Say Goodbye To Tungsten Light, Golden Valley, Minnesota, December 2011, photo © 2011-2012. All rights reserved.
I burn the Christmas lights long after the day has passed. The soft warm glow of tungsten soothes me. I grew up on film photography, old school, and loathed florescent and LED. Say goodbye to tungsten; the last 100 watt bulb rolled off the assembly line in December 2011. We lost poet Ruth Stone in 2011 and singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow. They leave behind a rich legacy–their poetry. We lost Hope, the world’s most famous black bear, to the long arms of a Minnesota hunting season. Did they choose their lives, or did their lives choose them?
Goodbye December, January awaits. I look forward to the New Year. In setting goals for 2012, I can’t help but think of the things I will leave to 2011. I never heard back from my father, yet I feel glad I wrote the letter. It is one less thing I have to wonder about. Mr. Stripey Pants had surgery on Monday, December 12th. Bone rubbed on bone in his lower jaw when he chewed his food. We tried to be upbeat that morning, saying he was on his way to breakfast at Tiffany’s (the name of his surgeon). A few weeks later he is almost back to normal. The scar tissue that had formed around a puncture wound near a back tooth has been removed; it was not cancerous. I am grateful for good vet care and the resources to pay for it.
Minnesota leaves behind the 86 inches of snow from last Winter, an unfair trade for the tawny grasses and 50 degree days in the Twin Cities last week. I don’t miss the shoveling, but wonder how the Art Shanty Project will take place on Medicine Lake in January. Where is the frozen Minnesota tundra of 2011? I leave behind a broiling sweaty Summer where I did little gardening. The cedars look limp and brown. Fall 2011 was one of the driest on record. Rain, rain, come and play, don’t wait another day. I have grown to miss the rain.
I leave behind a year of no travel, unusual for me. My large extended family lives in Pennsylvania and Georgia, so I often plan vacations around flying back East. I missed visiting with them. In 2011, I attended no out of state writing workshops. I did not take a vacation outside of Minnesota. There was one trip to North Dakota, but not for pleasure (though it had its moments). I leave behind all the angst and sorrow created by the greed and selfishness of others. You sometimes learn the most about people when things go awry. It’s not over yet. The law requires patience, and the resources to carry through over the long haul.
Dear December, there were days you left me nostalgic and somber. But I vow to enter 2012 with optimism and gratitude. I will long carry the joy of my brother’s visit to Minnesota the week before Thanksgiving. I carry two healthy cats, Kiev and Mr. Stripey Pants. I carry the love of a caring partner, close friends, and family. I carry excitement at the prospect of celebrating Liz’s birthday in January, and a trip to Wisconsin for a self-propelled writing retreat in February, what used to be the dead of Winter. I leave behind anger, resentment, regret; I release what is no longer helping me be the best person I can be. What people, places or things do you leave behind?
The pantry is stocked. The black-eyed peas soak in the pot, ready to bless the place I call home with good luck and cheer. I am grateful for those who stick with me in times of uncertainty. I am grateful for those who come to the aid of all sentient beings in this world, not just humans. I am grateful that we do not inhabit this planet alone, that there are ancient burr oaks, Southern live oaks, slithering snakes, hairy spiders, playful black bears and white winter squirrels. I am grateful that the decisions that matter most are not left in the hands of humans.
December, I say goodbye to you tonight with gratitude and anticipation. I am thankful for your rituals. It’s the night before the New Year. What will my yearly practices be? It will be around the last fire of 2011 that I choose goals for 2012. Thank you, December, for having the courage to let go.
-posted on red Ravine, New Year’s Eve, December 31st, 2011
May the coming year bring great happiness to you and Liz. Enjoy your roaring fire, I’ll be listening to the Lincoln Hall concert. A calm New Year’s Eve — hoping it brings a calm 2012. My best to you and yours.
Happy New Year!
Bo
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Bo, Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is peaceful and abundant for you.
I can’t believe it, but it rained on the way to our friends’ home, so no outside fire. We had an indoor fire and left early because it started snowing on top of rain. Crazy weather. Safe at home. Looking forward to those black-eyed peas tomorrow.
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New Year, new beginnings. Happy, Happy! There is always a chance to begin again. 2012, I’m ready.
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I love New Year’s Day. Anything seems possible…I feel capable of a fresh start…all has slowed down to just this day.
My plan for 2012 is to do my best to live one day at a time. I feel constant pressure to have my whole future mapped out and solved. Even though I know better.
Thanks for another year of red Ravine posts.
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Teri, I said the same thing to Liz when we got up this morning — I feel like a weight has been lifted. A fresh start. The year 2011 was full of ups and downs, different than undulating waves. More like big rocking waves above and below the fill line. I feel more steady this morning and a little clearer about my practices for 2012. I still need to make a specific list of my goals.
I am listening to a rebroadcast of On Being about happiness: Understanding Happiness with the Dalai Lama, a British Rabbi, an Episcopal Bishop, a Muslim Scholar: A Twitterscript (LINK). One day at a time is the way I wish to try to live, too. It’s so tough to realize that we all only have this one moment.
Some quotes I like from this discussion of the wise from many different traditions:
“Sometimes we don’t have to pursue happiness, we have to pause and let it catch up to us.” – @rabbisacks
“Happiness is not finding joy in death. It’s taking what is, and insisting that great happiness for all is possible.” – Rev. Schori
“The #Arabic word for beauty, virtue, and goodness is the same. Beauty drives us to the divine…Beauty makes the soul happy.” – Seyyed Nasr
“You have to let go of hate if you want to be free” – @RabbiSacks
“The reason different religious traditions developed is not for misery but for deep satisfaction (happiness). That’s very clear.”-@DalaiLama
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[…] Comments « An Open Letter To December — The Things We Leave Behind […]
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Wishing you and Liz health and happiness with some magic thrown in for good measure. I hope 2012 is a good one for you, QM, and I look forward to seeing where it will take you.
Happy New Year. 🙂
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Robin, thank you! Same to you. The magic is always helpful. Because I believe! Happy New Year. May the journey through 2012 take us close to where we’d like to go.
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I heard a radio program last night that highlighted Ruth Stone as one of the greats who was left behind in 2011. They had a clip of her sweet voice, reading a poem and talking about how the poems came to her. “Poems of the Universe that I just wrote down…” or something like that. So dear. Humble
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Teri, the woman born Ruth Swan Perkins in Roanoke, Virginia, seemed very humble to me, too. They mention in Ruth Stone’s obit that her poems came to her from across the Universe. And like a stream flowing beside her:
When she received the National Book award in 2002, for her collection In the Next Galaxy, she summarised her career: “I’ve been writing poetry or whatever it is since I was five or six years old, and I couldn’t stop, I never could stop. I don’t know why I did it … It was like a stream that went along beside me, you know, my life went along here, and I got married and had three kids and did all the things you have to do, and all along the time this stream was going along. And I really didn’t know what it was saying. It just talked to me, and I wrote it down. So I can’t even take much credit for it.”
She worked in relative obscurity until her eighties. Which makes me feel more optimistic about getting a late start believing in myself as a writer. I love her for that.
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QuoinMonkey,
I’ve been reading your Open Letter to December in bits and pieces. A few mornings ago the bit about the letter you wrote to your father drew me further in, and I linked back to your earlier post and all the comments about that process. My journal writing that morning was about (again) difficulty I’m having writing poems taken from and in response to letters my then 18-year-old, almost straight off the farm, not-yet father wrote home from a ship in the Pacific in November of 1946. My father died 20 years ago; in his absence I’m trying to find my way back to a father with whom I had a difficult, sometimes hate-full relationship, a father who I remember with a full body memory, all senses, of being wrapped in his arms when I was five while he carried me out of the hospital after a tonsillectomy. Thank you to you and all the people who offered their hearts through their stories and comments. I’ve spent years insisting on hate and distance because I was afraid the love would tear my heart out. I don’t know where the tears I’m crying now will lead with the poems, but I’m so grateful for them and the words of you and the people who shared their stories in that earlier post. I thank you all for the tears and for helping me find the courage to embrace my father again before letting him go.
Sandra
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sandrarenee, thank you for opening your heart around your relationship to your father. I went back and read the open letter to my father piece after reading your comment and felt a groundswell of support from all the red Ravine readers who commented. I can’t believe so much time has gone by since I wrote to him and that I even summoned the courage to do so. A close friend was asking me a few weeks ago how I felt about the fact that he never wrote back. I really go up and down with it, but mostly up. I feel good about the attempt to contact him. I know he has the letter. We’ll see what happens. I have no regrets about reaching out. I do wonder sometimes what he thinks. Even though he’s my blood father, I never really knew him and have no idea what he’s like in person. He is a stranger to me.
I hope you find peace with your poetry. It’s hard to enter into difficult relationships like that, past and present. How wonderful that you have the memory of once being wrapped in his arms during a vulnerable time. Thank you again for sharing.
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