Have just finished reading what I wrote on “December 5ths past” in my private journal. About the little Christmas tree I have had for years and year; it's one I bought in Vancouver in a chocolate shop. About reconnecting with Jacqui last year--and that’s been SO great. About being isolated because of COVID.
Well, the little Christmas tree is on a table in our living room again, counting off the days until Christmas. And, after giving our very large one to Laurie last year, we have a smaller 4’ tree in the living room this year. We put up our outdoor lighted wreaths yesterday. I had read “Skipping Christmas” this year and decided that, no, I don’t want to “skip” Christmas, just downsize it a bit. Although R and I have not done “big” Christmases for years now.
And we aren’t having to isolate because of COVID anymore although folks are still getting it. I wrote last year that we were hoping for a vaccine and, yes, it arrived and I was able to get the double dose February and March. And then a booster in November. I have been blessed and I know it.
Today is Sunday and although I really don’t feel like going out to church and “socializing,” I will. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it once I am there, I do! The service is uplifting, the coffee hour afterward is usually stimulating. And it isn’t like I have to go out in slush or snow or sit in traffic. It’s just that I really don’t like going out. I have my books and my thoughts and it’s cozy and peaceful here.
Re books: I am reading an odd-for-me book called “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers. About an astrobiologist whose wife has died two years earlier and who is trying to cope with a son who is very, ummm, “disturbed.” He asks incessant questions about life out there, about planets, and he is easily angered. Which means attending school is a nightmare for him and for his father (and probably for his school.) The book draws me because it is beautifully written, I feel empathy for the father’s struggles on how to be the best parent for his son, when he says, repeatedly, that he never reckoned on being a parent, let alone a single parent. I am intrigued by the science of astrobiology, even though I don’t understand it and thinking about billions and billions of stars and planets makes my head swim.
But one thing struck me at the end of one of the chapters, when the dad found out where his vocation lay when he was enthralled by a series of courses taught by an instructor in college, and how that instructor mentored him, helped him get into graduate school. The dad did the work because he loved it but he got that little leg up by being introduced to his passion. And then, a half hour later, I was walking with Mitzi, listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath” and there it was again--a reference to the importance of knowing what you want out of life and having the tools and drive to get it. In Gladwell’s book, which is nonfiction, he talks about a very wealthy, self-made man who powered his way through life because he first knew what he DIDN'T want to do thanks to his dad tutoring him on the power of money (and not having it) but now wonders what he can do for HIS children as they don’t have the motivators he had.
I thought to myself as I walked that my parents never concerned themselves with my future, what my motivation might be. I guess they just figured I would fall into life if I was educated to the level where I could converse politely, spell and do arithmetic, learn to type and get a nice job as a secretary until I met some man who would marry me, and I could become a housewife and mother a la my mother. And my teachers, although they gave us stories about people who accomplished great things, never told us that WE could also do great things in our lives. Just that we should be part of the admiring crowd and shun evil people. College was such a culture shock for me--going into it not having a clue why I was even there except that I had the grades for it--and the classes so foreign. I wouldn't have known to look for a mentor, I was too busy looking for someone to like me, to love me.
Well, that didn’t happen in college but all in all, I still managed to stumble through life, sometimes successfully, sometimes by the skin of my teeth. But it still sometimes feel, ummm, unsettled, that I never had that kind of grand passion such as the astrobiologist in “Bewilderment” or the millionaire in “David and Goliath” felt. I guess we always--at least those of us who do a a lot of “deep thinking” (not always a good thing)--feel that there is something missing, that life wasn’t perfect. And maybe that’s a good thing because it keeps us going, keeps us being aware and open to things that perhaps should be changed, or improved.... I'm not saying that I don't like the life I have--it's wonderful--just that I wonder, deep thinker that I am, whether I am doing all that I can/should with it.
And those are my musings on this Second Sunday of Advent.
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