It snowed in East Tennessee today, and the accumulation totally eluded the weatherpeople and their crystal balls. So we had an impromptu mid-day snow day and it has been delightful. The jaded Northerner in me set my irritations aside and relished the opportunity to frolic and play the Eskimo way, wondering if Eskimos would actually look outside and say, "Meh. Let's go binge-watch Dexter on Netflix."
Oh, hey, December 2013. Have you met months January - November of this year? 1. What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before? Went to Savannah, GA (three times--yowsa!). Attended the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference. Led a group of students to ATL - CNN Headquarters and World of Coca-Cola. Started my third consecutive school year teaching. Signed with a literary agent. Began styling with Keaton Row.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Let us just take a moment to be thankful I am speeding ticket free for yet another year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, welcome North West! Ha. Also, Luke, Scarlett, Lois, Vivienne, James, just to name a few new blessings in our circle.
4. Did anyone close to you die? RIP Auntie Mare.
5. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? A book deal.
6. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I really enjoyed my children this summer. I know that sounds like a non-accomplishment, but the transition from teaching to being a stay-at-home mama to two adorable punks in the death heat of Tennessee summer is something I find difficult. I planned a really great summer for us and we bonded in a significant way.
7. What was your biggest failure? I didn't stick to our financial budget as much as I wanted to and needed to, but I am back on track with that.
8. Did you suffer illness or injury? Praises be, no!
[showmyads]
9. What was the best thing you bought? I got Loverpants a Sunday delivery of the NYT for the year. Such a great citizenvestment.
10. What did you get really excited about? My sister TP got engaged! This video
11. What was the best book you read this year? Toss up between: Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis and
My Korean Deli: Risking It All for a Convenience Store
12. Compared to this time last year, are you: – happier or sadder? I change from happy to sad 2394028343 times/day. – thinner or fatter? About the same – richer or poorer? So much better (see also: condo albatross gone)
13. What was your favorite TV program? Parenthood. Orange is the New Black (when is Season #2 btw?). Downton.
14. What was your favorite music from this year? Loved seeing Sara Bareilles. Love this video by the Killers.
15. What were your favorite films of the year? Gatsby and, honestly, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 was not the worst sequel ever.
16. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? On my 33rd birthday, I think I got a massage?
17. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. My children are actively learning how to do this thing called Being Human from watching me. And that is a humbling, sobering thing.
Ya think about changing your sheets. Whether you do it as a disciplined thing or you wait until the sheets peel themselves off your bed and beg you PERMA PRESS ME, STAT, you are so glad when change comes. The clean sheets feel so crisp and fresh. But then the cycle repeats itself and you are rolling around in bed wishing the Snuggle bear would just do you a favor and toss you some new linens. Change happens again, exchanging the dirties for the cleans.
The thing about moving from Boston to Tennessee for me was that I naively thought I was just changing a set of sheets. It was time. The city living, I was ready to wash ourselves clean of the endless traffic, the population density, the high priced everything, the pollution. And so we did. We not only changed the sheets, we moved the whole bed and caboodle to the South wherein we were no closer to family and were now without friends. The soft scent of the new sheets wore off quickly as we battled real estate woes back in Boston for well over the first year.
Had we not experienced what we believed was a very specific calling to change our sheets at the appointed time and to come live with some new ones in an appointed place, I think the experience would have been much more fraught with doubt and fear.
And now, here we are. We have changed so much more than our sheets. My children pull bricks from their driveway to find potato bug colonies, they sing sabbath school songs in the car, they know about cherry limeade at Sonic, they chase butterflies on our acreage like a couple of Smurfs for crying out loud. They are Southerners. They have no concrete memories of the urbane streets we strolled everyday in their former city, splashing in the Frog Pond on the Boston Common, riding the T from Shawmut Station to Harvard Square.
These memories are becoming faint for me, too, like illustrations of someone else's enchanted life who was able to do the unthinkable: walk to get a chai latte on her way to work.
I thought I was only changing the sheets, you see. I thought I got to retain all the things I still liked about my life as I traded the excesses of the city for the simple pleasures of the country.
Not so. I just exchanged all the maladies and woes of my former geography for a new set in my new geography.
I am still uncomfortable in the South. I am still the weird girl in social circles. I am still too direct in most settings, and totally uninterested in pleasantries. I am intense, honest, generous, clumsy, and self-deprecating. I have a flair for brightly colored fabrics. I am a product of a Midwestern upbringing, a MidAtlantic education, and a New England professionalism. I cannot disinherit these sheets that have wrapped me up for twirtysomething years. I can only clean them and make them presentable.
My one comfort, other than the amazing Mr. Loverpants who should win a best supporting role in the play about my yammering, is the promise from Psalm 46:
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns.
Can I get a li'l 'Bless her heart' from y'all?
