So here we are on the final day of 2010 and I’ve been quietly mulling how to write something “year-end-y” (and failing). Like all years, endings and beginnings are more fluid than the neat markers provided by dates (first day of school, Rosh Hashanah, summer solstice, there are so many beginnings and endings when you think about it) and so wrapping up—in a blog that’s so very lifey (as in, the muck of my life)—really doesn’t quite work.
I’d thought about whether to write about people lost this year that might not be on the radar—or might be but I wanted to mention them in my own way. And last night, an email arrived with the sad but not unexpected news that my dear friend Weston’s (venerable, 95 year-old) dad passed away. You might think you’re thinking neat package of the year and still more happens. Long conversations—written out, by hand, on postcards (nearly all of kisses)—have taken place between Weston and myself over many years (nearly two decades’ worth, between Los Angeles where he lives and Northampton, plus a year and a half sojourn to London where I live or have lived) and so many of these conversations have been about the topic of two fathers, his and mine. I feel this loss not because I knew Roger Milliken personally, but because I know—and adore—RM’s son. And I’m feeling for that son, my dear friend, this last day of 2010.
I thought about making a list of my favorite posts from this past year, and nixed it, although the most recent one I chose mentions a person’s whose loss I feel although I never met her. I nixed the idea because it didn’t feel so much about the year ending than simply a list of favorites and that’s not what I’m reaching for at the moment (but if you want the list; put a comment in and I’ll email it to you).
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This last day of 2010—the day before I make New Year’s Resolutions for 2011 (and believe me, I will do and I will undoubtedly write about the process)—finds me with the littlest cold—sniffles, raspy voice—and tired—stayed up too late tussling with my tweenager and raising money for Grow Food Northampton and reading blogs—and with a touch of cabin fever from a week of many kids hanging at home—some sometimes slightly under the weather, a mudroom cleanout I’m very jazzed about (in the picture, a glimpse of it), more clearing up/out, and entirely too many arguments with my tweenager.
One foray into the sweatier-than-sweaty world of Bikram Yoga yesterday did not transform the plodding, dragging-ness of the week. I think, by the way, some plodding and dragging were simply in order after the water crisis and with the letdown post fall semester and all it entailed (remember, two new schools, unexpected community projects, NanoWhatTheHeckMo writing endeavor, etcetera). Maybe the fact that no one thing necessarily transforms everything else kind of gets to the heart of what I wrestled with this week: I’ve been looking for an epiphany where no epiphanies really exist.
The lifey-ness of our lives doesn’t wrap up by calendar year or end of an hour episode or even series. Like ER so aptly ended—I loved that ending—the whole thing just went on. So, I’m going to make a little peace today with that fact. And I’m going to end my 2010 blogging embracing the whole dangling nature of how we are. It’s more elliptical than a period-ending sentence, but I can end the sentence, knowing it’s a pause before whatever comes next.
To all you lovely readers: Happy New Year.
