Things I ♥ Thursdays

As a reminder to make sure I do things with my free time that I REALLY love, today marks the beginning of a new weekly update on Smiles and Winks: Things I ♥ Thursdays.

Basically TI♥T's a quick way for me to let you know what I love, and (more to the point) what I've been doing that I love. Some of them might be things that I have always loved and maybe haven't made time for recently, and some of them might be things I never knew I loved.

Part of me feels like I'm shooting myself in the foot starting this 2 weeks before I leave for Puerto Vallarta, since there'll be limited opportunities to blog while I'm there. But if I don't make an actual update, I'll be sure to record my thoughts in my journal on Thursday and update the TI♥T list when I get home.

So without further ado, the things I've loved doing so far this week:

• Sitting on the floor watching BB1 play video games with his friends and hearing them laugh
• Reading a new book in my velvet armchair in my bedroom
• Cross-stitch (that one's for you, MTW)
• Tea and catch-up with Hey Lady
• Mid-morning yoga

So, you can see that doing what I love has started off with some quietude, but I have to say I'm really loving it. I think I'll grab my crossword puzzle book and head for bed. There will be plenty of time in Mexico for loving adventure.

of Popes and Romans and markers of time

About this time a year ago - a year by the standard set by Pope Gregory at least, but more on that in a second - I made a list. It's a standard ritual for many people, akin to setting resolutions and collaging and taking stock. But it's odd - January 1 is really just a day like any other day.

There are so many calendars - Gregorian, Julian, Hebrew, Islamic, Indian, Chinese, Baha'i - and everyone of them is made up by people who just picked one thing as a beginning and something else as an ending. New Years Days, like so much in our lives, are made up. Why should one day be designated as a start or end of anything? Why is the lunar cycle or a solar cycle or any other standard the standard measure of time? For me my birthday and the start of the school year are equally valid markers of a new cycle,

And yet, we 'modern' type folk by and large set Dec. 31/Jan. 1 days to reflect on the old, set ideals for the new, and create a fresh start for ourselves. Yes, I recognize that many many observations - Easter, Yom Kippur, Lunar New Year, Ramadan, etc - are still based on other non-Gregorian calendars, but it's hard to dispute the Gregorian as the standard. Now stop interrupting or this post will never be finished.

Actually, this is not just any new year - it's a fresh decade (any argument of whether or not the decade began in 2000 or 2001 will be redacted), a year in which the name of the year itself has been subsumed by the localised hysteria of VANOC and the impending Olympiad and taken on a whole new life. A year of round numbers. So, as the marking of years passing go, this is a momentous one.

My point is, about a year ago I made a list. A list of what I wanted to achieve in 2009, what I hoped would have been added to my life (freedom and love and $) or what would be removed from my life (30 or so pounds and doubt and confusion). What I'd see, or do, or create for my sons to see or do. I imagine that list included both dreaming and reality and bridges between the two. Only in the ensuing months I moved blogs and I can't access the old one and I'm left wondering - if I make a list now will it be very different. Have I created in the last 12 months a life much different from the one I already had?

The biggest difference from a year ago is clearly my Cowboy. And he's pretty fantastic. But in all the spaces where Cowboy isn't, I don't really see that much difference in what I have and who I am compared to 12 months ago. And that's slightly discomfitting. I'm pretty done with making promises, and I'm really excited and interested in what's coming. I've been feeling lately like I can't quite get my feet underneath me, or like I've somehow lost my way and life has just been occurring without any time or space or air for me to really enjoy it.

Turns out that's bullsh*t. Just because I haven't been doing the things I love doesn't mean they aren't still there for me to do. So this year I'm going to do the things I love - sing, dance, socialise with my friends, play piano, paint, write, teach. I will not take on, as Eleanor Roosevelt extorts, doing on thing each day that scares me (have I ever mentioned that I have very few fears?). Instead this year I am going to do one thing each day that moves me. One thing I love. Now THAT is a year that will make a difference.

And, since it's already January 3, I guess I have some catching up to already. YAHOO!!

Arriba!

So, now that the ups and downs, the egg nog and shortbread, the bustle and bluster, the family and the friends of the holidays are mostly done, it's time to focus on my next Cowboy adventure: two weeks in Puerto Vallarta at the all-inclusive Royal Decameron Puerto Vallarta (say it with me now ... ADULT ONLY POOL!) in Bucerias.

SWEET!!

We leave in 26 days, and I'm beginning to realise that I have some wardrobe gaps that I'll be looking to fill before we take off. Of course, I could just take a half-full suitcase down and fill it in Vallarta, but that seems a little high risk, and I intend to spend more time there adventuring than shopping.

Whatever wardrobe ends up wrinkling it's way south will have to do me for 2 weeks and prepare me for such possible activities as snorkeling, zip-lining, 4x4ing, shopping, lunching, kayaking, sailing, dancing, dinner theatre, hiking, and humpback whale watching. Oh, and I'd like very much to see some blue-footed boobies, just so I can come back and say that I've seen blue-footed boobies. Blue-footed boobies! BLUE FOOTED BOOBIES! (I honestly didn't know they live outside the Gallapagos!). And maybe, if Cowboy is feeling especially long-suffering, I'll get to visit the Puerto Vallarta Botanical Gardens. The point is, I'm going to need a variety of clothes for land and sea, rural and city-centre, day and night, adventuring and exploring.

So here's what's on the current wish list. We'll see if I can find any of it in Victoria in January. :)

• pretty beaded leather flip flops
• a boho chic cotton (or maybe silk) maxi dress
• the awesomest mom-positive swimsuit ever
• a wide-brimmed, packable sun hat
• a second pair of sunglasses
• a cover-up that works from the beach to the café
• linen pants (or I could just fix the ones that have been in my mending basket for 2 years - ha!)

The truth is, I'd probably be fine without any of that stuff, but shopping for a big trip seems to me like a fun part of the build-up, so why the heck not at least speculate, right?

On the other hand

I love Christmas. I get very excited; I make big plans; I enjoy the build up and the anticipation. I often think that when my time comes I want people to say of me, as they did of Scrooge, that " he knew how to keep Christmas well if any man alive possessed the knowledge." (except maybe they could adjust the pronouns).

And then sometimes there's this let-down of being unable to attain my ideal Christmas and having instead to accept the Christmas I have. Of course, that only happens when I focus on the "tinsel & trappings" instead of on what I really love about this season - being with family, surprise and delight, joy and love. But the let-down happens none-the-less (as do all the blessings).

Today I woke up like it's just any other day when I have more I've promised to do than I have time to do it, and when what I want to do is very far away from what I need to do. I want to go gift shopping, and bake treats, and find the missing ingredient that will make my first tree with Cowboy perfect (it's missing something, but I can't tell what), but what I need to do is get to yoga, and complete some client work, and take care of the banking, and keep my appointments.

I'm letting life get in the way of my experience of peace on earth and goodwill to all. So it seemed like perfect timing that I got a reminder this morning of two Christmas funk songs. They are actually two of my favourite Christmas songs, I suppose because you have to have a little dark to really see the light.

Enjoy.

Fairytale of New York: The Pogues with Kirsty McColl

The River: Robert Downey Jr. (unfortunately there's no real music video for this)

Peace Love ... no, this is not a Gap commercial

It started with a funny look - Cowboy quizically gazing at me as though trying to comprehend what I'd just said: "the chocolates aren't for me, I need to fill the boys' advent calendar." I returned the confused look, unsure what the problem was. And then I smiled - "Oh, you think it's crazy that I am buying candy for an advent calendar when my sons are 17 & 20, don't you!" Rapid agreement. Rapid reply - "you don't stop a tradition."

In fact though, my personal history of advent, and advent calendars, is relatively short. It is one I adopted sometime in the 90's, buying a pocketed felt snowman to track (and treat) the countdown to Christmas - to acknowledge and encourage the anticipation of the day, as though that was necessary in a house filled with greenery, readings of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and frequently smells of fresh cookies baking.

But like most commercialised traditions, chocolates and calendars are cheap simulacra for the deeper meaning of advent. I suppose that in the evangelical churches of my youth, advent was considered too ritualistic and even (horror of horrors) too Catholic to be observed. So I was 20 when I first remembering celebrating the lighting of the purple and rose candles. And learned to pause in the Christmas month to think about what the season meant. And while I'd always believed Jesus was 'the reason for the season,' as many a Christian bookstore stocking stuffer proclaimed, it was the liturgy of advent that taught me what that trite sentiment really meant. In the Baptist church I married into, the 4 weeks of advent were focused on Hope (or Expectation), Peace, Love and Joy - and to spend an hour each week reading, singing and reflecting on those changed everything else about Christmas for me.

I now know that the theme of advent services varies from practice to practice, although they are always the 4 Sundays before Christmas, and always centre on the advent, or coming, of Christ into the world. But that initial experience has stuck with me, whether I'm attending church during advent season or not. And cheap and commercialised though they may be, the chocolates remind me. And the calendars remind me. To pause, and to reflect, and to remember that the hope, peace, love and joy of the season are not accidental. And that stopping to think about them is as worthwhile as all the hustle and bustle I normally engage in for the month of December.
So my sons are inevitably growing older. And they may not see why that silly felt Snowmen still matters to me. And Cowboy may smile patiently, believing that I'm clinging to my sons' childhood. But when I walk out in the door in the morning and see the Snowman with another empty pocket. I know. And I smile, and I think about hope, love, peace & joy.