1. Morning walks. Some were pretty cold this week, and yet we STILL haven’t had a good, deep snow, and there’s none in the forecast. All the snow keeps falling south of us. I really, really, really want it to snow. ❄

2. Christmas season. It’s quiet and slow the way we do it. Eric is currently baking his mom’s famous pecan tarts. He said they weren’t as good as his mom’s, but I just ate one and beg to differ. We had our Christmas tree for a full week before we put lights on, and there are still no decorations and I’m okay if they don’t even happen. For me, this season is all about the lights. Most years we get some kind of spruce because they are more common here, but this year we were able to get a Douglas fir, which reminds me of the trees we got when I was a kid. 

I wrapped and boxed up the presents I needed to ship to Oregon, and watched two new to me Christmas movies while I wrapped: Meet Me Next Christmas and Our Little Secret, (I’d recommend the first but not so much the second, but maybe that’s because I for some reason don’t enjoy an adult Lindsey Lohan movie). This most likely will be my mom’s last Christmas in her current house, (although most of the time she probably doesn’t even realize it’s Christmas time), and of course Dad is gone, so all the sparkle comes with a shadow.

3. Practice. We didn’t have any dogs in our Red Sage yoga this week, but Teri got to finally come back due to a cancelation in her schedule, and for at least the first half an hour, all of us were cracking jokes and we couldn’t stop laughing. I LOVE practicing with them, so much.

In my Friday morning writing sangha, we had almost the full group, and practicing with them is such magic, so much medicine. I’ve been enjoying sharing some of my pieces from that practice with you here, so this is one in response to a poem by Laura Grace Weldon, You Don’t Know Me But.

Yesterday, I saw a post on Instagram that said losing a parent is like being homesick for a place you can never return to. I’ve told Eric before about how I thought I was old and grown enough that even if something happened to him and I was alone, I wouldn’t go back to Oregon, but what I realized when Dad died and Mom became the one cared for instead of doing the caring, is that I could never go home again because it no longer existed.

It was a comfort, a saving grace in my 20s to be able to go back, stay for awhile as I put myself back together, but I hadn’t realized that even now in my late 50s, I’d still held on to that comfort, that no matter what, I could always go home.

I miss my mom, now even when I’m with her. She remembers us still — my brother, the girls and the kids, and there are vivid flashes, moments when she’s so present, but she’s forgetting or has already forgotten so many things, and what she remembers she has a hard time finding the words for, and she gets confused, calls my oldest niece “Jill” or tells me that Dad took her somewhere or fixed something when really she means my brother or smooths toothpaste on her face thinking it’s lotion.

When you have a mom who loves you, even imperfectly, to lose that is destabilizing. We got our Christmas tree last week and I couldn’t send her a picture of it. She always gave me a hard time because the trees we get here are so scraggly compared to Oregon trees. I didn’t call her on Thanksgiving, she didn’t send me a birthday card or present, only called to wish me “Happy Birthday” because Jessamy helped her. This past year has been the worst of it, her forgetting, being able to do less and less for herself, deteriorating both physically and mentally, who she was slowly emptying out.

Now what I hold on to are the flashes of who she was, in particular moments I can make her laugh or she sings along to a song on the radio. It’s a slow goodbye, a gradual leaving, a flattening and fading and falling away. I miss my mom. I miss texting her, making each other laugh, her sarcasm, watching movies or shopping at thrift stores, playing cards, sharing books, cooking, taking walks, having her come visit me at the beach, listening to her wash dishes or do laundry or use her sewing machine, the way she never sat still, the taste of her crescent rolls and potato salad and pineapple upside down cake. I miss my mom (and my dad), and it’s a particular kind of loneliness that never really leaves you.

4. Books. Y’all, do you have any idea, even the slightest clue just how much I love them? I know I tell you a lot, say it all the time, but whatever you are imagining my love to be, triple it and you still won’t be anywhere close to how much I LOVE them. Some day, I’ll write a few and share them with you. For now, life just keeps on life-ing and I keep on reading. 

5. My tiny family, small house, little life. For me to feel completely safe and comfortable anywhere is a sort of miracle, and I feel that way here all the time.

Bonus joy: my fold up wagon I use to transport yoga props to class that also works really well when I need to take multiple boxes to the post office, knowing how to cook, grocery shopping, shopping online (because when I tried to shop at Target the other day, I had to leave because it was freaking me out — the lights, the noise, the people, the way the aisles and displays are set up like a creepy maze), my aunt Cindy FINALLY getting the care she needs and slowly improving, having a sibling I can trust and who I actually enjoy their company, making each other laugh, the chance to start over for what seems like the millionth time (and knowing I can do so as many times as necessary), naps, blackout curtains, a weighted blanket, down pillows and blankets, really soft socks, streaming content, listening to podcasts, sitting in the dark living room with the Christmas tree lights on, true crime, comedy, documentaries, art, poets and poetry, libraries and librarians, toffee, crunchy snacks, texting with Chris and Chloe’, the pool, the hydromassage chair, sitting in the sauna, space, the sound of the furnace kicking on, our bed, clean sheets, a warm shower, reading in bed while Ringo and Eric sleep.