holiday letter 2017

I’m writing this letter in my head as I cut and glue. Earlier today I sat at my desk at work while tuckpointers worked outside my window, grinding mortar out of joints all day long. It felt like an extended visit to the dentist – not a dull background noise, but one that vibrates the body and pierces the skull. By the time I arrived home my senses were dulled. I wanted to curl into a ball under the covers and listen to the sound of my own breathing and the silence of nothing else. I wanted to draw a warm bath and read my book until the water chilled, and then move the book reading to the couch in front of the fire. I wanted a long pause, with warmth and silence.

Instead I started dinner. I emptied the dishwasher while the oil warmed in the skillet. I sliced green onions and minced ginger and poured a glass of malbec as I worked. M tidied up around the first floor, sorted through the mail, folded some laundry. E rested, pale and feverish, and F played quietly in her room. It wasn’t silent, but it was warm, and there was a different sort of hum to the evening. We finished dinner and moved through baths and showers. The girls went to sleep and M joined me for awhile at this table where I’m still sitting. He’s asleep now too, and I’m once again in this place, working late in a quiet house, thinking about this past year and the year ahead.

…..

The idea for this card came to me just after we witnessed the solar eclipse this past August. We had made a lot of plans around the event, traveling out of the city to the family vineyard of close friends, and all the grandparents joined us for the adventure.  We experienced two and a half minutes of totality, and from our perch on a hill we could watch the distinct line of darkness spread across the valley below us. Stars began to appear in the sky, and we all took off our glasses to stare at the moon and the corona around it.

For a moment it felt like the world had turned upside down. But the moon’s location in front of the sun didn’t flip a switch between night and day. It was a movement that occurred over the span of several hours, and during its passage it slowly revealed things that were there all along – the stars, the shadows, the cricket-song. It was experiencing the ordinary in an out-of-order way, collectively, that was so profound and moving. We spin and orbit and travel and turn in ways we never think about, but what magic there is when everything aligns for a moment and focuses our attention and makes the big things small and elevates the little things for all to see and hear and feel.

In September we went camping with friends for the weekend. On our second night there, the four of us walked to the end of the road, away from the campfire and tents. We turned off our flashlights and let our eyes adjust for a few minutes.The sky came alive in front of us. The longer we stood in the darkness, the more we could see above us. More stars than I can remember seeing at one time, the band of the Milky Way stretched out in front of us. There were so many stars that in places it looked like land masses covered in sparkling snow. I thought about the vast number of stars above us, I thought about the vast number of snowflakes that must fall to blanket the ground below us. I started to think about them both together, and decided to paint the stars turning to snow on the page.

I dive into our favorite winter books – Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen and The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats. I want to paint large sheets with watercolors and cut out full moons from them. I set up a board and mix up paints in shades of pale yellow to warm gray. I add layers of paint a few minutes at a time – before breakfast, after dinner, anytime I pass by the table and have a moment to pause. I decide to slice a crescent shaped void into the front of the card to reveal a portion of the moon from the outside. I cover the dining room table with a drop cloth, and paint four sheets of black paper at a time – using a toothbrush, I splatter paint in tiny spots, building them up at the base of the sheet into a hillside covered in stars-turned-snow. Each sheet is different, I change the technique some as I go. I work in batches until my hands cramp, and then I stack them up when dry. Regular life moves around the piles, as it always does. I dream about a studio space away from the center of the house as I work, but then I realize I like this setup. The girls set up their own projects now and then next to me. M joins me at the table occasionally. They bake all our gifts next to me, and it smells divine as I work.

I think about what I want to add to the scene. I start with our house, and then I add in more of the neighborhood. I layer the rooftops of other buildings as they look from F’s third floor windows. The buildings give way to trees, and I think of the vastness of Forest Park in the middle of our city. It’s my escape, the place where I run, and the shape of treetops are added in. I highlight the windows in our house a little more, and I add a few trees next to the house. I want a wrought iron fence that marches down the street, but it seems crazy. So tiny and so many pieces to cut, when there are one hundred to make. I save them until the end, just in case I can’t do it. But I know myself – I’ll do it. Somehow I find a way. I find the minutes somewhere, pull them out of the darkness of night. I’ve taught myself to find rest in places other than my bed – I find it in movement – running and lifting and stretching, in the kitchen, in books, in the garden, over breakfast with the girls, at the theater with M. I find it in December with this tradition. It gives me the space to think, to be quiet and still, to dream about the new year ahead.

The piles of black silhouettes are complete, and I’m ready to glue. I move through the stack but something is missing. I try a wreath on the house, greenery on the fence. It’s not right, and the color distracts. The moon seems to glow on the sheet, and I wonder about pulling the yellow light down below. I make a rough cut star and try it on the tree. That’s it. I cut ninety-nine more and I am done.

I’m in my favorite bookstore on a Sunday afternoon working at a book fair. In between greeting customers, I read poetry. I work through several thin books as I stand. I gravitate towards poetry for the resistance – I want to read poems that speak to protest, that lift the vulnerable, that fuel the fire. I read Denise Levetov’s Making Peace for the second time, but this time it sits with me in a new way because of the card idea I’m working on. I read it as I think about process, as I think about diving into something new and challenging and hard even when I can’t clearly see the finished product in my head. The fourth stanza sits with me as a charge for the days and years ahead.

I think about peace all the time, and I think about it in the context of this city, in times of protest, in the fight for justice and equity. Our desire for peace can seem holy and good on the surface, but too often its call is a mask for oppression. Peace can be a system put in place to quiet the noise of rancor and protest and pain. Keeping the peace can be easier than talking about difficult things. Desiring peace keeps us out of the streets, even when that’s the only place some voices are ever heard. Pushing peace lets us off the hook, which is in direct opposition to so many of the religious teachings of this season. Peace is offered to overcome fear. With less fear, we can speak up, speak out, fight for justice, and center equity in everything we do.

Ah, but the end of that poem!  “Each act of living one of its words, each word a vibration of light – facets of the forming crystal.” I recite it in my head again and again as I splatter paint across the pages, stars to snow. The finished cards are no masterpiece, but the process of making them was a gift. I share this challenge with you in the coming year – may we all find the courage to stand for what is just and right, and let those acts – and those words – open the way for peace to appear.

To the work ahead –
Kristin, Marcus, Ella and Frances
2017