👉🏽 Register for A Vision for the Future: Writing Toward 2021* here. (This Sunday, 12/20). 👉🏽 Register for Sober from Bullshit Recovery Clubhere. (This Monday, 12/21)
Questions? Conundrums? Ask away. Would love to see you and be together.
I am not into the holidays. I enjoy maybe 3 Christmas songs (yes, Mariah Carey features); otherwise, anything “holly jolly” makes me stabby. I am not into buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff. I’m not into the weird pressure, or all the dead trees. Mostly, I spend the month of December fantasizing about beaches, or wishing I could just take a nap and wake up on January 1.
Queue this year.
December 15th rolled around and I realized I have not heard one…single…Christmas carol. Not one. After thirty-six Decembers on the planet, there was no waiting in line at a coffee shop, buying toilet paper at Walgreens, wandering around downtown and past all the shops and gritting my teeth through Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Rockin Around The Christmas Tree for the GAJILLIONTH time. Not that I want to hear these songs, I swear that is NOT the case. I welcome the reprieve. And, damnit, as much as I am stubborn and don’t want to admit it, this is another loss. Another disruption.
I hung a wreath up in my bedroom. I bought candles to light up the dark.
I’m also sitting here, these darkest days leading up to solstice, and I’m thinking about what it might be like to create my own rituals. All these disruptions are certainly causing me to question the why behind everything. So, maybe instead of white knuckling my way through future seasons (give me all the future seasons, please), I create something new and mine.
(Ok, I lied. There is one tradition I look forward to and I’m kind of avoiding thinking about missing this year: Nochebuena at my cousin Eddy + Mariely’s house, the great unveiling and subsequent feast of the lechón, and my near-90 year old tío showing up with boxes and boxes of pasteles from Porto’s. Missing this is heartbreak.)
Anyway. Are any of you into this/already doing this? I’d love to hear any suggestions or ideas you have, your practices and traditions…I know celebrating anything feels kind of awful right now. I’m holding onto hope through the dark. This community is a lantern.
I love you all and I wish you all my best everything. Would love to hear from you, email me or add a comment below ✨
xxoo dani
⛓ Links, bunnies:
✋🏽 Boundaries! Not just a buzzword: “We don’t need to shrink, nor do we need to overcompensate and become larger than we are. Integrity is the hard work of knowing my right-sized space that is good for me and the friends and family I am in relationship with.”
☕️ The Banal Sacredness of Being Together. Readers of this newsletter know that not a week goes by that I don’t share something that made me cry and this week it’s this ode to coffeeshops.
“‘Third places that render the best and fullest service are those to which one may go alone at almost any time of the day or evening with assurance that acquaintances will be there. To have such a place available whenever the demons of loneliness or boredom strike or when the pressures and frustrations of the day call for relaxation amid good company is a powerful resource. Where they exist, such places attend to the bonds between people.’”
I miss these small, sacred interactions so much that my whole body clenched up in grief as I read. Going to take a walk up to my favorite coffee shop that’s still holding on through all this and order a takeaway coffee and pastry today.
🌲 Ok so this one is kind of weird: it’s about this moss (yes; moss) called Slender Yoke Moss in British Columbia that is going extinct, and the scientists who are grappling with whether something with no “medicinal or cultural value” is worth fighting to preserve. “What the hell do we say when people ask, Why should we save it? or, What does it add to the world?” I am a champion for this moss, y’all. It adds itself to the world, conservationists! And that is more than enough. Also that whole website is just rad.
🦋 Check out WeTransfer's Ideas Report 2020, where they “asked 35,000 people from almost every country on the planet how a global pandemic affected their creative ideas.” 35,000!!!! Anyway it’s interesting and highly interactive, and there a bunch of interviews and videos and it’s super fun to poke around.
Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you like this newsletter, please consider leaving a comment, sending it to a friend or subscribing. Or email me and say hi, I’d love to hear from you.
Boundaries: I had an online transaction where I sent someone something and he didn't think it was working. He said something like "you should be smart enough to know...[that it didn't work]" and I replied that I would happily refund his money and that he should keep his opinion of my intelligence to himself. He wrote back immediately, apologized for what he said, THEN replied again and said it had been his fault and it actually worked. Was I relieved not have refunded his money? Not as much as I was relieved that I had stood up to someone's misguided anger with calm and grace.
Christmas music: my inner soundtrack, year-round, is Christmas music. I'm not kidding. I can't help it. I don't choose the subconscious playlist (but I do like it). We don't even play it in our house except when we trim the tree (and we don't even have a tree every year). Today I was at a grocery store buying Topo Chico (no lie) and they were playing some awful cover of "River" by Joni Mitchell, which is one of those songs that's like "why would anyone cover that? It's already perfect!" but I guess it's a Christmas song and someone needed to squeeze some seasonal cash out of it.
Every few years we do a Yankee gift swap. Look it up. You can do it at a park, socially distanced, and still have an amazing time with your friends. The best gift I ever brought? A bucket. No lie. It was the most popular gift. Everyone wanted it. A metal bucket with a handle. Kristen got it, so it's still in the family. We keep gloves in it, by the door. Get a bucket. Everyone will want it.
"Was I relieved not have refunded his money? Not as much as I was relieved that I had stood up to someone's misguided anger with calm and grace." SO good, David! And such a helpful, clear example of a boundary in action. Sometimes boundary stuff still feels murky and hard to concretize.
Yankee swap sounds fun! And every since I read your comment I've been thinking of all the ways that yes, having a bucket laying around would be so useful:)
I love the the holidays this year because I am feeling so un rushed. We did not send out cards but I have been spending more time picking out meaningful gifts. I am actually enjoying that part. Focusing on lots of local shops. I sent two sisters gifts for the first time in years. This year it was important to decorate the tree and the house to keep the spirits up for my kids. Every day seems the same. We also celebrate Hanukkah and latkes are a must every year. Tomorrow I am baking cookies. Nutballs in powder sugar, that is our one constant every year. I need to start playing some more Christmas music, but I love all the old stuff.... I agree less Christmas music is better.
aww hey friend. "Unrushed" just feels good in my body. So sweet. And holy hell, how wonderful that you sent gifts to your sisters! I'm more financially stable this year than I've been in many many years and I've been finding thoughtful gift giving to be such a total joy.
I'm not a baker but if you wanted to beam me over some nutballs I would HAPPILY eat them ;) all my love to you x
Boundaries: I had an online transaction where I sent someone something and he didn't think it was working. He said something like "you should be smart enough to know...[that it didn't work]" and I replied that I would happily refund his money and that he should keep his opinion of my intelligence to himself. He wrote back immediately, apologized for what he said, THEN replied again and said it had been his fault and it actually worked. Was I relieved not have refunded his money? Not as much as I was relieved that I had stood up to someone's misguided anger with calm and grace.
Christmas music: my inner soundtrack, year-round, is Christmas music. I'm not kidding. I can't help it. I don't choose the subconscious playlist (but I do like it). We don't even play it in our house except when we trim the tree (and we don't even have a tree every year). Today I was at a grocery store buying Topo Chico (no lie) and they were playing some awful cover of "River" by Joni Mitchell, which is one of those songs that's like "why would anyone cover that? It's already perfect!" but I guess it's a Christmas song and someone needed to squeeze some seasonal cash out of it.
Every few years we do a Yankee gift swap. Look it up. You can do it at a park, socially distanced, and still have an amazing time with your friends. The best gift I ever brought? A bucket. No lie. It was the most popular gift. Everyone wanted it. A metal bucket with a handle. Kristen got it, so it's still in the family. We keep gloves in it, by the door. Get a bucket. Everyone will want it.
"Was I relieved not have refunded his money? Not as much as I was relieved that I had stood up to someone's misguided anger with calm and grace." SO good, David! And such a helpful, clear example of a boundary in action. Sometimes boundary stuff still feels murky and hard to concretize.
Yankee swap sounds fun! And every since I read your comment I've been thinking of all the ways that yes, having a bucket laying around would be so useful:)
I love the the holidays this year because I am feeling so un rushed. We did not send out cards but I have been spending more time picking out meaningful gifts. I am actually enjoying that part. Focusing on lots of local shops. I sent two sisters gifts for the first time in years. This year it was important to decorate the tree and the house to keep the spirits up for my kids. Every day seems the same. We also celebrate Hanukkah and latkes are a must every year. Tomorrow I am baking cookies. Nutballs in powder sugar, that is our one constant every year. I need to start playing some more Christmas music, but I love all the old stuff.... I agree less Christmas music is better.
aww hey friend. "Unrushed" just feels good in my body. So sweet. And holy hell, how wonderful that you sent gifts to your sisters! I'm more financially stable this year than I've been in many many years and I've been finding thoughtful gift giving to be such a total joy.
I'm not a baker but if you wanted to beam me over some nutballs I would HAPPILY eat them ;) all my love to you x