Year's End: A Christmas Post

I've been pretty uninspired to write lately. Nonfictional blog posts, that is. If we're talking fiction, I haven't written anything in over a year. I have an occasional anxious pang about it--especially with all this holiday time on my hands. Maybe posting a blog entry will take a bit of the sting out of it.

First off, let me admit to something: I love New Year's and New Year's resolutions. I like that crazy glint everyone gets in their eyes when they talk (and mostly joke) about the diet and exercise regimes they're about to go on and the self-improvement prioritizing and the spiritual to-do lists. I love the feeling of change and renewal in the air, and the idea that eating big family meals followed by chocolate and wine and drinking beer with friends can actually get old. I love that people actually start to admit that they're sick of it and ready to streamline their routines again--that we start to think about health and maybe even start to miss, a little bit, our daily work grinds--that feeling of kicking ass and taking care of business. Really, I love the tacit understanding between people that it's okay to be boring again--it's okay to call it a night and get back to taking care of ourselves, to stay home, to quit making social plans. I am so much better at being boring than being the life of the holiday party.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because New Year's Eve is tomorrow and I have social plans (!).

Anyway, I love indulging in the holidays as much as I love making New Year's resolutions. This year, we did a few new things: we bought a little tree down the street and walked it home. I discovered the "holiday jazz" station on Pandora (therefore expanding my Christmas favorites beyond the Charlie Brown soundtrack). Traditionally, holiday means long stretches of blank hours that I can fill with socializing, relaxing, sleeping late, reading a new book, drinking, eating, and watching shows on my laptop. Having no routine to speak of, I've been doing things I wouldn't normally do, like cook a new recipe (butternut squash and spinach with whole-wheat gnocchi last night), or walk two miles to the Chimes with Leif to drink an Abita beer sampler (the new select, a vanilla porter, is wonderful). I got to bike downtown with friends to go to the Louisiana history museum. I went shoe shopping with my sister (and actually bought shoes). I downsized from my giant orange purse-sack to a black zippered rectangle (something about a new purse makes me feel like a different person for a while). I painted my nails. I went for runs. I went to see Black Swan with my siblings. We invited people over to drink around our firebox in the backyard. I'm supposed to go eat oysters on Tuesday with some dancer buddies.

It brings to mind the usual question: why don't I squeeze these types of events into my usual schedule more often? Is there a way to do so? Is there more to do in BR than I usually think? (Probably not.) Do I let my job overwhelm me to the point that I get lazy about finding inspiration in my work and the other parts of my life? (Probably so.)

I just get lazy in general. The other day, we heard on the radio that Obama has a dude who brings him a buffet of the latest pop music--I guess to keep the presidential ipod up to date. I told Leif man, I'd love for somebody to do that for me and he said uh, have you heard of the Internet?

The holidays always remind me that all it takes is a couple of empty-scheduled days to nudge me into a state of complete ennui. I'm proud that I've kept up the running like I've decided I was going to do, but if I wasn't going back to my normal routine soon, I'd probably quit doing that. Today, for instance, I've been alternating between reading Kitchen Confidential and watching No Reservations on Netflix. I made myself a pumpkin pancake because Leif made a bunch of the mix the other day (and it's sitting in the fridge and we're out of eggs). I drank my coffee. I got in my yoga clothes in a moment of caffeine-induced inspiration and checked the online schedule of the studio down the street. There are no decent classes or times today. I'm toying with the idea of doing my video at home, but I needed to properly digest breakfast. Now I'm hungry for lunch and I'm thinking about at least having a glass of water and a vitamin before either scraping something together in the kitchen or going to the grocery store. That's been my day so far. I assume I'm gaining weight and losing muscle, and we've got a show in a few weeks.

I don't own a scale, so when I stepped onto the one in my parents' house on Christmas Day, I expected to see some weight gain (I've been back on the chocolate train). Instead, I saw that I'm about ten pounds lighter than I was at this time last year. I've taken another round of pants to the tailor this week to get the waistbands altered. One of my reactions to this information is fear--that it's just some leftover fitness from this summer's mini triathlon and I'll soon be on the road to weight gain again. Another thought that I have is gratitude--maybe there's a slow evolution of balance and self-love happening as a result of things I've read. Maybe it's an immediate result of that Greek-salad-with-chicken kick I was on that coincided with a lot of late-night dance rehearsals (when I have a night rehearsal, I don't eat a big dinner or drink wine or beer). Maybe running--even my little two-mile chug that only happens once or twice a week--is magical. Maybe the new after-school routine of a big mug of black tea with milk and a downsized snack is making a difference, or the vitamins I've been swallowing daily instead of bi-annually. Perhaps it was the day I took saltines and chocolate off the grocery list that started a steady climb to fitness.

Could it be possible that I've slowly shifted into a more satisfied state of mind, and my waistline is merely reflecting it? I still feel starving, most of the time, for more experiences, more artistic expression, more consumables (a new city, a new job, a new degree, a more stimulating environment). I still wonder, especially when I see old friends who've come home to visit from their new big-city residences, if I appear to be the sort of person who resigned herself to a pragmatic life of buying a house in town, working, settling. Too unsure of what my "dreams" are to reach for them. Or too unmotivated to dance harder, write more frequently, work on that new piano piece I've been saying I wanted to learn.

A friend recently asked me if I'd recommend becoming a teacher to someone who didn't necessarily view it as their "calling" but who wanted to earn a salary with an English degree for a few years. I found myself at a bit of a loss for words--at first I said not to do it if it's not something you're seriously interested in because it takes a lot of mental energy and commitment to do it well. And if you don't like working with people, especially young ones, then forget it. But then I qualified that statement, and qualified it some more. "Well, I'm not sure I feel it's my calling...I mean I feel like I'm competent at it and sometimes I'm really into it...I guess I thought I'd only do it for a few years...this is my fifth year...I mean if you know your content and you like working with people and you don't want a desk job, then go for it."

Sometimes I feel like my life is well-oiled and functioning smoothly, and at the same time, I have no idea where I'm headed, or if I'm headed anywhere but here. Here is not bad--here is a good life. I'm satisfied and I'm unsatisfied. Maybe I'll always be procrastinating and waiting for what I imagine to be my true life to start because it's only a projected image. Maybe five years from now I'll be deep in the middle of something lovely and asking myself why I didn't choose it sooner.

Christmas is a time where life seems to be reduced, concentrated, under watch. We're all in close quarters spending lots of time together, eating and drinking like it's our last days on earth, seeing people from the past, taking a long blurry look at each other. Things change, rapid-fire, like the year is aware of its approaching end. One of my friends is suddenly engaged. My estranged cousin's fiancé died of a heart attack on Christmas night, hours after I'd given him an obligatory family hello hug in my Grandma's yard. Mom told me on the phone and we worried together about my cousin, who'd just said she wanted to go back to school, who has a long history of being troubled, lost, and a fragile mess. Later, over beer, priveleged to have life and leisure, Leif and I admitted to being a bit freaked out. He said it was a reminder. He didn't say of what.

It reminds me that we are all unsure. It reminds me that I am lucky to be moving forward into the next year. It reminds me that I have little normal things in life to take care of, like buying groceries, and little weird things, like buying tap shoes for an upcoming performance, and that I can view tasks as chores or privleges or mind-numbing daily grinds or pleasurable experiences.

It reminds me that there's no real way to sum up the way I feel about this year or the next because it's all a blurry string of sensory moments and non-sequitors, passing through instead of culminating toward a climax.