ON HOT ERRAND/DATES, RELISHING THE PROSPECT OF NEW TIME, AND SPUTTERING TO THE FINISH LINE
Thursday and Friday December 9 & 10 2021
Dear Sarah,
It’s Thursday night! I’m munching some caramel corn that M received in the mail as part of his office holiday gift, drinking a cider, and digesting a quick and tasty busy-week dinner of fried eggs and cheese on toast.
I’ve been feeling of late that I am a machine for working: staying at the computer too late in the evenings, rolling out of bed in the morning to get back to the screen again. Earlier this week it was particularly cold here, single-digits cold, and M and I couldn’t stomach getting out for a run first thing in the morning in the dark, and thus I was even more machine-like in my work focus. Yuck! Today it warmed up and we went for a morning run before I turned into a work machine. Tomorrow is Friday and some projects are finally getting ticked off the list! By the middle-to-end of next week I will be beginning the Big Holiday Taper as I ready myself to
I left that thought unfinished, and unfinished it shall remain! But you can imagine what I will do over the holidays: rest, relax, read, eat too many sweeties, drink too many drinks, lounge exactly the right amount on my in-laws’ very comfortable couch.
Update: it’s now Friday evening! I am continuing to consume some fair amount of calories in caramel corn! I’ve met two deadlines this week and I have rejuvenated myself this evening with a bowl of tasty pasta puttanesca. I’m ensconced in my cozy snow-bound home and I don’t have anywhere I need to go this weekend. M and I opened the front door to listen to the soft silence of the snow collecting on our street. I’m feeling change around the corner and I’m ready for it! You mentioned the upcoming solstice and the psychological residue you might chuck into the flames of the fire pit (do you have a solstice fire pit tradition? I looked back in our letters but didn’t see a specific instance… but perhaps you haven’t told me about it yet!) I think 2022 is shaping up to be a good year. 2021 was like a long 2020, and something in my mind stretched and maybe didn’t quite snap but was coming close, as time started to feel confusingly meaningless but at the same time firmer than ever. Time will pass no matter what! I just subscribed to a newsletter that will renew in December of 2022 and I clicked through the months on my calendar to leave myself a reminder to either cancel or commit to continuing, and as I watched the months click by I thought, there really are a lot of minutes in those months. I tend to look at my calendar in the week view, which is perhaps too close of a view of time. Looking at the months, I mentally rubbed my hands together, saying look how much time is coming in 2022! It’s all the same kind of time, but still, it’s new time. I have marked on my calendar our 100 creative days and I am very curious to see where we’ll take it! I’m trying to resist coming up with some sort of frame or box that I’ll tuck my thoughts into over those days; I did have the thought that maybe those hundred days can come together in some sort of book form, but that doesn’t have to be a rule. 100 creative days! I am thoroughly anticipating this new year.
It was such a delight to read in your letter of last week about how enthusiastic your students were about your class! What a treat to do something you are enjoying and to have other people appreciate it fully! I hope you have allowed yourself at least one “I am a genius!” yells! (It feels good!) You said of this experience that you are teaching for the sake of teaching, and doing it with just one class (albeit with 44 students) and for a short period of time. I wonder if this is like the 5K of teaching for you? Will you find you want to pursue a teaching 10K, a half marathon, maybe someday a full marathon?
I am glad you love the peanut Larabars as I do! In my neck of the woods I can only find them at Target these days — I hope they don’t go extinct! They are tasty no matter how often M says they are disgusting!
To reiterate: it’s Friday night and we’re creeping toward the holidays! I’m going to go peruse the stack of books I checked out from the library today, and relish the fact that I will be sleeping in tomorrow morning!
Looking forward to reading your words! Have a very happy weekend!
Until soon,
Yours,
Eva
December 10, 2021
Dear Eva,
Well, it is after 9 PM on Friday night and like you, I am feeling like I might not shall not miss spending Friday night at a computer in the new year. It is funny how adaptive we human beings are. Something that once seemed so sad (letters ending) now seems like the right thing. We are (or at least I am) barely sputtering to the finish line! My sense is that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, which I believe you predicted. Knowing your desire to escape shifted things, like a single drop of ink spreading in a pool of water. And that is quite all right. I am happy that you confessed your preferences, I am happy that I grieved and did so without locking it away, and even happier that life is going on as it does.
I am definitely feeling the end-of-year vibes you wrote about last week—the time for a big push before taking off for a nice break. The scramble is real! If the end was not in sight, I would probably be sitting down on the sidelines with my knees to my chest. But the finish line is just one (ish) week away, so we must keep up the sprint. My holiday break begins on the 22nd, and then runs a full two weeks. Just the thought of having multiple nights with no tasks awaiting me after the kids go to bed, and days spent doing whatever the heck I want, sounds glorious!
I am jazzed about your new year plans, and inspired by your resoluteness. It is certainly true that only we have the power to hold ourselves to our plans and choices, and in fact, a whole heck of a lot of people are pushing us away from them, whether they realize it or not. Every random person in our lives who says, “Oh, aren’t you going to do this” or “You would be good at that” is pushing and pulling us, distracting us from our own personal plans and priorities. In other words, yes it is only in our power to hold to them, and holding to them is hard! Captain Obvious reappearing over here.
My dog just joined me on the couch after his evening walk with B, and his mild dog smell reminds me of “the incident” today on our walk/call. It makes me chuckle to think of you hearing my gasp and thinking I was shocked and chagrined by your weather reports. Alas, it was sticking my bare finger in dog poop that brought on the shock. An inauspicious start to the day. (Note: I just read B that sentence because I was clarifying my use of the word “inauspicious” and he said, “Sounds more like a shitty start to the day, if you know what I mean?”) The rest of the day was less eventful. I prepared for a thing that it turned out I did not really need to prepare for. Then I did a couple of work things and then B and I went out for a late afternoon errand/date. (Nothing hotter than a date that doubles as an errand run!) I kid, but it was a lovely little outing—actual errand, perusal of a new local bookshop, and then wine and cheese at a little local market. We came back home for B’s homemade pizza and family movie night, and that my friend, is a wrap on this Friday in December.
Tomorrow we hit the road for a brief overnight getaway to Galena, Illinois. I do not recall if I mentioned this plan, but we are ditching the kids with my sister and driving three hours to spend less than 24 hours checking out the location as a possible real estate investment site. Our buds from Chicago are meeting us there, so it should be a treat, if nothing else. I just hope it doesn’t make the weekend feel like it has disappeared! Somehow I must fill the tank back up for another week before Monday.
It is time for me to retire for the evening. I am sipping luxurious bourbon nog and listening to David Byrne and I am ready to power down the brain. Have a wonderful weekend!
Your friend,
Sarah