Unpredictable

The day did not go as I pictured it.

I never imagined that on the first morning back from break one of the first people I would see was that oppositional student walking down the hallway with a quart of Mountain Dew in his hand, just itching for someone to tell him it wasn't allowed in school. And I certainly didn't anticipate that my cross-century VCR-Smart Board hook-up would fail, so that my homeroom and I would be unable to watch the morning announcements. And I never saw it coming when the boy who used to refuse to take off his coat but had been quite cooperative before the winter holidays would return to his former stance: Yeah, I'm just going to have to say no to following that rule, he told me.

"Wow!" I confessed out loud to my homeroom, "This year is something else already!"

But, 18 days off does have some restorative power, and each of those snafus was resolved with patience and a little outside grace. And not all the surprises today were bad. When asked to pick one little word to capture what he wanted more of in his life, a student known for his negativity chose "kindness" because there just isn't enough of it in middle school. And he ended his paragraph with, I can be nicer and so can everyone else.

HBD Bob

The meal gets a little less time-honored over the last 30+ years: first I substituted green beans for the peas; next the mashed potatoes became just a little lighter; now, the biscuits are sweet potato; the chicken is free-range and mostly white meat, and there is even a vegan version for Heidi. Even so, tonight on what would have been my dad's 84th birthday, we will sit down to chicken with white gravy and biscuits, and I will think of him, as I have all day.

Hold Outs

Tomorrow is 12th Night, the Epiphany, and the day when many pack up and put away their holiday decorations for another year. And when the sun came out unexpectedly this afternoon after a considerable stretch of gray skies and rain, it became clear that the days are indeed growing longer, even in just the two weeks since the solstice. Holiday clearance tables have given way to streamlined aisles, bins for organization, and Valentines Day candy. It's impossible to find parking at the gym, and school is back in session on Monday.

Christmas is over.

But not at our house!

Of course, we'll return to work as scheduled, and already our meals are a little lighter, and saving is the new spending. All the cookies are gone, but taking down the tree can wait a few more days, and the candles that light each window at dusk will stay until spring. So will the lighted sign that simply reads JOY, because some things transcend the season.

Get off the Couch

I've been taking it easy since my scooter mishap a week ago. It turns out I bruised a little bit more than just my ego. My hand is getting better, but I also banged my chest on the handle as I went down, and that injury has been painful and slower to heal. Ibuprofen, the heating pad, breathing exercises, but most of all, rest, are the recommended remedies for my condition, and I have been using them all.

There may have also been some collateral damage to my self-image. "Are you going to scooter again?" Annabelle asked after the accident. "Of course!" I answered without hesitation, but I've definitely lost a little of my sense of invincibility: I feel more fragile, and life's dangers have been brought into sharp focus. Gone is my unwavering love for scootering, invalidating at least a half-dozen blog entries, and everything seems a little more scary now.

You are pushing 60! I think sometimes, as I inhale 1-2-3-4, Why would you do anything so risky? hold 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 Stay on the couch and read! exhale 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. Do some writing! Take some Advil!

And it was on the couch with the heating pad on high that I was lying as we watched the finale of Survivor Season 37 the other night. The show actually had its traditional live wrap-up episode a few weeks ago, but we were busy with the holidays and missed it. Gone are the days when discovering the winner of this granddaddy of reality shows was a huge media event, and it wasn't even hard to shield ourselves from spoilers. So, we slogged through the three hour conclusion with a minimum of fast-forwarding, although I confess to always finding that ultimate tribal council tiresome and even boring.

This is the part of the show where the final three survivors are questioned by the jury, which consists of the last seven contestants voted out. The finalists have to answer for their game play and explain how they outwitted, outplayed, and outlasted their competitors, but to me it's just too much talking. It seems doubtful that anything they say can really influence the votes at that point, especially since they are still playing the game.

More interesting for me is the reunion segment at the end, where everyone is interviewed in hindsight, after the winner has been announced. The former survivors are often nearly unrecognizable, having had several months to recover from the 39 day ordeal and always so carefully dressed and groomed for TV. To be sure, the spotlight is still on them, but with the game so far behind them, their comments ring more true and insightful. They talk not just about their strategy, but also about how the experience changed their lives: what they wanted, what they got.

It was in this context that Mike White reminded me of something I know, but sometimes forget. A successful actor and writer, White seemed neither surprised nor dismayed by coming in second in the million dollar competition. When Jeff Probst asked him about his desire to play the game, he said, "As a writer you don't want just spend your whole life observing life. You want to just live it... and for me, I don't want to spend all my creativity on my work; I want to spend it on living, even if it means embarrassing myself in front of millions of viewers. It means you have to take a chance and live the adventure-- get off your computer."

He's right of course, and his advice holds true, not just for writers, but for aging scooterers, too. 

Tall Order

We started our first-of-the-year movie marathon with a short sprint of 2 movies in 2 days. Yesterday it was Vice and today we saw The Favourite. The acting was terrific, but both were ultimately unsatisfying to me.

Each bio-pic was an interesting meditation on power, exploring in particular strategies that women have historically had to resort to in order to gain power. As such, Amy Adams, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone portray characters who are ruthless and manipulative, understandable, but unlikable. Although they approach power acquisition differently than an equally ambitious male counterpart might, all three women still define power in the traditional, zero-sum way, where to have power you have to take it from someone else and hold on to it.

It's fair to argue that all three characters were simply making the best of a bad situation, but I guess that's where the movies fell short for me. I prefer my heroes to fight injustice by reimagining the corrupt status quo.

You Are What You Eat

Every year on New Year's Day we have the traditional southern supper of ham, black-eyed peas, and greens. Those dishes are considered talismans for the year ahead; the ham because a pig in his pen can't look backward and neither should you; the black-eyed peas for luck and the greens for money. In addition, we always have pan-fried chicken, corn, and rice, and every year or so we make up new meanings for those foods as well, so that they, too, might be charms to carry us successfully through the next year.

Yesterday's symbolism was especially satisfying to me: chicken for health, because it's lean, corn for sunshine and clear skies, because of its bright color, and rice because it represents our collective identity, many grains combine to make one dish.

Yes, our meal perfectly captures my fondest wish as I look ahead to the new year: luck, prosperity, health, and sunshine, in the company of family and friends.

Morning Meditation

It was 60 degrees and soggy when I took Lucy out at 7:30 this morning. The neighborhood was deserted; last night's revelries had seen to that, and so we wandered alone, tLucy reacquainting herself with her home turf, and I considering the weather, warm and wet, with which we start this new year.

Then it was back to the house for breakfast and coffee and a bit more quiet contemplation before the rest of our little world woke up.