Rabbit rabbit

So much of any year is flammable.

What we call the beginning is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from…

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring 
Will be to arrive where we started 
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding”

At the end of 2021, my dad emailed me these lines. "What do you think of this as a new year's greeting?" he asked. I have pages and pages of poetry and music he sent me over the years, and emails dating back to 2016 (when I suppose it first occurred to me that I might want to archive some — special ones, or ordinary ones from special people). 

Less than a month after he sent this, Dad was diagnosed with ALS. And three years later, we're* entering our first new year without him. 

How on earth do we do this? I guess we move forward, we do the things we have to do, and the things that bring us joy. We take our routines and tasks and try to turn them into rituals that make a life: light the winter afternoon candles, warm our hands with coffee cups on dark mornings, play the music that makes us cry even though (and because) it makes us cry. Walk the dog, wash our hair, talk to the people who love us enough to tell us so. Pay particular attention to birds and the moon and the sound of laughter. We sort through photos; we sleep and dream and drink water. I suppose that's how it's done.

*Not the royal "we." The "we" who loved him, who are stunned by the reality of his death, whose brains often find it impossible to comprehend it as fact. 

The tune your bones play

The solstice started with a soft sky and ended overcast. We struggled to get a fire burning in our rusty fire pit, where I forced us all out into the snow, encouraged by hot chocolate, some with marshmallows, and a hot cup of ginger tea with honey for Edna, who doesn't do chocolate. Every fleece blanket we own was there too, though it wasn't really too cold. I didn't take a picture, there were no stars in the sky, and I hoped that the pitiful flame — not very bright, not very warm* — could symbolize the year we're leaving behind, and not the one that stretches in front of us.

Isaac and Edna, quarantined and tested twice, are here to make a little Christmas celebration with us. We are baking a little and cooking a little, and we have a little tree with a few presents under it.  

The thing about the winter solstice is it's just the beginning of the hardest part, even though I'm a glass-half-full person and the light is growing and I love the snow etc. 

*on our to-do list = firewood, kindling

fire

the illicit-but-completely-safe-i-swear fire pit continues to burn (periodically) in my backyard, thanks to max who is single-handedly shrinking our unsightly pile of brush, one cozy little fire at a time.
















m took some gorgeous photos yesterday around the fire, and i have stolen some of them. above, boo, not just about to poke his eye out with that stick. below, max in the best gas station-purchased t-shirt ever.
















and beautiful bean.

3.141592653589793

to celebrate national pi day, i made some pies: two pot pies with roasted vegetables, veggie gravy, and seitan, with puff pastry on top (so good. people were almost licking the dishes when these were eaten up); and an apple gingerbread pie for dessert (in truth, a little overdone, but tasty). enoch, max, and anthony joined us. and then some members of the party set things on fire in the kitchen.