Hello loves,
'Twas the night before Christmas ... Eve and I am typing this newsletter as I wait for the dough of our Christmas Eve cinnamon rolls to finish their first rise so that I can assemble them and put them in the fridge overnight. On Christmas Eve, Hanna and I have a tradition of listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, which broadcasts live at 10am here in New England.
This year I am making sweet potato pecan cinnamon rolls (only with walnuts since we don't have pecans). We plan to start out the day with our customary weekend walk in the Arnold Arboretum before settling in with crocheting and quilting to listen -- and for the first time watch! -- the festival through our britbox subscription. Much excite!
Image: Boston Public Library, Copley Square, adorned with Christmas wreaths.
Today was the first official day of our ten-day winter holiday. Both the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library close down between Christmas and New Years meaning that we have a week together as the year draws to a close without having to take vacation days; we have come to really appreciate a week of slowing down this time of year, when the world around us seems to speed up in a frantic whirl of holiday socializing and end-of-year "best ofs" and "worst ofs" and summations and predictions, resolutions and all sorts of joy policing.
Despite my resistence to this deluge of end-of-year-ing, I did succumb on Monday and post a "1 like = 1 good thing that happened in 2017" request on my Twitter feed. I ended up with thirty-three good things in my list (thread starts here), which I think capture a lot of what was best about this past year in our own daily lives, even though there were a lot of shitty things -- so many shitty, avoidable, cruel and destructive things -- going on relentlessly. One really important lesson we're learning these days is how to nurture hope in the midst of cruelty and I think seeing and affirming the good things, the joy in life, is one of the crucial skills we all need to exercise on a regular basis in this year and the years ahead.
Image: Ice coating ground cover in the Arnold Arboretum on our morning walk today.
We are trying something new this year, taking a day near each solstice and equinox for a family retreat day. The goal is to take time, together, to look back on how we are using our time and energy and consider the next few months in order to intentionally prioritize. Hanna has been using a bullet journal this past year, so we built on her framework (and co-opted her supply of stickers, washi tape, and watercolor pens) to make planning pretty.
Image: Washi tape, pens, and open notebooks on our dining room table.
My priorities as we look ahead into the winter months are to get my charity crafting project up and running, figure out a better way to feed us during the week (we have little time/energy to cook on weekday evenings), weed out clothes that no longer fit (and invest in clothing that does fit and feels good), dig in with my year of critical reflection and study, and plan ahead a bit better in terms of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries in our family and friendship circles.
Image: Christopher curned up asleep at the foot of the bed with his tail tucked over his nose.
Teazle and Christopher seem to be reveling in the season of soft blankets and warm radiators, although Teazle is disgusted that she no longer has the run of the back porch (in the summer months we leave the back door open through the night and whenever we are home so she can roam in and out at will). This is the sort of demanding mouthyness we get from her when the back door is not opened at her command. Christopher is both intrigued and bewildered at his bold sibling's behavior.
Image: Teazle on my lap, craning her neck back so that I can rub her chin as she purrs.
Our December got off to a sweet start with a visit from my sister, Maggie, who currently lives in Austin, Texas. She brought us the first snow of the year! She stayed with us for three days and, although I was in Austin earlier in the year, this was her first trip to Boston since graduating from college many moons ago -- the last time she was here we lived in a whole different part of the city (Allston) in a tiny 500-square-foot apartment, and I was still in graduate school!
Image: Sister selfie at City Feed & Supply in Jamaica Plain.
While Maggie was here, we got to see Shape of Water (GO GO NOW!) and also had a fun night drinking whiskey-laced eggnog and watching The Christmas Prince (and pondering why women journalists in rom-coms are always trainwrecks).
When I started taking notes for this newsletter, it was a couple of days after the Alabama special election, where Alabama's progressives -- led by women of color and other grassroots organizers -- won a HUGE and upset victory for the nation in electing Democratic candidate Doug Jones to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate. Thanks a bajillion to the labor of "blue" voters in a conservative state who fought to overcome voting restrictions and got people to the polls. I wrote in my notes: "I will basically never get tired of watching formerly incarcerated voters share their stories of participating in the electoral process. Voting should be a universal right of every citizen age sixteen and older in this country, and we should make voting easier not harder." I've been following the work of Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (FSG, 2015), this year on Twitter and have really valued his consistent reporting on gerrymandering and other GOP-led threats to free and fair elections in the United States.
In these closing days of 2017, if you want some romance to heal your soul with a delicious dose (or doses) of happily ever after, Hanna and I have been enjoying Megan Frampton's witty and utterly winning Dukes Behaving Badly series, beginning with The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior (2014). While the series is not as richly diverse in its cast of characters as some of the other series we've enjoyed this year, the dukes and their lady loves are all sweetly individual and their relationships enthusiastically consensual. I also discovered E.E. Ottoman through their just-released The Doctor's Discretion (2017) which features an interracial m/m couple, one of whom is a trans man, navigating 1840s New York City. I particularly liked the way Discretion brought the couple together over a shared project -- and brought them closer together through the daring rescue of a third character -- rather than hingeing on one or the other of the two men themselves falling into crisis. I am very much looking forward to digging into Ottoman's steampunk Mechanical Universe series.
Image: Cinnamon rolls in stoneware pan waiting to be baked on Christmas Eve morning.
And as it is closing in on 9pm, with my cinnamon rolls snug in the fridge for their overnight rise, I am off to bed. I wish all of you a safe and rejuvenating close of 2017 and dawn of 2018. May our next year bring us joy and healing amidst the struggle.
In closing, let me share a carol that we sang last Sunday at Arlington St. Church: Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Come Darkness, Come Light".
Come broken, come whole
Come wounded in your soul
Come anyway that you know
Alleluia
~Anna
'Twas the night before Christmas ... Eve and I am typing this newsletter as I wait for the dough of our Christmas Eve cinnamon rolls to finish their first rise so that I can assemble them and put them in the fridge overnight. On Christmas Eve, Hanna and I have a tradition of listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge, which broadcasts live at 10am here in New England.
This year I am making sweet potato pecan cinnamon rolls (only with walnuts since we don't have pecans). We plan to start out the day with our customary weekend walk in the Arnold Arboretum before settling in with crocheting and quilting to listen -- and for the first time watch! -- the festival through our britbox subscription. Much excite!
Image: Boston Public Library, Copley Square, adorned with Christmas wreaths. Today was the first official day of our ten-day winter holiday. Both the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library close down between Christmas and New Years meaning that we have a week together as the year draws to a close without having to take vacation days; we have come to really appreciate a week of slowing down this time of year, when the world around us seems to speed up in a frantic whirl of holiday socializing and end-of-year "best ofs" and "worst ofs" and summations and predictions, resolutions and all sorts of joy policing.
Despite my resistence to this deluge of end-of-year-ing, I did succumb on Monday and post a "1 like = 1 good thing that happened in 2017" request on my Twitter feed. I ended up with thirty-three good things in my list (thread starts here), which I think capture a lot of what was best about this past year in our own daily lives, even though there were a lot of shitty things -- so many shitty, avoidable, cruel and destructive things -- going on relentlessly. One really important lesson we're learning these days is how to nurture hope in the midst of cruelty and I think seeing and affirming the good things, the joy in life, is one of the crucial skills we all need to exercise on a regular basis in this year and the years ahead.
Image: Ice coating ground cover in the Arnold Arboretum on our morning walk today.We are trying something new this year, taking a day near each solstice and equinox for a family retreat day. The goal is to take time, together, to look back on how we are using our time and energy and consider the next few months in order to intentionally prioritize. Hanna has been using a bullet journal this past year, so we built on her framework (and co-opted her supply of stickers, washi tape, and watercolor pens) to make planning pretty.
Image: Washi tape, pens, and open notebooks on our dining room table.My priorities as we look ahead into the winter months are to get my charity crafting project up and running, figure out a better way to feed us during the week (we have little time/energy to cook on weekday evenings), weed out clothes that no longer fit (and invest in clothing that does fit and feels good), dig in with my year of critical reflection and study, and plan ahead a bit better in terms of celebrating birthdays and anniversaries in our family and friendship circles.
Image: Christopher curned up asleep at the foot of the bed with his tail tucked over his nose.Teazle and Christopher seem to be reveling in the season of soft blankets and warm radiators, although Teazle is disgusted that she no longer has the run of the back porch (in the summer months we leave the back door open through the night and whenever we are home so she can roam in and out at will). This is the sort of demanding mouthyness we get from her when the back door is not opened at her command. Christopher is both intrigued and bewildered at his bold sibling's behavior.
Image: Teazle on my lap, craning her neck back so that I can rub her chin as she purrs. Our December got off to a sweet start with a visit from my sister, Maggie, who currently lives in Austin, Texas. She brought us the first snow of the year! She stayed with us for three days and, although I was in Austin earlier in the year, this was her first trip to Boston since graduating from college many moons ago -- the last time she was here we lived in a whole different part of the city (Allston) in a tiny 500-square-foot apartment, and I was still in graduate school!
Image: Sister selfie at City Feed & Supply in Jamaica Plain.While Maggie was here, we got to see Shape of Water (GO GO NOW!) and also had a fun night drinking whiskey-laced eggnog and watching The Christmas Prince (and pondering why women journalists in rom-coms are always trainwrecks).
When I started taking notes for this newsletter, it was a couple of days after the Alabama special election, where Alabama's progressives -- led by women of color and other grassroots organizers -- won a HUGE and upset victory for the nation in electing Democratic candidate Doug Jones to replace Jeff Sessions in the Senate. Thanks a bajillion to the labor of "blue" voters in a conservative state who fought to overcome voting restrictions and got people to the polls. I wrote in my notes: "I will basically never get tired of watching formerly incarcerated voters share their stories of participating in the electoral process. Voting should be a universal right of every citizen age sixteen and older in this country, and we should make voting easier not harder." I've been following the work of Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (FSG, 2015), this year on Twitter and have really valued his consistent reporting on gerrymandering and other GOP-led threats to free and fair elections in the United States.
In these closing days of 2017, if you want some romance to heal your soul with a delicious dose (or doses) of happily ever after, Hanna and I have been enjoying Megan Frampton's witty and utterly winning Dukes Behaving Badly series, beginning with The Duke's Guide to Correct Behavior (2014). While the series is not as richly diverse in its cast of characters as some of the other series we've enjoyed this year, the dukes and their lady loves are all sweetly individual and their relationships enthusiastically consensual. I also discovered E.E. Ottoman through their just-released The Doctor's Discretion (2017) which features an interracial m/m couple, one of whom is a trans man, navigating 1840s New York City. I particularly liked the way Discretion brought the couple together over a shared project -- and brought them closer together through the daring rescue of a third character -- rather than hingeing on one or the other of the two men themselves falling into crisis. I am very much looking forward to digging into Ottoman's steampunk Mechanical Universe series.
Image: Cinnamon rolls in stoneware pan waiting to be baked on Christmas Eve morning.And as it is closing in on 9pm, with my cinnamon rolls snug in the fridge for their overnight rise, I am off to bed. I wish all of you a safe and rejuvenating close of 2017 and dawn of 2018. May our next year bring us joy and healing amidst the struggle.
In closing, let me share a carol that we sang last Sunday at Arlington St. Church: Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Come Darkness, Come Light".
Come broken, come whole
Come wounded in your soul
Come anyway that you know
Alleluia
~Anna