santa claus came to town.

Tomorrow Hannah and I will drive the fourteen hours back to North Carolina, which in and of itself sounds a little daunting, but which on the heels of one of the best Christmases ever isn't really all that bad. In a few days I'll construct some 2012 resolutions. I'll post about the books I read this year and construct some new healthy living plan. I'll probably clean out my closets (ew) and make some new goals about savings and 401-ks and stuff like that, but for now, feast your eyes on this.....

this december.

This December, though full of travels and out of the ordinary people and events, has not moved too quickly. It's remarkable because life was seeming to take on this sprinting quality for a while there in September and October, but has now graciously slowed down.

At the get-go, the first weekend of this month, two dear friends from Richmond came down to visit. Allison and I spent 28 of the 36 hours she was here talking, which to Mark is wholly phenomenal, and Graham and Mark played games, both physical and electronic, built fires and wrestled Sidney. Their visit was a gust of fresh wind to usher in the season. Then last weekend the entire Ficker family gathered in Greenwich, Connecticut for that funeral I alluded to a post ago. Where I had expected great sadness and stress, I instead found joy, memories and, surprisingly, fun. The five of us, plus William (Hannah’s baby), explored the town where dad grew up, buried the ashes of my Grampa and memorialized his life. We drove out to the Sound where the ruins of an old mansion in which my father's family and twelve other war veterans and their families lived in the forties and fifties, but which is now only the skeletal stones because it burned to the ground in sixty. I'm fascinated by the history, the passage of a great deal of time even though I still view my father as young. We followed it up with a three-hour family dinner at one of the nicest restaurants in town, after which we drove down into the city, across the river and through the north end, all the way into Rockefeller Center where we saw the colossal tree, onto Broadway and into Times Square. My brother drove—strange, sudden flashes of his adulthood still disarm me—and carried us eventually to Queens where we stayed another night and flew out early Sunday. Somehow, a miracle of the season, the weekend turned into the most dear, memorable weekend for the five of us, a weekend that stitched us together in a way that is increasingly rare as we grow up and live apart.

Mark and I have been listening to Christmas music for the past few weeks, from my iPhone, the radio, his record player. I ordered George Winston’s album .December. on record, and he ordered Mainheim Steamroller, and we’ve been laughing for a few days because to him, G.W. is just some sappy piano ballads, and to me Manheim is like Christmas Techno. We agree on the unsurpassing greatess of Amy Grant’s albums .Tenessee Christmas. and .Home for Christmas., and I’ve slowly converted him to a Sara McLachlan .Wintersong. fan (“River” is my favorite.) I work with this one woman, she's precious, just turned 55. We were bringing patients back to be x-rayed on Thursday and the Christmas Muzak station was coming out of the speakers in the corners of the office. She looked at me and said, "Christmas music is sad." As I have transitioned from child to adult, it's like I've been granted access to the Adult Club where you learn things like flying is more a hassle than fun, wine and coffee are fabulous in their bitterness, and that the holidays are, in many ways, sad. She said, "this is the hardest time of the year because I miss my grandmother, I want her here with me. And I want everyone to be together--my children, my grandchildren, but they cannot be." I have spent a great deal of time contemplating the two sides of my favorite time of year, adjusting to clear enough vision to see this sadness that even sometimes overpowers the joy. It is tempting to box up my own sadness for the month, stow it away with the things I removed from the mantle over the fireplace to be replaced by my nativity, candles and greenery, but I think maybe that makes it a lot harder to enjoy the JOY of the season. Does that even make sense?

My sister was talking about Mary a few weeks ago, how she must have been pretty exhausted by the time Jesus was ready to be born. I started reading the gospel of Luke, slowly, over these last weeks, about Mary and Elizabeth. How Mary didn't want a baby, and she was given Jesus. And all Elizabeth wanted was a baby, and she finally got John. And how they would have to watch them walk through this life, die brutally and young, sons that were never really theirs to begin with. There was a lot of sadness there for them I imagine. I bet there were times that those two girls wished they would've just had normal, little kids. But they were given something FAR greater. Hannah said that maybe we ought to approach the season of Christmas with a deeper preparation for the sadness, and even though I don't find that overly appealing, I think she's right. And I think my dad's been trying to teach me that for years... Wisdom comes with age.

And still, this is our hope:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder:
and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.

Isaiah the prophet, chapter nine.

lately.

How does it come to be that suddenly you look at the digital date stamp at the top right corner of your computer screen and it is not only the month of November, but nearly half-way through? Though it doesn't feel like time is sprinting as it has in the past, I'm not exactly sure how it happens to pass without my noticing. This has been one of my favorite falls. It stayed cool without getting cold through October, Mark's football team is having a good season with a secured spot in the playoffs and a bi-week coming up. The trees here in Winston are outstanding - I have never seen trees look so bright, as if they were actually plugged into subterranean outlets. I've had the gift of time with my siblings, my college roommates, my parents and in-laws. We've painted the living room sage and had the rotten window sill in the bathroom replaced, mulched the backyard and planned a trip for the winter to New York. The fall has surprised me because I was expecting a lot of stress. Somehow we got peace instead.

My father's father passed away Friday, poignant since he served in the second World War. It is sad and difficult because dying is such a foreign concept, and I keep thinking about my dad and how devastated I will be if I ever lose him. We will all fly to Connecticut for his funeral in December, and I look forward to seeing the whole family because in a time like this I think that having your family gathered is the only real comforting thing on this earth. I am so thankful for my family

Today I finished inputting changes to the third draft of my current project, a novel about a thirty - year - old woman who is forced by the devastating infidelity of her husband to begin her life all over again. It's called Roma Roma because she goes back to work for a catering company by that name. This book has been an absolute pleasure to write and edit, and I'll begin the agent search soon. The entire process, I've recently realized, is one of the ways that I meditate. It's worshipful and peaceful for me. I am also reading My Antonia by Willa Cather because my book club chose it, so I have to. I didn't want to but now I love it. That is the current, for better and worse.

Here are some pictures from the last month or two...

the luxury of time + aloneness.

Today begins my 3-day writing retreat. Holed up in this Hogwarts-esque dream, a birthday gift from many loved ones, I find myself in something of a fog of disbelief - by what extraordinary grace was three days ALONE bequeathed to me? Agenda: Edit both manuscripts. Agendettes: Blog a bit, sleep, run and wander around underneath the multi-colored leaves.

Catching up on lost time I present first, our family Labor Day Sandbridge Extravaganza...








Jonathan's 3rd Birthday.








And Mark's 27th Birthday.

sameness.

The New York Times Bestseller List, a somewhat vague article that often seems more adjective than noun, has become a flashing sign for readers. READ THIS BOOK, THE MIGHTY CITY OF NEW YORK AND ITS FINEST MINDS STAND BY THE PROMISE IT WILL WOW YOU. The imprint of the distinguishing label is given as a reward for excellence, but it is at the same time an impetus for excellence. Novels stamped with the seal very quickly rise from the “middle class” of published work, the tier above the unpublished, agent-searchers, to the upper echelon of books that sell millions of copies, become movies and leave their author somewhat stunned at his or her unexpected and unimagined success. Certainly we have all, or most of us have, read a New York Times Bestseller and been left wanting, but isn’t it interesting how most of the time those books really are delicious, enjoyable, wonderful works of art that make your mind swim?

It is fascinating to me that one book, three-hundred pages give or take, a story imagined, words strung together, has the potential to push its way through the front door of thousands upon thousands of minds?—different ages, stages of life, demographics do not hinder a book like this. Steinbeck’s East of Eden, for instance, a novel now nearly sixty years old, is read by perhaps millions of people over time, and each one treasures it for some reason. Universality of pleasure—common preferences. How can so many enjoy so unique, so concrete a thing?

And then take food, for instance. Isn’t it strange that everyone loves Peanut M&Ms? (Noted: I am making a gross generalization, but it is pretty much true, and arguing that many people are allergic to peanuts is irrelevant, because were it not for the allergy they would probably eat peanut M&Ms, and in fact most Peanut-Intolerants spend half of their lives wishing it weren’t so). How can it be that people, being so different in so many ways, can love the same little colored pebbles? A rich woman, during her time of the month, is very likely to pick up a bag of P-M&Ms in the check-out line at the Boutique grocery store, while a poor man may spend the only $.89 he has on one yellow bag. There are some instances, it seems not too outlandish to say that many instances, where things like this, things that seem unique, are in fact almost fully universal. I think it is absolutely fascinating.

I like what this suggests—that each person, though celebrated for his uniqueness in the world, is made up of much the same stuff as his neighbor—that people are unified by an overarching commonness, and are therefore not solitary—individual realization of this is perhaps the anecdote of loneliness.


Mind babble - permissible because it's my blog.

long time coming.

I remember where I was on September eleventh ten years ago. Sophomore year of high school, just getting started. The old brick building did not have central air, so all of the teachers with windows kept them open. Interior classrooms without windows were just out of luck. When our principal came over the intercom the first time, stating that “an event had occurred in New York,” without any more detail, nobody really had any idea what that meant, and we wondered curiously. A bit later, perhaps an hour, I sat in math class working on practice problems from the overhead when the principal returned to the intercom, explaining that at this point we were all going to be dismissed from school and sent straight home. I remember a nervous feeling at the pit of my stomach, how everyone was abuzz, how I had no idea. How I wanted to be at home. Sweat dripped down my back under my shirt as I walked home across the back practice fields, and through the back of my neighborhood. It was so bright, I remember having a headache and no sunglasses, carrying my backpack on one shoulder so that the sweat wouldn’t come through my shirt. And I remember walking in the front door and seeing my mom in her yard work clothes, sitting on the edge of the ottoman in the family room, her elbows on her knees like a child, her eyes glued to the television. I can still vividly remember the picture on the television—the repeated action of the airplanes crashing through the two towers of the World Trade Center.

I also remember where I was on September eleventh six years ago. Sophomore year of college this time, just getting started. A morning class had me out the door of my dorm by nine, and I did not return until about noon. Those hours were a fog to me—early that morning I had learned that my grandmother, my dad’s mom, had passed away after battling Alzheimer’s disease for many years late the evening before, September tenth. Though sobering, her death was not a shock, and in some ways, it was a kindness—to her. But losing someone you have spent many years loving is an emptying experience. It was so warm in the sun that day, and I remember that the weather felt very wrong. I wanted gray rain. In my room the lights were off and a box fan stuck in the window pulled in the air, which then circulated and lifted the pages of a textbook on the edge of my desk. Sitting down, I opened up my laptop, then e-mail, to find out about a homework assignment. There was an e-mail from my mom, a short one without proper punctuation, telling me that my cousin had been found dead in his room. No explanation. Some kind of diabetic heart attack. A grandson of the grandmother who had just died—my dad’s nephew. I choked, felt as if my stomach would seize. And then I started to cry—a flood of tears the likes of which I had never produced, and have not recreated since. I remember falling on the floor, sobbing, pain in my stomach, my face pressed against the grainy, tan rug. The sound of the fan. I remember my friend coming in the room, finding me there, and how I couldn’t even speak to explain why I was crying. I remember staring at the news on the computer screen for hours afterward. I remember the severity of the emotion so vividly, the pain and confusion and loneliness, that when I think about it my shoulder blades still draw up as if they are being sewn together.

And I remember where we were on September eleventh three years ago. In the hospital, waiting for my sister to give birth to her first child. My mom had been there with her all day, and Mark, my fiancé then, and I came later when we got off from work. I remember how Mark wanted to bring her a milkshake from Cook Out, and that Hannah wanted us to hang around in her room all afternoon so she wouldn’t be bored while she waited. She was happy and youthful, with her ponytail high up and off to the side, so fresh and so much more enthusiastic than I would have been, knowing what was coming. I remember when it was time, and we all cleared out and went to the waiting room, and I remember when Josh came out an announced they had had a son, Jonathan Turner Adams. There were a few tears, but mostly just ecstasy, and I remember that she let me come in with her first, with my mom and Josh, and I sang Blackbird to that little baby boy.

Today I was listening to the radio; there have been memorial tributes all day, remembering the tenth anniversary of the attack on America. One man said, “All we have is memories,” and that struck me. I want to memorialize it for all of these reasons, along with my fellow countrymen, along with my family. September eleventh. Ten years ago today the towers fell. Six years ago today my family fell apart. Three years ago today we mended up again. Today is a new day.

home.

I have always been a homebody. In high school I liked to hang out with my dad and watch old James Bond movies on Friday nights, and I always preferred to eat birthday dinners around the dining room table with my parents, Kyle and Hannah over going out. When Hannah married Josh and they started celebrating Christmas at my house each year I was relieved, because home is really about having everyone all together, and Christmas would have been improper without my big sister. When my family moved to Florida during my freshman year of college, I was beside myself, kind of spun wildy out of control, because I couldn't stand the thought of losing the comfortable familiarity of what I thought was 'home.'

One thing I have learned over the past few years, though, is that home is where my family is. When I went home for college summers, to our house in Florida, it felt almost instantly right - the change of 'venue' had not changed my home. It was where my family was. Some of the sweetest summers, the sweetest holidays of my life have happened at home in Florida even though I didn't 'grow up' there. Though maybe I did, in a more true sense of the words.

Last week I got to go home. From Sunday to Thursday I woke up in my double brass bed, my parents' first bed, across the hall from my brother, twenty years old, six and a half feet tall, snoring. I walked downstairs and said hi to my mom, reading her Bible in the red library, and missed my dad leaving in his suit because I had slept in every morning. I did The Southwest Florida News-Press crossword puzzle in pen every morning, ate my mom's chocolate chip cake every evening, and laughed with my brother and my dad every day, repeating lines from The Office, and spent hours with mom discussing many things, primarily clothes, shoes, friendship and books. It was perfectly delightful.

And then I came home. It's funny, isn't it? Now I'm married to Mark. We live in our small, brick house in Ardmore (in a state neither of us had ever really known), with our enormous moose dog. We have pictures on the walls, and our own friends and church and favorite Mexican restaurant and electric bills. We belong to the YMCA, shop at the Food Lion down the street, watch movies on the couch my grandfather gave us when we got married and enjoy the occasional luxury of cake from Maxie B's bakery in Greensboro. When I saw Mark step out of his work van at the airport I felt this familiar rush of comfort, which I realized is similiar, though also unique, to the comfort I feel when I step into the foyer of my house. In Florida. In North Carolina. They're both home and Mark, who is the richest, most blissful embodiment of this idea, this amour, this attachment, is also the feeling of home. Many sides of the same globe, which is my heart, a glowing sun all burning and fiery with love for home, my family.

I don't think I have to decide. I have tried - to call the house in Fort Myers with the pool and pictures of me as a toddler "My.Parent's.House." And likewise, I have tried to call this house, "our new house." But I kind of love that they're both home.

This is a quote by Charles Dickens I have on the dashboard in my car... It has been there for three years:

"When I speak of home, I speak of a place where in default of a better - those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent or a barn, I should call it the same good name notwithstanding."

Amen.

overdue photo recap...

Sharp Top Cove...

















Evans Vacation Week at Lake Lure, NC