A couple weeks ago my dear friend (who is still my dear friend, even after telling me to watch this certain movie), told me to watch the Sunday evening Masterpiece feature on PBS.
I watched it. And I was very, very upset. Most people I talked to had a similar reaction. Kinda like an enraged, "huh? Are you kidding me?"
It was Tess of the D'urbervilles. Tess. I felt her grief and yet at the same time she drove me bonkers. And the whole time I am firmly holding hope that there will be some sort of redeeming value that I could take away with me. I found there is if you don't mind insanity, hopelessness, murder, death, and unrequited love. And that is just what happens in the last half hour. Never mind the three previous hours of the same.
Bother.
A little research and some comments from the host, Laura Linney, made it clear that I am not alone. Back when the book was published in 1891, it was just as controversial for it's rather raw treatment of the subject of purity, class distinctions, and gender as it was perceived at the time. She mentioned in the introduction that a Victorian lady hosting a dinner party needed to be aware of the feelings of her attendees when planning the dinner seating. Seating two people with opposing opinions as pertaining to 'Tess' next to one another could very well be distasterous.
All in all, I tend to enjoy stories that don't end up in a nice, neat little package. But this one was far and beyond anything I was expecting. Just reading the synopsis again makes me mad. I don't even know who I'm mad at. I'm just mad.
Typically, this kind of story would put me in the mood for something like 'Anne of Green Gables'. But after Tess I think I would become impatient and feel like bashing Anne and Gilbert's heads together and tell them to please, please just work it out a little quicker for all our sakes.
(I actually did that once to two trying-not-to-act-like-it lovebirds who were annoying me, but that's a whole 'nother story. I will tell you this, though. She had a pump-knot on her forehead the size of a kumquat. And it was very blue. And I wish I could say I was sorry. After that, their relationship worked itself out with satisfying clarity and they went their separate ways. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do. And no, I wasn't after the guy. I just wanted to help 'em out a bit. Would it comfort you to know that I was only 14 at the time? And she was 16. Ha.)
Well, thanks for letting me vent. If there is anyone out there who read the book, saw the movie, or both, please leave a comment. I would love to hear whatever thoughts you might have about 'Tess'.
And you know what's next on Masterpiece? Wuthering Heights.
Uh, no thanks. I have had about all I can take at the moment of brooding, crying, and dying.
So, while the snow is coming down, and we are cooped up with all kinds of time on our hands, we'll stick to uplifting family board games. And I say it's Miss Scarlet, in the Dining Room, with the Lead Pipe.
The days have seemed to run one into the other with no real delineation one from the next. This is common for us after the winter holiday has passed. The little ones get stir crazy and the temperature drops so even going outside has lost it's charm a bit. We, the bigger ones, ponder time and resources. Where did it all go?
One year ends and another begins with the same bewildering feeling of, "Do I feel any different?". One moment it is 2008 and the next it is 2009. It is the same question you ask yourself at each birthday, knowing something momentous has happened, but the reality not setting in for another six months, or, like me, six years.
Wrinkles appear, possessions get old, styles come and go and somehow you realize you have seen a few presidents do the same. You start to edit your life to the things that matter. You turn into a person who doesn't really care if a fashion is a 'must have'. You don't care what the Starbucks employee thinks when you come in for your coffee with a very early morning still showing all over your face. You stop pitying old people and start wanting what they have.
You realize you have graduated. Somewhere along the way, you have changed.
Graduated from a life on the hamster wheel of 'wants'. A life lived gently. Qualitative expectations instead of quantitative. Friendships that have withstood through the BFF stage and have moved onto the realm of quiet, reassuring presence.
So, I feel myself letting go, moving on. Allowing perfection to be something that sells magazines, not something that drives my days. 
I am in my office today, i.e. my bed, as I rethink most of what I do on a daily basis. My current studio is in shambles as I am tearing through boxes and baskets and eliminating the sludge that keeps siphoning my energy away from those things that matter most.
Not in an effort to be perfect, but to be calm. I am not interested in a magazine life. I am interested in a warm life, not one devoid of difficulty, but a life always lived for real.
If you can’t tell, I love old, dilapidated buildings. They’ve lived, worked hard, and now they sit there watching time as it passes. They are beautiful.
Have a blessed Sunday.
So you probably saw my post yesterday about a little boy turning the big 3. He sure is somethin'.
He woke up this morning soaked through all his night clothing. Right out of bed he was begging to see mommy so he could get this "daapoo" (diaper) off. I helped him out of everything and was prepared to begin my daily potty-training routine of "let's go, hon. Let's go try to go in the big boy potty."
He beat me to it.
Do you know what he said? First, he blamed the whole wet mess on his "pinky", which was entirely new terminology to me, and then he firmly told me he was going to go use "that thing" as he pointed with determination at the toilet.
Well, ok then. He has never done this before. I count it all as a victory except that he now refuses to call the toilet anything but "that thing". I even tried telling him the name several times just in case he hadn't caught it. Nope. It is still "that thing".
I decided to let it go. As long as he makes a habit of using "that thing", I'm a happy camper.
Years from now I will probably have to coach his wife-to-be about the fact that if she wants him to know what she's talking about when she says "put the lid down", she had better learn the proper terminology to make sure the message goes through, i.e. "put the lid down on that thing".
Anyway, on to more appropriate conversation. Thanks for humoring me.
The above story would be the 'victory' I referred to in the blog title. This little question pertains to the 'miracle' part.
Now, I am a very crafty sort of person. I like making stuff. Not just any stuff. Pretty stuff. Functional stuff. Engaging stuff. I just happen to be on a pillow kick right now. I love pretty pillows.
Anyway, for years there is a skill I have wanted to learn, however I have never taken the time to just do it. Mostly because I thought it was a highly complicated sort of skill that would end up just frustrating me. I do believe my husband even knows how to do this. Of course, he is very, very smart so that isn't surprising.
It is a bona fide miracle. I am ready to learn how to knit.
There it is. Did you feel that rush of magic? Ok, well I did. The problem that persists is this: Where in the world do I even begin? Every time I look into it, start reading books, etc., every person has a different way of doing it, starting it, completing it. There's a kazillion ways to just cast-on for pete's sake!
I find myself wanting to knit things like this and this and this, all brought to the attention of my knitting-fevered mind by none other than Soule Mama. And then I found this site and I now know I can never turn back.
If there are any lurkers out there with any advice, please, please send it my way. Maybe a book recommendation or a particular author? Anything would be a help. If I don't do this now, I have a feeling I'll be crocheting everything until I die. And then my children and grandchildren will have to buy a storage chest for all the potholders I send at Christmas. (Not that crocheting is bad, mind you, but I'm finding it's hard to make plush sweaters, hats, and such with crochet. They are pretty, but not very warm. I am, however, firmly addicted to crocheted snowflakes. I tend to make those all year long).
Rescue me and my posterity, I beg you. Thanks ever so much.
I do believe he likes his new firetruck.
Of course, this particular boy is very easy to please. We have never given him a gift he hasn’t loved, literally, to death. I am hoping the sturdy, wood construction of this one will help it last longer than it’s predecessors. It’s a hope, at least.
Bear just loves to play. And play and play. He plays easily on his own, can play for hours on end if I’m within his line of sight and has a habit of coming to find a hug when he needs it. After a few moments of dedicated cuddling, he’s ready to go back to whatever had held his attention.
And yesterday, he turned 3. Which means there are only 15 more years until he can vote. Wow. That doesn’t feel like long, so I’m going to go catch some more cuddles.
So, Bear? This is your Mama. I love you so much and I wish you a very, very Happy Birthday.
I love you.
I have never made it a habit to make resolutions at the start of a new year. It has always seemed that if a resolution is worth making, it's worth making now, whenever that might be. I know. This probably makes me the New Year's Resolution Scrooge.
I don't mean to be a grump about it, I just really like my decisions to stick. I think we all do, which is why I wonder every year why we wait for January 1st to start making changes. We compile quite a formidable list of very commendable actions and decisions, all the while hoping against hope it'll stick this time. That this will be the year we finally train our bodies to awaken at 4:30 to exercise for 2 hours. Or, we get that burst of adrenaline thinking about how fabulous we'll feel about our personal world if we could live entirely off of the energy grid, heating our homes by burning cow chips. Not that we actually have a cow living within 50 miles, but still.
Having put my Grinchy opinion out there, I have begun to wonder if my stuck up way of thinking is any more effective than the whole January 1st crowd's method. Because when I look back to my "on the spot" resolutions, I don't exactly see a high success rate. And that is really a bummer to me because I like being right. I know, way surprising, huh?
This has led me to look around at people who have reached a big goal, or achieved great things, seemingly against all odds. Or what at least seems to me as "all odds". To these people, I'm sure those "odds" were nothing but a mere hiccup. A tiny blip on their screen of goals. Their focus is intimidating.
I want that focus. I just am not sure how to get it.
So, the big thing on my mind this year? Not the next big list of resolutions, but the how to get them, whatever "they" are, done. And I want it to stick. I want to be able to look back, dust off my hands and, for goodness sake, move on already.
So, as a first step toward this, ahem, New Year's Resolution to Resolve, I want to learn what it means to be dedicated and single-minded. To have that type of discipline that becomes an integrated part of who I am, not just something I'm doing.
And so it begins. The learning to really learn, the deciding to be decisive, the discipline to be disciplined, and the wisdom and centered-ness that comes from all of it, at the end of the proverbial road.
So, I imagine there will still be quite a bit of doing. But, perhaps with a different end goal in mind, the doing will produce a being, might we call it character, that will in turn become an entire package. A multi-faceted depth of sensitive living that, in turn, totally by default, brings about good works. A heart, mind you, that not only pleases God, but also serves, loves, works, accomplishes in ways that come naturally to a person who is willing to sacrifice to be something, not just do something.
So, now I can let the whole "heating my house with cow chips" thing go. Hallelujah.
