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JL Gerhardt is a good writer, and a better thinker. I recommend this post of hers:
http://jlgerhardt.tumblr.com/post/370894461

My niece has learned a new song about the Fruits of the Spirit:
The fruit of the spirit's not a kiwi.
The fruit of the spirit's not a kiwi.
So if you wanna be a kiwi, you better hear it.
You can't be a fruit of the spirit.

The fruits of the spirit are:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control
The fruits of the spirit are:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control.

I told Layla that I was proud of her for knowing them and for being able to count them all on her fingers. And then I went home before I started crying.

Lately, I'm the kiwi.

I am heartily sick of dim lights and night time. I want bright lights, bracing winds. To be awake all the time and never sleep. To be bold and daring, chiseled, with wings and a voice that would raise the dead. To be thinking and talking. To be talked to and questioned. To be interested and interesting, in the present, able to measure the past and carry it with me. Able to charge into the future.

I can't do that under these circumstances. Fortunately, these circumstances have come to an end, which is the real meaning of the dream I had last night.

This was one hour ago.


This was thirty minutes ago.


I think I may head over to Peggy's and sit in her picture window.

Birthday Cards

Layla says: "Aun Terin, I made you a birthday card. Open it and read it!"
Inside of the card, it says: "Aunt Erin, I made you a birthday card."

Me, in a music store and Last Night

Walk in. Stand in the doorway like some giant gap-mouthed obstacle and get my bearings. Then dive in. I float from sorter to sorter, gathering everything that looks good to me until my hands overflow, and I am forced to actually absorb the sheer fact of cds in my hand. I begin to weed them out, first putting back the clearly impulse selections. Next goes the ones I think will be one-album wonders. Eventually, I'm down to two types: the cds I need to fill crucial gaps in a collection or the ones I need to replace old, scratched cds. A couple of weeks ago with Erin at Louisville's Ear X-tacy, I followed the standard pattern, except for standing in the doorway. (Someone else was trying to get out.) I picked up some Gillian Welch, some My Morning Jacket, maybe a Wilco. They didn't have any new Lucinda Williams. And then my eye fell on Leonard Cohen.

Apparently I've been a fan of LC for sometime, mostly unawares. The first time I heard Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah", I had to pull over to the side of the road. I could not speak. I remember staring at this same plant for quite some time until the song was over. I played it through once more and then got back on the road. Even now, whenever I hear this song, I have to stop what I'm doing, listen, process, before I can continue. I bought two incredible CDs that I've been listening to non-stop since, "The Future" and "the Best of Leonard Cohen."

2009 was tough, for some obvious and intensely personal reasons. And despite whatever changes 2010 brings about, the year will be different because I will be different. I will be less critical of myself, banishing "should" and "sorry" from my vocabulary. I will excuse myself from those relationships where tyranny has raised its head. I will be more in the moment with those around me, and foster relationships that are going to be incredible. I can see it now. I will say goodbye to past relationships I am sorry to see go, mostly because of how they ended. I will remove should and sorry from my vocabulary unless I really am sorry, about things that I should be sorry about. (And these resolves don't fit that distinction.) I will succumb to the ebb and flow of the universe with a little more grace than I have heretofore exhibited, with a little less of a sense of personal wrong. I'm going to stop now.

Of course, it all comes with a prayer...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MDlMdu2gjw&feature=related

Better give your heart to God...

because your ass is going someplace else. Let's start there.

The Adams Family Christmas Extravaganza was pretty awesome and this quote from a visitor to the snack-stand-of-fun sums it up well. We served a lot of people--no one counted--and generated lots of cheer. Enjoy the pictures. Layla spoke Spanish to a little girl who was driving with her family from Pennsylvania to Mexico. We were prayed over, thanked effusively by a grandma from Jersey, lectured on the benefits of working Alaska for only 6 months of the year, and bemused by the trucker who hauled nuclear waste and other chemical products between government facilities all over the US. He has been shot and he has shot folks, folks. I could tell you his name and trucking outfit, but I won't. I won't sleep well at night.

The trucker's statement was born from a discussion on the nature of the work he does and the extent of training he has undergone and the protocol he has to follow. Everyday, tractor trailers across the US are hauling teddy bears, running shoes, cars, and nuclear waste. I guess what I"m saying is we all have a job to do, and a role to fill, and some of them will kill you.

The holiday season had serious ups and downs, but I'm going to take this event away as my Christmas memory for 2009.


Layla is silly.


Mom and Layla advertising the wares.


Family driving from Jersey to OKC.


The goods. And the grandma.


Rachel--useful in her own way.