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My anecdotal evidence gathered from 38 years of blind faith.
1976 — Age 6
If I keep pinching myself, I’ll stay awake. I can still hear mom and dad in the living room, so I can’t sneak out yet.
Jennifer says there isn’t any Santa. That it’s really mom and dad. But Jennifer unties Billy’s shoes just to be mean. He can’t tie them himself, and he cries.
It’s starting to rain outside. We never get snow at Christmas.
Shhh, I think they’ve gone to bed. Now I have to wait again. Must keep pinching.
I wake up, and it’s still dark outside. The rain is coming very hard now. I hear a tinkle in the house. I knew it! Jennifer is wrong. I hop out of bed and sneak into the hallway. Just a little farther and I’ll be able to see. I tiptoe to the end and peek around the corner –
CRASH! Lightning fills the house and the thunder is so loud I almost scream. I clap my hands over my mouth and run back to bed. Santa knew I was going to look!
I’ll never doubt again.
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1983 — Age 13
It really doesn’t matter if I’m only getting clothes for Christmas. I quit playing with toys a long time ago.
What irks me about this Christmas, other than the three horrid hours we have to spend watching the old people play dominos, is that something is wrong with my ankle. No one can figure out anything wrong with it, but I can’t walk. It hurts a lot and I have to hop everywhere. I’ve spent the whole break reading books, and crawling to the bathroom when I have to go. Mom acts like I’m making it up. I know going to the doctor is expensive, and I don’t remember hurting it. But someone’s got to do something.
Tomorrow morning is Christmas Day and I’m in the play at church, and this is going to be so embarrassing. Whoever saw an angel bouncing to the mike to sing “Angels We Have Heard on High?” I finally get a big part — they never choose me for Mary — and this has to happen. Maybe Tiny Tim will lone me his crutches.
- - - - - -
My brother is banging on my door, going on about some Star Wars something-or-another in his stocking. I’m halfway across the room before I realize it.
I can walk just fine.
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1997 — Age 27
I can’t believe I’ve been trying to get pregnant for almost a year. Thankfully my doctor was willing to see us so close to Christmas, get the preliminary tests started, so we can start the New Year with a new direction, most certainly with some assistive technology. No good ol’ fashioned way for us.
I hang the stockings almost bitterly; I was certain we could put a third one up, even if a baby hadn’t quite yet come by now. When we began this journey in February, I just knew we’d be well on our way by Christmas. I was so sure that after last Christmas, I’d bought a new stocking on clearance, just to be prepared. I run my hands along the fabric, then stick it beneath the tissue paper, feeling foolish.
I pull out the chart the doctor had given us. We have to “try” the next few nights in a row, then we can take a test on Jan. 7, the first day it might be positive. A Christmas baby, I laugh. We can tell him he was conceived on Christmas Eve.
Whatever. I’m certain what actually brings the baby around will be intensive, long, probably painful, and expensive.
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2003 — Age 33
I’m trying not to have a cow. It’s 8:00 on Christmas Eve and Baby Elizabeth just opened an early gift – a little blue bear. Emily has been crying nonstop, wanting one too. We’ve called my parents, who we won’t see for a few more days, to see if they can find one and give it to her in Wichita Falls when we drive up, but now she’s writing a letter to Santa asking for a blue bear.
She tugs on the front door.
“Where are you going?” I ask her. “It’s night time.”
“To put my letter in the mail!”
Oh no. “To Santa?”
“Yes! To bring me a blue bear!”
I don’t even know what to say. I follow her down the steps.
“Baby, I don’t know if Santa will get the letter this late. He’s probably already packed his sleigh.”
“He can! I know he can!”
We go back in the house and I get them ready for bed. What will Emily think if Santa doesn’t get her the bear? I could send John out. Surely something is still open on Christmas Eve with a blue bear in stock. If not, maybe she’ll forget when she gets all the other gifts.
I go back downstairs, where John is pulling the bag of extra toys to set out. “Why did Emily go outside?” he asks.
I tell him about the bear.
“That’s funny,” he said. “A couple of days ago I was picking up some little things for them on Christmas morning, and I got this.” He tugs a small blue beanie baby from the bag. A bear.
I can’t believe it.
We may not know exactly how he works, or when or where or why, but there definitely is a Santa Claus.
I will never doubt again.
Yesterday, I visited the class for the second time, to check on their progress and give them a second round of edits. They were grumbly that they still "weren't done," which means they really ARE becoming writers (as we all LOVE revision.)
The range of writing ability varies dramatically in the class, from students who put out perfect sentences on first draft to those who don't seem familiar with punctuation...at all. Most of the stories were first-person narratives on topics such as "My Dog Buster" and "The Day We Had a Car Accident."
And then there was Kyle.
Kyle struggled mightily with syntax. His average sentence length was five words. On our first edit, his little essay "The Smell of Pine" rambled about all the smells he liked. I encouraged him to remove all the other smells and to simply put down all the things the smell of pine reminded him of. By the end of the class, he had a good paragraph about putting up the Christmas tree and the pine mingling with the other smells of the holiday.
Yesterday, we cleaned up his sentences and I told him he needed to finish out his essay by telling us what the smell of pine meant to him. I expected a recap of the first sentence, like most of the kids. I had no idea what he would say next, and when I think of my own smaller Christmas due to the economy's effect on my business, the disappointment of this year with agents knocking down my book and now struggling to find the courage to write another one, I think I'll keep Kyle in mind.
I love it, love it, love it. Best thing to happen since that horrid Prop 8 passed.
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Oh, to look back on days that changed your life.
Most of them don't seem like much at the time. No racing pulse. No heart-thumping sound track. Probably not even a mention on your blog. I'd bet many red-letter days start out, and even finish, completely in the gray.
But on November 11, 2005, I arrived for the first time at a little coffee shop known as Austin Java. I didn't know anyone doing NaNoWriMo, but my life had taken a crazy and terrible turn in September, and I wanted to branch out, meet people, and figure out a way to re-engage with the world outside my problems. So I opened the big wooden doors and tentatively stepped inside.
Luckily, just to my left, a penguin sat on a table, the sign that the Austin NaNoWriMos were there. I sat down by two women, who let me know it was cheap wine night and to avail myself of a glass. They introduced themselves as Ivy and Audrey. "I'm trying to date her," Ivy said, by way of explaining everything. "But she isn't going for it yet."
A few minutes later, a fourth person, a 20-something guy who went by Fool, joined us.
The evening, greased by red wine and a sense of hilarity in trying to write novels on such a short timeline, caused us to laugh and joke and try to out-wit each other with ridiculous scenes. Audrey sang a song for us. When Fool came back from the bathroom talking about some poetic graffiti over the urinal, Audrey and I raided the men's room to check it out. This has led to a fine three-year career of leaving bits of poetry in bathrooms, and each time Java paints over our literary leavings, we put them back.
We all became tight friends, attending write ins together throughout the month, and pushing each other to make the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. When November ended, we couldn't bear to part, so we formed the Austin Java writing company and have met every Monday night for the last three years.
This night has led to so many things for me. Continuing to write, for one, when I might have given up long ago. Finding several of my best friends in the world, including Audrey, Ivy, and Rebecca, who joined Java soon after. And teaching me about social circles way beyond my experience.
Next year I get the honor of photographing Audrey as she marries her longtime girlfriend in Canada, as well as Ivy also tying the knot with her girl. And the inspiration of all of them has led me to the novel I'm writing this year, Girl Crush, and pushing me to write comedy, which I'd never tried. But all this has also helped in retaining my faith that I am on the path I'm meant to travel--not safe, not settled, and not standing still. But moving forward, reaching out beyond my comfort zones, and always, following my dream to write.
That night I went home glad I had gone to a write in, relieved to realize I would not remain reclusive after all my life changes, and proud to be writing so fast and so well under difficult circumstances.
But I had no idea that the trajectory of my life had really fired off at that moment, that the testing phase was past and I'd grown into a far more relaxed, open, and freely expressive person than I had been in a very long time, and this would change everything.
I'm sitting here at almost midnight Texas time, constantly refreshing the precinct results of Proposition 8 in California and feeling very down.
I'm happy for Obama's win and all, and we just got in from a happy election party, but I admit that as I sat in the room with all the hugging cheering people, watching Obama give his speech, I felt awfully blue, and not in the democratic-colored-state way.
Despite the prediction polls and even the exit polls showing that Proposition 8 would fail, keeping same-sex marriage legal, the constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman has been passing in the actual tallies. I know a lot of conservative counties are reporting early, but San Francisco is in, as is LA. And the measure is succeeding.
I can't imagine what it would be like to have a marriage, so long awaited, be annulled for no other reason than politics. And I can't understand the conservative perspective that giving more people, who have found love and commitment in another person, the right to marry somehow weakens marriage. That is counter-intuitive to me. If a couple finds that perfect someone, who are we to stand in their way? How does that destroy the institution of marriage? Love is such a miracle. How can anyone say one love is better, more appropriate, and more acceptable than another?
I'm going to stay up and see what happens. It not only impacts so many of my friends, but of course, I've already been rethinking my novel, which is set in California for an elopement of a lesbian softball team from Texas. And if the Proposition passes, I'm more determined than ever to get this book done, to make the point that love is beautiful and true and worthy of legal status no matter where it surfaces, and that one person's beliefs about what constitutes a marriage should begin and end in their own behavior, and not be dictated to anyone else.
It may be a long night.
Images from the Austin candle lighting for Pregnancy Loss Remembrance Day.
I had canceled the event due to rain, but at the meeting time, a rainbow appeared, so I un-canceled it.
I got to meet people I’d only known through my web site.
Big sisters light candles too.
The park at Palmer Events Center with its amazing lighted fountains was an ideal location — serene and beautiful. We will definitely meet here again next year.
So yesterday was very very bad. I foolishly silenced my inner alarm system and wound up in a bad situation with work.
But the good part is that it gave me a great idea for an article and yesterday I stopped by Barnes and Noble and found the perfect magazine to send it to.
Like my article coming out in The Writer, it's a humorous self-deprecating piece. You'd think by age 38 I'd know how to spot trouble not just before it came through the door, but prior to its parking its muddy boots on my coffee table and eating all my chocolate, but alas, I still have a lot of faith in people. Even when I shouldn't.
But the article is great fun and a solid cautionary tale. So I'm sippin' my lemonade and feelin' fine.
"Last Lecture" professor Randy Pausch died.
I find myself more grief-stricken than I expected. But he went with an attitude that we can all learn from.
I'll leave one of those creepy posts that makes it onto mydeathspace.com.
So, this summer I made three goals based on the idea that if you should do something that scares you every day, you should do some things every summer that *really* scare you. All these are scary to me:
1. Jump out of an airplane (I'll be going to Skydive Spaceland in Houston at 10 a.m. Sunday, July 13.)
2. Ride a Harley. (I found a friend with one--I will do this once I have survived aforementioned skydive.)
3. Write a comedy. (I am 22 pages into the screenplay--about 80 pages to go. I am the most unfunny person to ever walk the earth, all intense and serious and melodramatic, so this is scary to me--I know it's going to be AWFUL. But maybe I can manage a bit of humor here and there in my works once I've muddled through an out-and-out comedy.)
I have sent the final versions of my novels and screenplays to a good friend for safekeeping. He promises to watch over them and make sure to respond to agents who might make requests in the event that I get splattered on the pavement.
I leave town in the morning for my expedition, which also includes butterfly watching and art galleries, as well as amazing "last meals" at my favorite Houston digs--Churrasco's and Cafe Adobe. It's going to be fun!
- Mood:
bouncy
My real life is most often blogged at
http://www.deannaroy.com
- Mood:creative
