Pros and Cons

Tomorrow, on the first day of 2015, nothing will feel different. New Year’s will be just another day. Of course, I’m not talking about the aftermath of all that partying. It’s just—this date; it’s not exactly magic. At least not for me. Which is really sad, because it’s my birthday.

So what are the pros and cons of having a birthday on New Year’s?

Pro:  I get to make lists.

Con:  You have to read them. (Actually, no one’s forcing you, except that ninja over there. The one peering over your shoulder. Smile and wave. He likes friendly people.)  

Pro:  The whole world celebrates my birthday. Talk about PARTY!!!!

Con:  I get antisocial at parties.

Pro:  Christmas doesn’t have long to fade before other exciting things happen.

Con:  After Thanksgiving pies and Christmas chocolate, birthday cake is not going to help my new resolution to eat better.

Pro:  I get to make my own birthday cake.

Con:  I make my own birthday cake.

Pro:  Birthday presents!

Con:  Because I have room for those amongst all the piles of books I got for Christmas.

Pro:  It’s a new year!

Con:  It feels suspiciously like last year.

Pro:  Convenience. I know exactly how old I was at any given point in any given year. I don’t have to hem and haw and rub my chin trying to figure out if June comes after April and whether that would have made me twelve or thirteen during the time of the Great Shenanigan.

Con:  Other people’s birthdays—like my friend’s—are easier to forget.

Pro:  When people ask, “So you’re a new Year’s baby?”, I get to look at them funny and ask right back, “Do I look like a baby?”

Con:  When they say yes.

Pro:  It’s really hard to forget my birthday.

Con:  I spent the last week thinking we were past the fifth of January already because vacation does that to my brain.

Pro:  My sister’s birthday comes six days later.

Con:  More. Cake.

 

Ever get those awkward family newsletters that go out around this time—the ones with the irrelevant, overly familiar personal information? Well, what a year it’s been. Thelma passed twelve kidney stones, Benjamin got arrested for drunk driving (I told him not to mix with that crowd, but when do kids his age ever listen?), and Nance is expecting quintuplets. Aside from gangrene and chronic gas, I’m recovering nicely from the liposuction incident.

I should totally write one of those. In fact, here goes—the completely true, mostly fictional account of 2014.

Well, what a year it’s been (which is basically saying it was a year—something we should already know). Just the other day, I was driving around town in my Lamborghini with my celebrity boyfriend, when I saw dozens of teenagers walking with cell phones in hand, texting as though their lives depended on it. And I thought to myself, “Goodness, why does nobody live in reality these days?”

I developed a severe allergy to O₂ mid-August, but the doctor thinks I must be getting superpowers, so I’m not too concerned. The hospital bills were high though…

Very high…

If you know what I mean.

I’m sure you all got lovely presents and…money…for Christmas.

Like I said, those hospital bills were high.

 

Now that you all refuse to take me seriously, though I can’t imagine why, I would like to wish you all a happy New Year (which seems rather self-serving, since it’s like the birthday girl going around wishing everyone a happy birthday on her birthday—alas, you’ll judge me, won’t you?). Even though the start of this year might not feel different and magical—though it could for you—this is still a chance for a fresh start and a new lease on life. Actually, every day gives you that chance—every dawn and every sunset. But somehow the marker on the calendar is far more convincing.

So, happy Second Chance Eve!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Ever get brain cramps? Today, mine’s worse than that. After finishing my duties, I sat down at this here laptop, fully intending to write this post in a flurry of flying fingers. And…then I played hearts for an hour, “brainstorming”. Because you can totally think about clever bits to write when you’re busy naming your opponents after the Pevensie children and getting all tiffy when you lose a hand. Welcome to my brain. Usually, I go for chess instead of hearts. Though I don’t really know why I choose that as my procrastination tool, since I loathe chess. Seriously. Little Miss Computer, would you stop killing my rook—I HAD PLANS FOR HIM!!! That goes for both my bishops and my queen as well, but I suppose you can have my remaining knight if that really makes you happy since I have my pawn in line to SLAUGHTER YOU if you so much as twitch wrong. And, if you have the audacity to try a checkmate on me, well, ctrl + z takes care of that quite nicely. I’ll just undo and undo however many times it takes, even though I really need to be doing something intelligent like editing my book or playing with Legos. By jiminy, I will win that game if it kills me. I dare you to defy me, metal machine. Today you have met your match.

The sad part is that, on a difficulty scale of one to ten (one being the lowest), I only have the program set to level three.

In other news, it’s Christmas Eve, just in case you…happened to forget or something. Silliness aside, I understand this isn’t a fun season for everyone. Maybe it brings back unpleasant recollections and unwelcome emotions. Holidays just aren’t the same when loved ones are missing—and there are other reasons for staying home and gritting your teeth when you hear carolers strolling by. May I offer my condolences? Hopefully this year you will find newer, better memories to help alleviate sorrowful histories.

Despite the hard knocks of life, I still find myself aging backwards as December 25^th approaches. After the lull of procrastination and denial, comes the frantic rush of last minute loose-end-tying and then, without proper warning, Christmas Eve stumbles awkwardly onto the scene. The great, bushy pine staggers under the weight of lights and decorations, towering over a formidable pile of gifts that threatens to collapse at any moment and crush those unfortunate enough to stand too near.

Though I no longer bounce off the walls the way I did when I was five, I will still lie awake tonight, tingling with anticipation. Last year, after struggling for roughly thirty-seven point nine hours to fall asleep, I finally dozed off, only to dream I had slumbered through Christmas. Because that would totally happen. So it was with cold sweat and lonely shudders that I woke to the eager processional of cousins, punctuated with loud whispers and not-so-sneaky footsteps as we traipsed downstairs to the living room. There, spread out on the couches like lumpy cats, were our stockings. Traditionally, after gutting said stockings and dividing the spoils of war (that got morbid), we linger, laughing and raising a ruckus. But when the Starbucks gulped in a desperate rally to stay awake proves futile, sleepiness begins to drag at our satisfied lids, and we scurry off to store our plunder and to snatch a snooze.

Once the older, saner people have awoken and showered, breakfast finds itself scattered across the island, ignored by those with overly ambitious hopes of “saving room for Christmas dinner”. Before the meal though, and before the tryptophan-induced slumbers, comes the Grand Ceremony of the Opening of Presents (or something dramatic like that). Usually I get books (big surprise there) and the occasional strange gift. Our oddity of the year will be the custom wrapping paper with my cousin’s face on it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because even before the meal and the presents comes the most important time of all. I’ll admit—when it’s time to read the Christmas story, as vital as it is, I’m always a little antsy to reach for the largest present with my name on it. It’s easier to cling to the tangible. That box is currently bigger in my mind than some baby in a manger, distant and far away. There’s no denying that I’m human, with a limited scope and a narrow focus. Still I can’t forget: 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:16-17 *

 

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:1, 7-8). *

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received:  that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15: 3-4). *

 

On this day, I remind myself anew why it is that I have hope, because for some marvelous reason that still blows my mind, someone loved me enough to become human, to walk the earth, to experience persecution and torture, and ultimately to offer his life in exchange for mine, and then to rise again, triumphant over death. If that’s not worth celebrating, I don’t know what is.

 

 

*Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Jack Frost Roasting on an Open Fire...

...chestnuts nipping at your nose...

 

 

That’s not how the song goes? Dear me…how embarrassing!

Be that as it may, winter is hurtling toward us with icy wings outspread to engulf the world—or something equally dramatic. Days are shortening (in the Northern Hemisphere at least), and I am beginning to remember why it is that winter gets to me after a while. Sure, I like autumn; I love the colored leaves and the scented air and the tempered chill. But then snow falls. Fortunately, I haven’t had to shovel yet this season, but my body knows that, sooner or later, this will change. I get sore just thinking about it. Even with the overhead lights on and seemingly every lamp in the house glowing without the dimming hand of their proper shades, the shadows still gather in looming squadrons at the corners of my vision, about the edges of the room where even the lamps’ cold gleam can’t reach. At times like these, I wonder why I claim to love both autumn and winter. What’s wrong with summer? Isn’t spring really the most delightful season of all? (It almost is.) What on earth led my addled mind to believe I actually enjoy the cold drudgery and the weary days when even coffee takes no toll on the sluggish highway of my thoughts?

Without fail, I always forget how gross winter can be. I lose sight of the long hours scooping, lifting, shifting snow, only for it to fall anew. The process feels meaningless. I move frozen water, and it melts. All that work for seemingly nothing, since in the long run, what have I really gained? Come winter’s end, I have no lasting souvenir of all those sweaty hours torturing my arms and back as plow trucks rev their engines and squeal out of the intersection as if that will impress me. Dude, if you really want to impress me, get out and help me shovel! But I digress.

Like drudgery and misery, pain fades quickly. On Sunday, for instance, I ripped off the tip of my toe—fortunately not to the bone—and already that’s ancient history (which says nothing about my attention span). Looking back, I can’t honestly recall how much it hurt, though I know it did. Another example—after writing and rewriting last November’s project about a quarter million times, I set the work aside, spent the summer lollygagging, and promptly forgot how much effort I’d put into it. Now, my head knows it was a boatload of blood, sweat, and tears, but my emotions are in denial. So here I am, typing away, feeling as though my completed book were simply handed to me, as though it were merely dropped into my lap, as though I didn’t actually work for it as much as I should have. Stuff and nonsense.

Back to winter. Of course I remember the wonderful details:  the warm fuzzy feelings, the pleasant moments, the tantalizing smells. I tend to block the other times, the ones with tears and tissues and torment. So reviewing my life is like watching reruns of my favorite show through a nostalgia filter. It is idealized and inaccurate. Still, I wonder if that’s a measure of how we cope, if we’re meant to magnify the good times, within reason, and to lose sight of the days that ached. Just think—if the weight of every dreary winter stuck with me always, I believe I would soon learn to dread the changing of the seasons. Instead I take delight, though each year I learn anew. But alongside this painful rediscovery rests the compilation of nostalgia from all my previous experiences. That outshines the sorrow of winter and dying.

Every season is bursting with memories and happy ghosts, moments pressed between the pages of my history to rustle and breathe anew when the wind catches them just right. And winter is wind like no other. I am haunted by a thousand snapshots of icy-tipped noses above steaming hot chocolate with the sticky red of a candy cane pressed between cherry fingers. I seem to hear, even now, voices layered over each other, past choruses joining with present in ethereal harmony. Nameless nostalgic tremors seize my spine, whispers of memories filed too deeply for my grasp, but there and comforting just the same.

Some seasons trap glowing moments better than others—at least, I find it so. Spring is spectacular, and summer has portfolios of its own, but autumn and winter combined are the true archives. Perhaps that is because more events are crammed between their covers than in the other half of the year. Last NaNoWriMo (I can’t help but smile in recollection), I wrote a book. Since then, I’ve polished it to my satisfaction. This year, I finished three books and two partials, and now I have my editing cut out for me, which is by far my favorite part of the process. I can’t tell you how many wonderful feelings come from that alone. Then Thanksgiving rolls along with family, food, and fun new adventures. Christmas follows, and do I even need to elaborate? After that shines New Year’s Day, which has the added gloss of being my birthday. So I wonder if spring and summer are merely the seasons of recovery meant to prevent autumn and winter from growing old.

That’s one issue I’ve been struggling to learn, but don’t worry, because I’ll eventually forget how difficult it was. You cannot have good moments without bad; you cannot have highs without lows; dawn would mean nothing without night. For every stellar writing day, I have five lesser ones. That’s life. And trying to seize the same enjoyment every time is as pointless and harmful as trying to lift a semi. I would strain something. Consider:  if I ate ice cream every night, aside from getting fat, I would also get bored. Ice cream would stop being special, because I would soon take it for granted. But if I tasted ice cream infrequently, not even once a month, it would always be new—it would always be a highlight.

So this season, I’m trying to remember that nostalgia comes with patience and, like cheddar, it’s better aged. Happy moments aren’t fluttering birds to be caught—they are gifts dropped unexpected on our doorsteps. If I rush headlong into the holidays with the goal of accruing as many fuzzy feelings as I can, I wonder if I’ll end up disappointed. And I don’t want to wear myself out chasing something that wasn’t meant to be manufactured like that. What I am going to do is enjoy this season for what it is and what new treasures I will chance to stumble upon, knowing that retrospect will lend me the honeyed glow I crave.

I’m also going to buy seven floodlights and a lamp. Winter, beware.

Ketchup Stains and Life Lessons

So I was wandering around our house, just browsing among my books. Feeling somewhat nostalgic, I pulled an old favorite from the shelf and flipped through the age-stiffened pages. Yup, it’s seen a few more years than I have. The smell has gone musty—not that fresh, vinegary scent you sometimes get with the stiffer stock. And the pages turn like bits of board, fragile and brittle.

That’s what I noticed, right before I saw the food stain.

Let me just say, I can’t stand book abuse. If you ask to borrow one of my darlings, I will invariably start to twitch; then I will reluctantly hand you the book and blurt something to the effect of, “Please be very careful with that and treat it as you would your first-born child.” Yeah, and I’m not ashamed, not even a little. (Okay, maybe a little—but that’s all you’ll get.) In my opinion, half the pleasure of a book is the newness, the feel of it, the glossy paperback all pristine and unwrinkled or the unmarred surface of the hardcover with that creakiness you hear when you open it the first few times. I like the straight cut of the pages, the way all those thin slivers of tree fit together so smoothly and neatly. You might say I’m obsessed. And the smell—oh the smell!—of paper. If you’ve read Fahrenheit 451, you’ll know what I’m talking about. (Think nutmeg.)

There are many horrors that bring a shudder to my spine:  those dreadful moments when my fingernail catches, the sight of ice cream spilt on pavement—and a well-loved book. You know what I’m talking about; it may not be old, but it sure looks that way with as many ripples in the cover as one of those Ruffles® potato chips and as many dog-ears in the pages as a pack of wolves. (Forgive me.) No, I want the smooth, unmarred spines on my many books to line the shelves in pristine splendor with no creases to mark out favorite spots or the places where the glue was at its weakest while the hand was at its strongest. And, if I lend you a book, and you hand it back to me with so much as ONE DIRT SMUDGE on the cover, so help me, I will probably…be very nice to you in person and think awful things about you behind your back as I lie curled on my bed, crying and rocking myself as I whisper comforting things to my poor, damaged volume. Yeah, no, I’m not ashamed about that either. (Okay, yes I am. Please go away now.) For some people, the dust jacket is worthless, just a papery bit that gets in the way. For me though, it is priceless. If I ruin the jacket on one of my hardcovers, even if I don’t particularly like the picture (or the book), I will suddenly suffer the urge to buy a new copy just for a fresh, unmarred dust jacket.

Yeah, Liz, I think we need to sit down…and have a long talk, with tissues and hot chocolate. As long as we don’t use those books over there as coasters. Or table wedges. Or…

Moving on now.

The truth is, that book you just bought—the one you’re holding in your hand and admiring…and smelling when you don’t think anyone’s looking (I totally saw that)—it’s only new once. The wonder you get from tracing the smooth cover and feeling the fresh turn of pages—it won’t return once it’s left. Even treated well, books age. Unfortunately. Those stiff pages will start feeling like cloth if you turn them often enough—and that’s what they were meant for, or so I’m told. Me, I wouldn’t mind having two copies of everything—one for looks and the other for reading. Like it or not, fingers get clumsy. Sometimes, you fall asleep reading in the bathtub and…bad stuff happens (why would you even do that anyway?). Sometimes you drop a book and you catch it with your ninja reflexes—by the flimsy glossy cover—and you leave a little curved crease that shows up on every angle because it’s so stinking shiny! (Which is why you loved it in the first place—and also why you hate it now.) Maybe I’m alone. Maybe I’m the only one who feels betrayed when others don’t value my books as highly as I do. Psychoanalyze me all you like, I have my reasons for this—and they are very good reasons.

But this everyday truth—sometimes it’s hard for me to accept that new stuff gets old. The seeming perfection of an unsullied book fades. We fade. Our lives are short and measured in the span of a breath compared with history. We begin young, and already we’re dying. So maybe it’s easier to fuss about my books and ignore the bigger, larger problem; we are all of us mortal.

Sorry—that got deep. And morbid.

Moving on.

Back to the book I was so obliviously flipping through (Watership Down by Richard Adams, in case you were wondering), I found something—gasp! I found a—it was a… Oh goodness, I can’t even say it. It was so awful. I—I think I may need to sit down.

I found a ketchup stain in my beautiful book. Excuse me, perhaps you didn’t hear me right—you over there, the one sitting at your computer NOT FREAKING OUT. See, with me, I don’t have an overabundance of time. What with classes and writing and that thing that interferes with those two tasks (I’ve heard it called life), I don’t get much chance for pleasure reading. So, during mealtimes, I used to sit and read while I ate. And I like egg sandwiches—thus the ketchup stains. (Yes, I am one of those people.) It bothers me, because sometimes I don’t see the stuff on my finger…until I’ve turned the page. And it’s not like you can put a book in the washer just to get the stain out. Doesn’t work like that…or so I’m told. When it comes down to the marred perfection, well, unless I want to be a total dweeb and buy a new copy for so small a reason, I have to suck it up and accept that pristine isn’t permanent.

Truth be told, as I look at this ketchup stain and remember a charming poem called “Marginalia”, I start to feel a little ashamed at my lack of focus. Because, let’s look at the facts. I was reading that book, loving the story and relishing my sandwich, and yeah, the two components of my enjoyment had an…encounter. But I was swept up in another world at the time; ketchup-stained fingers weren’t even on my radar at that point. Now that—that’s the real purpose of a book. You can bind anything and make it pretty—but pretty doesn’t always mean valuable. It’s what’s inside the book that makes it lasting and special. Watership Down wouldn’t be around anymore if it were just another pretty face. At some point, I’ll be able to grasp that and ignore the shiny cover completely (like that’s going to happen.)

Until then, I’ll be repeating “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love”* one hundred times.

 

Note:  I’m not even going to mention annotation. I’m just going to plug my ears and sing a little song and dance around, all the while pretending that such atrocities do not exist.

 

*Quote from “Marginalia” by Billy Collins. A must read.