An Open Letter to December (Because that’s what blogs are for…)

Dear December,

Thank you for sucking less than November. November felt cold like February and hectic like September, and that just doesn’t fly with me. December, thanks for charging in like a steam-roller but going back in time and slowing down a bit -- and for being warmer (temperature-wise and sentiment-wise). I know in November we’re supposed to reflect and give thanks, but I think you, December, are a better reminder of why we should be thankful. November has Black Friday (and all of the other marketing-based theme days that follow), but by this point in mid-December, we’re all “big-deal-discount”ed out. December, you give me an excuse to do something special for my loved ones or pick up something special that makes me think of them. Things that I think they might like or could use; I like that.

It’s easy to get lost in the hustle of it all, but I love the serendipity of “I just happened to bump into this while shopping for toilet paper and it caught my eye and distracted me from actually purchasing what I intended to purchase during my trip to the store (turn around and go back again...Toilet paper canNOT be forgotten), but it was worth it because of the joy I got from thinking of you and hope you can get joy from this gift.” Or the “I’ve been researching all year and reading lots of kids’ books to try to find the perfect book for your family and I think your little one will chuckle at this silly picture book and I love giving books because it gives parents a children a special time together to bond and learn and love and maybe even build tradition.” Or the “Let’s spend some extra time together today just wasting time, but it isn't wasting time because it is making memories together” moments.

And there’s the part of December that reminds me that, even though it can be hectic cramming four family birthdays in on top of the rest of the holidays, it’s nice to have such amazing family and friends to celebrate with -- and fortunate to have the means to celebrate together. Thanks also for helping me remember moments spent with those I've lost -- Sometimes those reminders are hard, but the memories are always special and heartwarming.  December really is a time for togetherness and thankfulness and mindfulness -- and excess amounts of complex carbohydrates. (And sweatpants.)

Much love, dear December (even though I still don’t like winter),

Cara

Being Grateful During Cruddy Circumstances

My little family just got back from a really fun trip to the San Francisco/Oakland area. My husband had a video production job there for one day and we decided we'd just add an extra plane ticket and have a last hurrah before our toddler turns two and doesn't fly for free any more, because at that point we figure we'll probably never fly again.

On the last day of our trip, we loaded up our rental car with all of our stuff because we were going to do a little more sightseeing and then we were going to go down to San Jose to stay with my friend for the night so that we didn't have to wake up at 2 am to make our 6:00 flight (plus we had borrowed some bedding from friends that we didn't want to return at 2 am, because that seems like a bad way to thank someone for lending you their stuff). We found a great parking spot just behind Ghirardelli Square and had a really fun four hours, then we trudged back to the car happy and exhausted, sure our toddler was about to fall asleep in the car while we drove around a bit more before we headed out.

Only when we got there, there was something funny about the back window of our rental van. At first we thought it was a shadow from some trees - then we realized that the window was broken.

We rushed to look in, because the van was FULL of stuff, including quite a bit of equipment my husband brought with him for his job - a backpack full of soundboards and cameras and video equipment, plus a laptop bag with two laptops in it.

The backpack was gone.

My husband went down the street to the hotel on the corner to ask them what the number was for the police, and the security guards told us that our car was actually parked right under a security camera - and that there were similar break-ins on this street all the time. A homeless guy would walk up to a car, wave at the security camera, break the window and walk off with people's stuff, and no one would do anything.

Since we were in a rental, we had to make a police report even though we were sure they wouldn't do anything. The concierge at the hotel called them and told us that it would be two hours before anyone could get there. We realized at this point that we hadn't paid for the insurance for the rental, and the very limited insurance we carry for our clunker car wasn't going to help either, so we would also get to pay for the window.

There we sat with our exhausted grumpy toddler, stewing about our stupidity and bad luck, feeling robbed of stuff and our vacation. After 2.5 hours we called the police again to check on things, and they had no record of the previous call, but also they said we could make that report over the phone. So . . . great. We made a report, put our little girl in her pajamas and drove off to my friend's house to put her to bed (plus my husband had to go to the rental car place to fill out a report about the window issue, since they wouldn't be available when we went back at 4:30 the next morning).

So to sum up, the last day of our vacation went like this:

• We got robbed, and the thief made off with about $2000 worth of equipment (most of which he probably won't get anything out of because he won't know what it's worth). 
• We didn't get the rental car insurance, so we would be paying for the window he broke out of our own pockets.
• We had to sit in the car for three hours with a tired toddler waiting for police who were never coming, thanks to faulty information from the dispatcher.
• We didn't get to do any of the other fun things we wanted to do in our last few hours of vacation. 

However, my husband is incessantly positive once he gets over his initial frustration, and some of it has rubbed off on me. As we were sitting there in the car--and in the days following-- we've realized a few other things. 

• Right next to the backpack was a laptop bag containing two MacBook Pros and a piece of equipment that for no reason I understand is worth $1400 (a piece that had been in the backpack on our way down, I might add). If the thief would have picked that bag, the loss to us and the company would have been more like $8000 - plus the laptops had the job my husband had just done but hadn't delivered yet on them. It could have been a lot worse. 
• We weren't anywhere nearby when we got robbed. We were never in danger, we just came back to a broken window.
• The window was the only damage to the car - probably the least expensive fix for us.
• We're in a place now where this kind of loss doesn't equal total devastation to our bank account. It's certainly not ideal and we don't have a lot of extra money to throw around, but after a year of hard work and insane budgeting and some good luck, we have an actual emergency fund. 
• We found out a couple of days later that our Visa card (which we used for the car rental) actually has insurance for collision and theft for car rentals, a thing I would never have thought to check but which my brother did, so we shouldn't have to pay for the window after all. 
• We had friends who put us up for the night after it all happened and who were offering support throughout the experience. It was so nice to come back to a home with friendly faces and offered leftovers instead of to a hotel, and it was nice that we had options for rides if things had worked out differently with the rental car. 

It would be easy to look back on this trip with frustration and anger and let those last few hours of our last day ruin the whole thing. But the truth is, we had a lot to be grateful for once we started looking for it, a fact that I think is almost always true, no matter the circumstances. So instead of remembering this vacation angrily for years to come, I'll remember it like this: 

And this: 

And this:

How has gratitude helped you feel better about a bad situation?

Because I Can.

Five years ago, the movie The Wizard of Oz celebrated its 70th year of its existence. That year they re-released a special version in theaters for one night and my grad school roommates (including our Lovely Author Meg) and I spent a magical evening with Dorothy and her crew.

A few nights ago my husband and I were watching TV when a commercial touting The Wizard of Oz's 75th anniversary came on. It triggered memories of that 70th anniversary and I filled Sam in on what a fabulous experience it was. As we chatted about what a great experience it was for a few minutes, a thought popped into my head. "Why exactly did I decide to go in the first place, though?" The answer, luckily, popped into my head almost instantly:

Because I could.

I do not have the luxury in my life to do any little passing whim or fancy that enters my head. I do, however, have the luxury of acting on quite a few of them. Why?

Because I can.

Last week I took my eight-month old son to the National Gallery of Art and spent almost the entire time sitting on a couch in one room with him. Why? Because I could.

One night in college, my roommates and I ate dinner while sitting on the floor around our coffee table, in an attempt to recreate a scene from the movie Sabrina. Why? Because we could.

From the ages of 2-3, I have been told that I used to eat finger-fulls of straight butter. Why? This one I don't actually remember too well myself, but I am assuming it was because I was two and I could get away with things like that. In other words, because I could.

I made my own wedding bouquet. Why? Because I could.

For about 3/4 of my life I slept with my head at the foot of my bed (I only stopped when I got married and things would have gotten weird snuggling with my husband's feet). Why? Because I could.

When my sisters and I were younger, we insisted on sleeping outside on our trampoline at least once a week in the summers, even though we would all inevitably roll to the middle and sleep on top of each other and our dad notoriously "forgot" to turn the sprinklers off (set on a timer for some unholy hour of the morning) every single time. Why? Because we could.

This past presidential election, I voted. Why? Because I could.

In grad school I used to time myself running down the stairs from my office on the 7th floor of the library down to the ground floor. Why? Because I could.

The night that my son was born, I refused to put him down for more than seven hours after I finally got to hold him. Why? Because I could.

There is so much in life that we simply cannot do. There isn't enough money, enough time, enough space, enough skill, enough energy, enough anything to do the things that we want. But rather than dwell on the things we can't do, why can we not remember the things we do get to do- the things we get to do just because we can!

Remember: Some Scattered Thoughts On Memorial Day

I love Memorial Day - and not just because it usually includes barbecues. I've always loved going to the cemetery to put flowers on my great-grandparents' graves, and later on my grandparents' graves. It's one of those reflection kinds of days that makes me think about where I come from.

I'm fascinated by cemeteries because they're so full of stories about people's lives. I remember going to one as a teenager and finding a headstone for a family who lost something like seven children before they reached the age of three. I always ache for the wives or husbands who lived for 30 years after their spouse passed away. I try to think about the people who have passed on and the people they left behind.

I spent some time in Europe taking a class about World War I. We visited several military cemeteries, including some that were entirely full of unknown soldiers. It breaks my heart to think about the families who never really knew what happened to their loved ones because they were only identified as missing.

The other day I was wandering around Columbus, IN and found this amazing war memorial. It had about 25 pillars, and on each one there were names of people who had been killed in wars in the past hundred years. Some of the pillars also had letters from soldiers to their families, followed by their death date. It was such a powerful way to think about the tragedy of war to see a letter about how excited one boy was to drive his new car when he got home, followed by a death date a few days later. There's something about last letters and last words that makes them hang in the air in a very special way.

There's a collection of poems I love called The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. It's entirely a collection of epitaphs, and taken together, all of these snippets of people's lives give you the full picture of life in a small town. This has always been my favorite because it's so full of the simple wonder of an ordinary life.

Lucinda Matlock

I went to the dances at Chandlerville,
And played snap-out at Winchester.
One time we changed partners,
Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,
And then I found Davis.
We were married and lived together for seventy years,
Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children,
Eight of whom we lost
Ere I had reached the age of sixty.
I spun,
I wove,
I kept the house,
I nursed the sick,
I made the garden, and for holiday
Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,
And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,
And many a flower and medicinal weed--
Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys.
At ninety--six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you--
It takes life to love Life.

I'm not really sure what all of these thoughts mean together. I think I just want to say that it's important to me to remember those who have died. It reminds me that I want to live well.

Little Wonders

If you think about it, gas isn't really the kind of thing that we routinely feel grateful for. We're all thankful for our cars (especially if we've recently had the experience of being without one). But we--or at least I--don't think about the gas much. Not so anymore.

Mike lost his job last summer, and our finances have been total hell since then. He got a new job at Walmart toward the end of the summer, but it pays significantly less than the other job had, and basically we no longer make enough to even pay all our bills, much less buy things like food and gas. So for about a week now, we have been driving the car on fumes. More than once, we scrounged up all the change we could find, and used it to put one gallon in the car--just enough for Mike to get to school. We maxed out our last credit card for the two dollars' available balance, to get one gallon of gas (actually a little less) so we could get to work. But Mike got paid this weekend, and for the first time in two weeks we are driving on a full tank of gas.

It is wonderful. You can feel the difference in the way the car drives--it responds better, the driving is smoother. And you can feel a difference in the lack of panic brought on by watching the gas light and wondering how long it's been on, and how long you have before you run out. So I have learned to be grateful for gas, and for having enough money to fill up the tank. It's a small thing that makes a pretty big difference in my life, and having small things to be grateful for makes my life just that much lovelier.