The Impulse Towards Generosity in Everyday Ramblings

So I choose these photos as mood pieces but also to show my world. I took this yesterday morning (Christmas Day) on my early walk with my new iPhone.

It has the best camera I have now but not much of a zoom. This is one of the older homes in good repair but well lived in a few blocks away on a street that was chopped in half to face a new road in from the south during the urban renewal that pretty much destroyed this lively immigrant neighborhood.

It may not look like much but it is a perfect representation of my mood and the feel of the place. With those unexpected green glass bowls as decorations.

Everything was so quiet and serene out but also looked a bit rough and weather battered out there.

I have been disconcertingly lazy the last few days but am dealing with it. :) I found the actual Christmas holiday more emotional than I expected. There was grief at work under all the colored lights and festive food and so was a bit tired and draggy.

It also may have something to do with relaxing. The deep fatigue of all I had been doing and experiencing this year settled on me like a blanket of snow on my shoulders.

So it was lovely to be able to have an easy afternoon and evening at Kes’s best friend’s place with her version of Arbi’s Widows and Spinster’s Christmas luncheon.

There were eight of us, all women except Most Honorable, who was very good-natured about being not only the only man, but also the youngest at 60. He was tasked with turkey carving. The meal was catered from a local natural grocery and then picked up and just lovely.

Two of the women had husbands at home with serious health issues, one in hospice. Our hostess just recently lost her beloved father after taking care of him for five years at his home in Toronto and getting back here as often as she could. There was an older teaching colleague who has lived in one of our better retirement complexes for three years and a former science librarian.

These are all very smart women so we had a far ranging conversation from beloved kitchen gadgets to studies in social sciences, from what they call the “organ recital” where one talks about one’s physical health to history and family origins and the frustrations of adapting to various online platforms. They were fascinated to know about you all and my connection to you.

All in all it was a very congenial group. Kes’s best friend is an unparalleled hostess, with a beautiful table and we talked about proper table etiquette in a very relaxed and humorous way. I think they were happy to include me and I was chuffed to actually be able to see Kes and Most Honorable on Christmas day. Something we haven’t done in years.

Then I came home and went for another relatively short walk listening to a murder mystery audiobook (I finished listening to it this morning and started on the audiobook of Wolf Hall, which is beautifully done) so that I could hit my step goal for the day.

It is back to work tomorrow for me, but a short week and Saint Joe will be back and there will be no overtime whatsoever no way no how.

I need to get the key to the studio and am feeling anxious about settling into the new space but I will deal…

It is a little over four weeks before my next dental surgery. Oh happy days crunching away.

There is this old building I walk by often called The Harbor View with thin walls and tiny tiny rooms that was built as an apartment building during the late 1800’s. It has one bay window on the second floor that used to face the market street with the fishmonger and other trade shops that has a beautiful Christmas tree in it. I tried walking out into the street to get a shot of it yesterday, the timelessness of it hosting that tree or a Menorah all these years.

There is a deep connection here with lives fully, richly and robustly lived. I find the energetic wisps they left behind comforting as we all transition into this terrifying new world so full of uncertainty and greed.

May the impulse towards generosity and affection that comes so easily to most of us during the holidays prevail as we turn our focus towards the future.

Last updated December 26, 2016