be content, and I’m starting to get it.

So much of my life before was waiting, anticipating, hoping, striving.  Over the last few years, my life has become . . . happy.  Wow.  I’m really happy.   I love my life.  I love my partner and the family we have together.  But it’s more than the “biggies.”  I think happiness comes in the appreciation of the minute details of everyday life.  I love my house, and my yard, and feeding the birds, and planting garlic, and growing rosemary, and baking bread, and walking my dog on a crisp December morning.  I love the view out the sliding glass door from the desk where I work all day.  I love watching the blue spruce we planted a few years ago grow in the front yard.  I love taking a break from work to take the food scraps out to the compost pile.

I had a great year in 2008, and I look forward to 2009.  (And, yes, I do have a resolution and, yes, it involves a treadmill and scales.)   But, in this moment, about 24 hours before the ball begins dropping in Times Square, I am content and happy and . . . in this moment.

What the Winter Solstice and Great Pasta Dishes Have in Common

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

I want to do something to commemorate the Winter Solstice this Sunday.  I don’t necessarily feel the need to dance naked around an oak tree under a full moon, but I have thought for several years in a row now that it would be nice to acknowledge the day in some way.

It’s not an inconsequential day.  To those who were once far more connected to the land, this was a day of natural transition and time for celebration.  It was the shortest day and longest night.  From that moment on, the sun would stay longer and longer each day until it reached the summer solstice.  Bonfires were built to welcome back the sun.  A yule log was lit and kept burning for 12 days.   Homes were decorated with holly, ivy and mistletoe to welcome the nature sprites in.

In what would appear to be a completely unrelated event, I was contemplating what to grow in our garden next year.  I had decided earlier that each year we would try something new in order to slowly add to the list of things we can actually grow beyond the sprout stage without killing.   My choice for this year is garlic.   Although I felt I was jumping the gun, I decided to go ahead and Google garlic to see how it is cultivated.   Turns out garlic is (duh) a bulb that is best planted late fall for harvesting the next summer.

In fact, “traditionally, garlic is planted on the Winter Soltice.”  Yep, that’s what it said.

M(i)LK

~ Deb ~ Leave a comment

On Sunday, Susie and I drove across town to the one movie theatre within probably 150 miles that will show “controversial” films.   We had made the trek back when Brokeback Mountain was in theatres and would have done so for Religulous, but apparently the latter was too much even for the Green Hills Regal.   This time we went to see Milk, and I was impressed enough to actually blog my first movie review.

This is the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to political office in the United States.  He was assassinated while serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978.

I had written a paper when I was in college on the gay rights movement for my persuasion theory class.  It just so happened that an entire section of my paper was about Harvey Milk, and so most of the details in the movie were familiar to me.  I knew to expect his failed runs for office and his ultimate success after the redistricting of the Castro.  I knew to expect his death, as well as the death of Mayor George Moscone who was killed by the same gunman.  I knew that the gunman was Dan White, a fellow San Francisco Board of Supervisors member.  (Dan White, by the way, served a total of only five years for the double murder after his attornies claimed the famous “Twinkie Defense” which essentially stated that he was on such a sugar high from a junk food obsession that it affected his behavior and decision-making abilities.  No.  I’m not kidding.)  I even expected the candle light vigil attended by over 30,000 people who marched through San Francisco in Milk’s honor.

What I didn’t expect was what makes this movie a must-see.  I did not expect to see the well known hyper-sexual culture of the Castro District in the 1970s portrayed so honestly and yet, by the magnificent direction of Gus Van Sant, not hampering empathy for the main character in any way.  I did not expect to be so completely overwhelmed by the brilliance of Sean Penn in the title role.  For two hours I didn’t think of Sean Penn once.  He WAS Harvey Milk.  And, most importantly, I did not expect to cry.

Harvey Milk was a civil rights activist of immense importance in our nation’s history.  He accomplished remarkable things, and he did so honestly, openly, . . . yes, even flamboyantly.   One of the things Milk spoke about often in speeches was hope, and I couldn’t help but think about how pertinent that message still is for a nation so hungry for hope that we elected a President to try to get some back.  Harvey Milk was a man ahead of his time, and those kinds often have to pay for being out of step.  He knew what he was doing might get him killed, but he did it anyway to prove “You are not sick.  You are not wrong.”

The fact that Harvey Milk is not remembered as vividly as other slain civil rights leaders says a lot about our country.  Perhaps we’re ready now to give him at least a portion of the credit he deserved 30 years ago.

Just Throwing Another Yule Log on the Fire

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

I feel like Nostradamus.  As if on cue after my most recent blog “Happy Yule” (below) a Merry Christmas e-mail debate broke out among the faculty of the college where I teach.   This yuletide uproar began with the benign announcement of the annual “Holiday Luncheon.”  The first e-mail response was offered with a scowl and a growl.  (Hint:  If you are scowling when you write an e-mail, astute readers will know this.)  The writer was offended that he couldn’t go to a “Christmas” luncheon and opened the door for his opposition by adding, “What other holiday would we be celebrating?  Fourth of July?  Memorial Day?  Martin Luther King Day?”

I’m proud to say that several faculty members returned fire by a) reminding him of what other holidays we could be celebrating, and b) offering reasons why their choices for December observances were every bit as valid as his.

I was discussing this at work tonight in the company of another faculty member and, as chance would have it, the chief of security.  I had just offered my own response to the online debate and was anxious to show it to my colleague.

“Oh, so you’re getting into the Great Holiday Luncheon Debate of 2008,”  Chief said.  And then he added, “You know, this whole thing started because they had to use the word ‘holiday’ since we’re a state school.”

“No, Chief,” I replied.  “This whole thing started when someone who believes he should own the holiday season decided to raise a stink about someone trying to be sensitive and inclusive.”

My friend, Priscilla, (props to Priscilla) offered a wonderful argument that I think I shall adapt for my own, with her permission.  I hope I don’t misrepresent her position, but the way I got it was this:  When the Christians agree to give back every “Christmas” symbol stolen from other traditions, then I’ll agree to give them December 25th.  Lock, stock, and barrel.  (Actually, to be technical, they would also have to give back December 25th since that was stolen from other traditions as well, but I shant quibble in that regard.)

ATTENTION ALL JESUS-FOLLOWERS:  When someone says “Happy Holidays” to you, they aren’t trying to offend you, ignore you, or even de-Christianize you.  What they are trying to do is NOT offend or ignore or inadvertantly Christianize you if you happen to not be a Christian.  When you respond defensively to Happy Holidays, you are, in essence, offended by the fact that other people aren’t getting offended.  How very WWJD of you.

Just be sweet.  Spread love and joy.  If you’ll leave your religious superiority out of the holiday season, I won’t point out that pagan mistletoe you have hanging above your door.