Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Dash Between the Bling-Bling



Okay, since we've been talking about textures lately, how's this for going over the top!  BUT I do have a point, so get over it for a minute and think about what happens between Christmas and New Years....

It's just one week!  One week between two of our biggest Bling-Bling holidays of the entire year, perhaps winding us down and then up again more than any other week of the year.  Maybe?

I'm guessing all of us who have or have had kids off from school remember this week as vacation time.  It was a no-brainer, if we worked, to make sure we, too, were on vacation, if allowed.  Most of the time we'd take the kids back to Michigan to be with my family at the cottage.  It was family time and full of wonderful memories.  If we were lucky, we got snow, something we didn't get in California or Georgia.  And at one point during the week, usually on the New Year's end, we'd share a family Christmas of sorts with a big feast.  Then we'd fly back home, usually just before the ball dropped on the new year.

I didn't grow up going to New Year's Eve parties.  In fact, more often than not I was sound asleep in bed before the clock struck midnight on the last day of the year.  I had already said nighty-night to one year and fully expected the new year to be there when I awoke.  No fanfare.  No hoopla.  No bling.

However, I know I'm the exception to the rule...until this past New Years when the seniors here in our retirement community helped me make up for lost time.  And it'll happen again this year when we'll all bring in the New Year together long past midnight.   I look at some of these 70 and 80-year-olds and can just imagine what kind of life they once lived.  They know how to live and are teaching me.

But I digress.  This week in-between!  It usually means a week of rest and sleep, right?  A time to just relax and let things go.  No need to clean things up after the Christmas festivities.   The mess is okay, for once, especially if the kids are home.  We're willing to let things go for a change, to wind down and not be so Type A.  Maybe we even get to play with our special Christmas present we hoped Santa would bring...and did.

Now, back to the image and textures.  I know it looks totally depressing, which is not how I envision the dash between the bling-bling.  Rather, I was thinking instead of the gray days of winter, when the snow is no longer there/fresh/white and things seem kinda, well, blah.  Not blah in a negative, depths-of-despair way, but just blah.  The kind of blah that happens when after all the hubbub you don't know what else to do but take a nap.  A nap sounds good, right?

So in case you need permission to just be blah and veg out a bit, live in the dash between the bling-bling and let yourself go.  We probably should do it more often but my personal feeling is this is the one week of the year gifted to us to simply wind down, expect nothing, and coast into the New Year.  After all we did last week/year, don't you think we deserve it...we women of a certain age?! 






Sunday, December 12, 2010

My Heart, My Castle, My Home




A month ago Astrid and I had the good fortune to drive across Holland's eastern border into Germany's Münsterland, region of over 100 castles.  This one happens to be Burg Hülshoff, one of the finest and where we spent most of our time.

That got me thinking about castles and how we say "my home is my castle."  What exactly does that mean?  Typically a castle is a fortified residence for a powerful or affluent person.  It's usually private, not public, and is used to protect the owner. In some cases the castle is fortified, designed to defend a city or town, often in the middle of it.

Hold that thought.

A few days later, with visions of castles still in my head, I came to the day before the American Thanksgiving holiday and suddenly felt woefully depressed.  It was like a bombshell.  No other day in my first year in Holland had hit me that hard.  I wanted to be home with my family.  It was going to be my first Thanksgiving ever, in 65 years, away from family.  And especially because Holland doesn't celebrate the holiday, I felt so lost.

Then I remembered the psychiatric hospital where I worked in 1969 the year Bill and I got married.  I was the desk clerk on the ward for short-termers, average stay of 26 days.  I soon discovered that the highest influx of new patients was always at this time of the year midst the hectic holiday season. When one lady in particular arrived, crazier than a loon, skipping through the halls in her stocking feet, giggling and having a good ol' time, the nurses laughed and said, "Oh, that's Professor So-and-So's wife.  She comes here every year at this time until the holidays are over."

And that was 40 years ago!

Truth be told, I'm guessing many of us have or remember such frantic, depressive moments when the pressures of the season become more than we can handle.  Most people see me as a very strong, stable, immovable, stalwart queen in my castle, my home.  But in fact, that day I was nothing of the sort.  Astrid was the only one who saw my depression before Thanksgiving and who, in the listening, eased my private pain.  Within minutes, I was as good as new...and when Thanksgiving arrived the next day, I was as happy a camper as ever, not for one minute second-guessing where I was for the holidays.

Maybe that's the point of a castle.  It's meant to shield us from the outside AND inside stresses of raging, emotional wars.  It's meant to be the private place where we can unearth the weaknesses of our unarmored souls.  It's meant to be a safe haven for everything we hold dear and important.  It's meant to be our home where we can open our hearts wide and not fear the consequence.

Regrettably, not all homes are castles.  That's the truth of it.  But my wish for all of us this season is that we can find or start to build the castles around our homes to protect, fortify and defend all we hold sacrosanct.  Maybe we can even help someone else build theirs?  Our homes are worth it.  So are our hearts.