Wishes, not resolutions

This has been a transformative year. I have restored myself to my rightful place amongst the poultry keepers of the world. I have returned to the state in which I dropped a thousand spiritual bread crumbs so that I could always find my way back. This is the state in which I passed out while trying out for the track team in the sixth grade, running the four hundred run. I passed out in front of the short red-headed love of my life who never knew I pined for him for three years and who later became a big fan of LSD.

This is also the state in which another love of my life kicked a soccer ball into my face knocking me out with a bloody nose to rival some of Max's most impressive ones. It's good then, that I met the real love of my life in California. Where I never got knocked out in front of the men I intended to impress. I have brought him home with me where we have watched the snow and laughed for no better reason than that snow is a joyous gorgeous phenomenon of nature. Crystal ephemeral drifting crowns.

Philip broke his humorous bone impressively and had surgery. He will feel the repercussions of the break for a long time because he is most likely going to need a bone graft to make his arm heal, which it has failed to do. A lot of what we've experienced in the past year and a half has had enormous reverberations throughout our life, like the inevitable ripples on the disturbed surface of an unrestful pond. Circles of pain have a way of echoing into themselves. I am only thirty six (almost thirty seven) and I now feel the cold as it comes on with the pain in my hip. Like a person much older than I am, predicting the weather with my joints. It's the gospel truth.

I have always prided myself on being a good daughter, good friend, good wife, (though I've never felt too secure about being a good mother), but in the past year and a half I have let down a lot of people's expectations. In some ways it's been the best thing that could have happened to me. I've been selfish, turning inward to try and heal, to fix ourselves in a tight cocoon. Because no one else can fix us. We've made shocking decisions, we've left what was known and loved for a road with no fixed end. An adventure with no known resolve. It isn't like us. We are people strongly connected to our daily rituals, to our routines. We are earthy and dependable in our craziness. Until now.

I'm not going to apologize to anyone. Everyone needs to look inwards at times in their lives and make decisions that are good for themselves without trying to make sure it's good for anyone else. I'm proud that when the cards seemed pretty desperate, we rose to the challenge and shook our lives up and out. I have spent so much of my life trying so hard to please the people I love. I dissed my own feelings in preference to theirs and in doing so I did them all a great disservice. This year I have begun to see myself in a new light. Even while I have come to loathe my physical self, I have a much deeper understanding of my spirit, of my needs, of my blessings, and of what I have to offer other people.

I'm not going to make resolutions. Or at least I don't plan to. Sometimes they slip out like accidental children. Instead I would like to make a few wishes for the new year:

• That George Bush lose all of his money and have to work at McDonalds. Or better yet- AT A GAS STATION! No wait- he should have to drill oil for other people's profit....no wait, he should have to serve in the war he started himself!

• That all of us here at the Williamson Ranch make peace with the inevitability of entropy. (Ooh, that came really close to sounding like a resolution. See what I mean, it's a slippery slope.)

• That all of the people I love shed unnecessary guilt and baggage and live the life they really want to and that they find happiness there.

• That my friend Lisa (the one here in Oregon) will not stop being my friend just because I'm a damn prickly person.

• That Paris, Lindsey, and Brittney all rediscover the virtues of underwear.

• That I can keep my secrets for just one more day so that I will always have something to say tomorrow. For god's sake, tape my mouth shut!

• That it snows here again before the spring.

• That Sharon, Dominique, and Kathleen's little projects find safe passage into this world and that I get to squeeze their cheeks and kiss them like a good auntie should. And smell their hair. And hand them back after my half hour of baby love.

• That I NEVER EVER get pregnant again.

• That I stop having nightmares about getting pregnant.

• That the war ends before anyone else is tortured, raped, or killed.

• That I suddenly discover how much more satisfying it is to drink a cup of herbal tea than to keep the beer bottling plants in business.

• That nothing prevents me from seeing the incredible yellow sea of narcissus unfold in the side yard this spring.

• That the regular vomit we've been seeing our cat Ozark huck up doesn't mean he's dying. He's a mean bastard but we love him.

• That Brittney steals Brad from Angelina. C'mon, it's inevitable is it not?

• That Nicole Richie stop freaking the hell out of me with her skeletal display. (Does she have some weird bone fetish?) (I am aware how serious anorexia and bulimia are, all jokes aside, I wish she'd get help.)

• That nothing happens to my lieberschleben this year. My love is proportionate with my complaints. (I wouldn't trade his emotional, sharp witted, edgy, curious, funny, challenging self for any one of your perfect little kids. No way. I may be more tired than moms of paragons-of-infantile-virtue, but with him I know I am in the presence of incredible potential and a force to be reckoned with. That's something I can respect.)

• I wish to find more quiet morning moments to listen to my hens. Beautiful functional gals.

• I wish that Sid, Dennis, and Joschka lived next door. (I know, I PROMISED I wouldn't keep on about it. But I miss you guys more than I can tell you without sounding like a drivelling idiot person.) (Lord knows I really treasure my dignity, you can see by the content of my blog that I would NEVER compromise my dignity.)

• I wish that George M. will completely recover. I hope to come back to Beaver Street and see him trimming his hedges with a can of Coors Lite in one hand and his headphones on, ignoring the entire world. Blissed out on beer, the radio, and the perfect alignment of hedge corner to hedge edge. That man is a box-hedge inspiration!

• I wish Lauri Notaro would come to my house for dinner.

• I wish David Bowie would get his old teeth back.

• I kind of wish I will never ever cry again in my entire life. I really find crying embarrassing.

• I really wish I wouldn't find I have anything else in common with Angelina-the-ho-Jolie. It's bad enough having to share my name. Now I find out she's not a cuddly snuggly person, except with her precious children, and I want to sock her for stealing my thunder. I'm not snuggly or cuddly with anyone but my child either. I'm older than her, how dare she have anything in common with me!

• Most of all, I wish for all of you who may be reading this that you have all your dreams come true, that your children are healthy and safe, and that you laugh a lot this year.
  

I have written this very late into the night before the last night of the year. This means I will probably feel the need to write more tomorrow. It's possible that New Year's Eve is my favorite night of the entire year for the hope it inspires. For the renewal it engenders. For the fresh air it breathes into our weary spirits. It's like a crisp fresh notebook, virgin to the vagaries of pen ink. I find it irresistible to write as much as possible before the moment the old guard steps down in favor of the fresh guns.

Perhaps that's why I prefer to be home for that precise moment. You never hear the clock tick when you're at a party. I like to hear the collective hope sighing into the cold January morning. Many New Years Eves I've spent hanging out my window, smoking a cigarette, sipping champagne, and listening to the mass of life humming into the quiet night, all jubilation a kind of distant fuss. But right here, in my window, (these days without any cigarettes but still cold as sin), it's so gorgeously quiet I believe in almost everything good.