Thoughts on the Cusp of the New Year

Disclaimer: I have had this blog cooking in my head for a few days. Last night, I came up with a killer title for it. Today, the tile is completely gone. I cannot remember even one word of it. I hope the compromise one I chose instead will still do. 

On every New Year's Eve, I always ponder upon our lives, our journeys, and the accomplishments or lack thereofs in the year closing. So, today is no different than any of the other 40+ Eve's that I have left behind me.

But I think this past year (2017), I have asked myself more the questions of “why?”, “why now?, “why us?” more than any other year in my life. As the world seems to grow smaller, and angrier, and more crowded, less patient, and less respectful, I wonder daily what is the purpose of us all, and what kind of cataclysm doomed us to whatever it is happening now and whatever might be coming up next.

2017 has been a year of everything for us. As any life goes, it's been a year of amazing personal peaks and disappointing lows: we saw some new countries to us, we have seen most of our close family, some of which we had not seen for years, we made closer friends, we did some good for our charities, it was my first (air) travel year after my surgery and it all went well. I almost did manage to go through the year without an ER visit, all the way until the very end. But I was happy that the one ER visit I did have was not heart-related. Or at least not directly.

But personally, we have also seen some of the lowest lows, too: the insecurity and uncertainty of losing a job, the horror of a cancer diagnosis amidst our close family members, the need to uproot once again (at 40 something and 50 years of age) to settle in a new state – this last one is more of a bitter-sweet transition, rather than a low point, or at least we hope it is not all low.

All this, while the world seems to spin faster and faster out of control! And I am not sure whether it's just aging, but this year, for the first time, I felt like the state of the world affects the state of my being more than ever!

I don't think globalization can be stopped or changed anymore: used to be that events that happened in other countries had no potential of ever affecting us. But that is not the case anymore. What happens in Iran, Iraq, Korea, Japan, Israel, Russia, the UK, France, you name it … can affect us here, in a small town in NC, or AL, or anywhere nondescript. If this past year has taught us anything is that the world is our oyster. For better or worse!

With social media and its free and available nature, we are constantly exposed to evil, from near and far. Why do people choose evil over good is still beyond me!

I know people who unconditionally believe in the good in all of us. I have had doubts my whole life about this, but it must be true: if it true that we all come from God, then it must be true that we all have some good in all of us. What I fail to see lately is people finding that good that's already inside them and greeting the world with that, rather than with the sea of badness they're filled with. The willingness to show good, and to do good is a weakness anymore. You're a hippy, a 'sissy', or a 'chick' if you're soft, and kind, and caring … - none of which is a compliment, of course.

It's a tough world out there and I think it will be tougher. Disrespect and hatred seem to be accepted anymore, and although I do see a lot of my friends take a firm stand against it all, I don't see much changing in the bigger picture. Sure, with each individual action of resistance and setting the record straight, the evil has one less chance to win, but the evil is still out there – supported and advertised by people in power.

It boggles my mind that people still support Trump! I am not saying they “support the Republican party”, but that, still, puzzles me, as well. But they support him, the man! I cringed when the results of the “most popular man of the year” survey came out and every news organization blasted that the news was “shocking” that Obama was more popular than Trump. Other than the platitude of findings (is there really a comparison between the two?!), I was floored that the news was that “Trump got 14% of the votes while Obama got 17%.” Really?! You're telling me that Trump is only three percent points less popular than Obama?! I wish I were a better writer to explain to you how much that 14% really stings. Double digits! Really?! Forgive me for not seeing the silver lining here.

I understand freak personalities that come every once in a while during the history of mankind. Like bad seeds that sprout weeds, they happen to humans as much as to plants. I can even understand freak circumstances that might allow them to go far and succeed in oppressing others' dignities. But I have never understood the support. The millions of others who accept this as a way of life. As a standard for all of us. Many days nowadays have me wonder: “in what universe is this thing legal? And accepted?” And yet, things that appall me happen every day with zero consequence!

It makes me angry that after so many thousands of years, after so many history lessons, after so much angst and turmoil, after countless losses as a universe, we're regressing so much as opposed to progressing and enhancing our humanity.  

But I seldom do politics. However, I feel like this year, more than anything, this transcends politics. Just like I knew this country was headed for failure after W. Bush was in the office and supporting mediocrity, I know we're in more trouble now than we have ever been before. When something reminds me of something darker, crueler, even less humane (if such a thing is even possible) than Communism, trust me: we're in for deep, troubled waters.

As a country, as a world power, but most importantly, here at home, as a community. I fear for us, as women, people of color or of other nationalities, children with disabilities. I fear for us as a social class, and as a community. I fear we're losing something that we don't know we're losing till it's all gone and too late to get it back.

I am looking for answers, and for the first time in a long time, I fail to see where they might come from. Both in Europe, as whole (Romania in particular), and here, I feel the fastened pulse of a people in despair and rage. And for the first time in a long time, a people hopeless.

There have not been many years where I wished for the old year to never end. I am usually hopeful that the new year will bring us more health, more joy, more wealth, more love, and more togetherness than the year we're closing. This time, I don't ever want 2017 to end. I am scared that what the new year will bring will be darker, more grim and sadder than what we're leaving behind. I am scared that it might bring us something we're hardly prepared to handle at all. Something beyond our imaginations.

I wish I could truly say it's up to us how to put together the next 365 pages of our lives, our 365 chances to screw it all up or make it all better. But I am not believing these words anymore. There seems to be so much in this world that eludes us that controls us, and our every day, more lately than ever. Staying vigilant is only half of the answer. The other half is truly fighting this. But when there are no laws to encourage and support our fight, it is hard to fight back. And for the hippy in me fighting is ever the solution or the victory.

One promise I can make myself, and my family: I could try to not let this harden and embitter me beyond graciousness. I will try to let what is good in me win me over and allow me to put it forward, instead of cowardly hiding it as a weakness and I will try to share the goodness at least with people in my immediate realm. I know I can use some kindness – I am willing to be the first one to give mine to others. Giving it to the undeserving will be hard, however. The judge in me won't let that go, unfortunately.

I am not bitter. Just sad and drained by everything I am seeing around me this year. I used to wake up every morning and check my emails. My husband calls it “checking in with the world.” Nowadays, I fire up my news-feed first thing in the morning, before I do anything else. I need to check and see whether I do have a world to check in with anymore.

In the end of this long and strained year, I leave you with the lyrics of one of my favorite poets which I think summarize sort of how I feel right now:

“Did you know freedom exists
In a school book?
Did you know madmen
Are running our prison
Within a jail, within a gaol
Within a white free protestant
Maelstrom

We're perched headlong
On the edge of boredom
We're reaching for death
On the end of a candle
We're trying for something
That's already found us.” (Jim Morrison – Freedom Exists)

I wish you all a kinder and easier year in 2018. May you all find that something that's already found you and hopefully that something is good.

'The Ghosts of Christmas Past'

I have always faulted Romanians for living in the past. Their present, for as long as I have lived, has always been grim and disappointing, and they always take refuge in the past. “Yes, this government is more corrupt than any government in the history of the country, and our standard of living is below poverty for 99% of the population, BUT … Europe won the Second World War with our oil and we gave the world insulin and Nadia Comaneci!” Who cares, right?!

But as I age, I find myself looking back to the past more and more. Not sure if as much as a refuge from the present, but just as a contemplation of where this aging body has been – a long journey, full of good remembrances!

This Christmas, I have spun through my head the memories of my life, at Christmastime, like you spin an old movie reel. And they are so many and so different. I have been lucky to not only have a family who is very much into Christmas, but to have come across, over the years, families that adopted me at this time of the year and shared with me their traditions as well. I have been exposed to a smorgasbord of Christmas pastimes, so my memories are very eclectic.

When we were little kids, I remember mom and grandma taking us to the most central park in our hometown where we would watch the lighting of the tree and the temporary statue of Santa Claus. We did not have the Santa that lets you sit on his lap at the mall. We didn't have a mall. We had this giant, wooden Santa, about 30 feet tall standing by the city tree. It boggled my little mind how this huge Santa would even fit through our door to come drop off the presents – this was just the beginning of my doubting nature. There were no carols, really, because it was during communism and we were not allowed to carol churchy stuff. Our family sang carols, but it was very much hush-hush. Christmas was about winter and Santa, not about Jesus. For this reason, we never went to Church on Christmas.

We went to see the tree and Santa on Christmas Eve, not 10 weeks before Christmas started. Everything started then on Christmas Eve. We even made our own tree on The Eve, too, not weeks before. We would have the tree up till January 8^th, after celebrating John the Baptist's feast and Jesus's Baptism. We did say “Happy Holidays” in December, and we still do, back home, and that was not because of some anti-Christian agenda, but because we really did celebrate multiple holidays: Christmas, New Year's with its feasts, John the Baptist, and Jesus's baptism. I never thought that there is something wrong about saying “Happy Holidays” till later in my life, when I moved to the US.

After the Christmas tree and Santa viewing, mom and grandma would take us home which always smelt like food. Cozonac mostly (a Romanian sweet cake) but also lots of meats, mostly pork products. We ate Christmas Eve dinner in the family, always, and then the adults would distract us so they can sneak some presents under the tree and tell us Santa stopped by with presents. They were wrapped in newspaper – I still remember how I hated that ink from the paper making my white fingers black. I remember the smell of the ink, too.

I don't remember getting more than one present. When we stopped believing, we got presents from the parents, grandparents and some relatives, but again, just one from each party and not even wrapped or under the tree. They would just buy us something and they would say “this is your Christmas present”. The joy of finding things under the tree and unwrapping them as a family came much, much later in my life. I grant America with revealing that wonder to me.

In Romania, Christmas (and Easter, for that matter) lasts for 3 days. On the 25^th, 26^th, 27^th of December we took turns visiting people we knew, mostly relatives, and they took turns visiting us. With every visit, we would eat a 10 course meal, with all traditional foods: several kinds of sausages freshly made from a pig that just got killed, sarmale (cabbage and grape leaves rolls), pork meat in aspic, lots of appetizers, including meatballs and boeuf salad, which in fact almost never had any bouef in it at all. We would eat all these foods, prepared tens of different ways in our home and every home we visited for three days straight. I swear our stomachs expanded this time of the year.

In the city, we did not get carolers for Christmas much, but we would get them for New Years. They could sing about the New Year, which seemed more lay than the birth of Jesus, so this was safe. This was the Christmas at home, in the city where my parents lived.

Christmas in the mountains where I grew up was much different. There, it was all about Jesus. People in the mountains were simple and as simple people come, their lives revolved around the church. And they cared little about communism. Communists also cared little about them, too. Communists knew that mountain are remote places with stubborn people and they did not ever care to even try to brainwash them. Mountain people had the notion of private property, they killed their own pig in their own yard and did not have to give The Government any piece of that! They also believed in Jesus and they were extremely respectful of the faith. I cherished that! They did have carolers every year, and every carol was about The Birth, and Jerusalem, and Mary and Joseph. Sometimes, they would sing about making bread on Christmas with a broken oven and a broken pot, but making bread nonetheless, which tasted sweetest, because it was made in the family.

The mountains always got snow, too – so it was a magical fairy tale time to spend Christmas there.

We had a tree in the mountains that one of the older boys in the family cut themselves in the forest right behind our house. We would trim it with pine cones, mostly – not with the fancy, colored, glass ornaments we had in the city. The tree was in our room, which was the main room of the house, the living room and dining room, too. It smelled so good and piney in there. We would fall asleep with the sound of crackling fire logs in the wooden stove, every night and we were tipsy from drinking red wine. Yes, even as kids, we would drink some: it was in a way, we were told, medicinal, to drink mulled red wine; it would keep colds away. Carolers came on Christmas Eve and we would give them nuts, apples and sometimes real food too. We only gave some money to kids related to the family.

Communism was over and Christmases changed for us in the city. We had carolers there, too, and it became a lot more commercial: we got nice presents, wrapped in nice paper, or bagged in nice bags. The food and drinking and carrying on for days was still the same. The closeness of family was nice, too. We are closely-knit families back home as it is, but for some reason getting together for The Holidays (we celebrate New Year's for days, too, then the other holidays of January) was always special: we all contemplated as a family what we left behind in the old year and we made plans on what the new year is going to look like. We hoped. We dreamed. And we shared.

And then, I moved to the US. Here, every year seems different. I have had the good fortune to meet some people that welcomed me into their homes for Christmas and included me in their traditions. And now, after 19 Christmases on this side of The Pond, I have made my own traditions that are a mish-mash of what I have learned from everyone's celebrations, including my family's.

Some memories that come to mind from these past years: the years I spent Christmas with wonderful friends in Charlotte, NC – I am still, to this day, yet to see the amount of presents and bounty that they displaye at Christmas! They are some of the most generous people I have ever known, with warm hearts, too.

For a brief time in my life, I had an uncle (by marriage) and he decorated his house like a Christmas store. There was no shelf untouched, no corner, even the railings of the house were full of Christmas 'scenes' and dripping with artificial snow. He had hundreds of Santa figurines and snowmen, too. He started decorating around Halloween to be ready at Christmas. I spent just two years at his house, for Christmas, but they stick in my mind as being special, because of his joy, like a little kid, showing off his decorated house.

Then, there were Christmases that I spent alone with my cats while being on-call for work. I still cooked like my family taught me, and during my free time, binge-watched Hallmark Christmas movies and marathons of home improvement shows. Having sent off presents to family afar and meeting with other friends around town on non-Christmas days made it feel special to me, in a different sort of way.

One year, I went to a carol concert at a church on Christmas Eve, invited by a, then, coworker. She and her husband were alone that evening and would not let me go to be alone at my house: they invited me for dinner at their house instead. They had a tree and a simple dinner (I don't remember what it was, but not sure it was ham and fixings at all). It felt a little uncomfortable at first, but in the end I felt less alone.

Southern Christmases are truly the best: the weather is amazing (I don't miss snow on Christmas at all – never have!), you can walk after a big meal, and people are nicer and calmer – it really brings out the best in them. I love the Salvation Army bells in the South, too, with people dressed up like Santa ringing them.

Then, we moved to Utah, as a family. I made a promise to myself that as long as there is breath in me, I will have a Christmas tree in the house - and so far it has kept. We made a tree every year, and although our stay in Utah will not stand out as a friend-making experience, we managed to have a Christmas gathering at our house and sometimes a second or third one at someone else's every year. We shared foods, and stories, and presents and learned about what other people, some strangers to us, had planned for The Holidays. These gatherings were that much more meaningful as they were rare and we felt lucky to be invited to them and to be able to invite others to our home, too.

Also, in Utah, we have learned about “neighbor's gifts”: you're supposed to give something, anything, to all your neighbors. We got stuff from many people we didn't know – small things, like a box of tissues (really!), or more significant things from our next door neighbor who we did know (like a garden lantern).

One of the strangest Christmas memories will probably be the one from our last year in Utah: for 12 days straight we got presents from a “Secret Santa”: we got everything from chewing gum packs and beef jerky to bottles of soda and a tub of ice cream.” To this day, we will never know who that person was, but for the “12 days of Christmas” they kept giving us presents.

This year has been a hard personal year for us and even harder for our extended family. With our cross-country move, I started Christmas preparation and sending gifts to far-away family late and not with much enthusiasm. Some of the presents won't make it there in time. We do have a tree, but we downsized the present buying for ourselves this year – after all, we bought a whole new house, right?!

Every year since I started to consciously build my own traditions, I try to do something “Christmassy”, meaning something that you can only do around this time of the year: like going to a Christmas play or concert, or the Christmas market bazaar, or going to see some Christmas lights somewhere. I am not sure why this is important to me, but it is. Maybe it's my dad reminding us to take time for “special” things, because this is how memories are made – and, like I said, you don't get to these things year-round. So, I take the time to do them this time of the year.

I know it's not a popular idea to buy “stuff” for people around Christmas – which has nothing to do with the holiday itself. But if this is how you understand the holiday, I would say it's OK. I do want to see (or imagine) the eyes of people I love glisten with anticipation as they open my presents, knowing that this is my way of saying I am thinking of them. We cannot be close to all family at Christmas, as they are all so far away. But knowing I can send them a token of love and acknowledgment that they are indeed special makes my holiday brighter. This is the same reason why I still send cards to my special people. I get it that it could be consumerism, but I see it as sharing my bounty with people I love.

I don't really get all the cooking, either – but I embrace it as a custom given to me by my family and by people I love. I have a friend who always says that she cooks for people because she doesn't know how else to say “I love you”. I agree to that.

But I digress. Back to not feeling enthusiastic this Christmas.

For weeks now, I have thought about what to cook for Christmas, and I am not feeling like cooking at all. All I want is just to look at my tree, snuggle with Gypsy and close the door on the world for a few days, under a blanket with a trashy magazine.

But I did find some drive to cook and we will have our own traditions, like we normally do, because I cannot bear being a Grinch, no matter what my life is doing. It would feel like I have given up, if I were, and life still has so many beautiful reasons to celebrate. We will open presents over mimosas and breakfast casserole on Christmas Day (a tradition I stole from my Charlotte friends), we will speak with relatives, and watch Christmas movies, me, over eggnog, and Aa. over wine or a mixed drink. We might even make a fire, too. We will nap and read and walk in the crisp air, too. Because we are back in the land where we are lucky to have friends, we hope to see some of them over Christmas and New Year's as well.

Maybe my looking back through the memories is, in fact, a way to escape the present, which is challenging my patience and peace of mind right now. Maybe, I am just Romanian, after all. And yes, this is very much, tongue-in-cheek.

Whatever Christmas is to you, I hope it is warm, healthy, calm, long and lingering. I hope you find at least one reason to smile, many reasons to celebrate, and look forward to what's beyond this time, with hope and dreams anew.

Happiest of Holidays, everyone! 

Still my most favorite Christmas picture. We were young and unassuming. All four of us.