Happy Advent Eve!

Decking the Halls

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Preparing for Christmas

When I was small, Christmas was larger than life, looming luminously over half the year with a splendor so exquisite that it almost hurt.

But as I grew, Christmas seemed to stay the same. Just like my first bicycle, so large in my memory and so small standing at my feet, what had seemed so huge and magnificent never appeared to be quite as I remembered.

Christmas was still grand and wonderful, but I suppose I began to get used to it.

And now at last I have children of my own who are eagerly anticipating Christmas. It's not my first Christmas as a mother, or even my first Christmas with children old enough to understand, but it is the first Christmas where they're old enough to anticipate. This afternoon I was feeling very daunted, thinking that now I'm the one who has to make Christmas happen, and I'm just not quite sure if I'm capable of putting together a Christmas worthy of their anticipation.

But then, as I buckled down to the task of getting the house clean enough to be worthy of Christmas, I threw on some Christmas music. And it was Christmas.

And I realized that I don't have to make it Christmas after all. Christmas is real, and more resplendent and glorious than I ever could have imagined. All that is needful is with the help of baubles and lights and gingerbread, to make it small enough that a child's heart can contain the bliss.

Mysteries of the Heart

I would have brushed it off as a bunch of bunk if I hadn't seen the link over at Scriptorium Daily. And maybe it still is a little fringe-y. Certainly not without its controversy. Still, it's really interesting.

You see, sometimes heart transplant patients undergo pretty significant personality changes. Which isn't really all that surprising, since a heart transplant is a rather huge event in a person's life. Near death experience followed by a newfound physical vigor--well, it'd be surprising if it didn't effect some sort of change in a person's soul.

Still, some of those changes are downright freakish... and consistent with the donor's characteristics. Thus the hypothesis that maybe--just maybe--the brain isn't the only place where we store thoughts, feelings and memories.

The implications are astonishingly profound, and so of course there's a lot of scepticism. Strangely enough, however, it was the SkepDic article that convinced me to take the idea seriously.

You see, according to the SkepDic, all the silliness is traceable back to Aristotle. We have all these absurd notions associating the heart with love and emotion because Aristotle wrongly postulated that the heart was the location of all our thoughts and feelings, while the brain was simply a fan to keep the heart nicely ventilated. Or something like that. I'm really not quite sure. Aristotle wrote plenty enough that's still important in it's own right, that I haven't exactly gotten around to reading those portions of his work that have been completely outdone by his followers. I'm just glad he started asking good questions, and glad others came along and found likelier answers.

So Aristotle thought that the heart was where it was all at, and the brain was just a pump to cool the heart. Modern medicine thinks that everything happens in the brain, and the heart is just a pump to feed the brain.

Come to think of it, it all sounds rather the same, and come to think of it, the poets have never believed either one. Poetry and experience have always told us that the head is the seat of rationality, the heart the seat of emotion, the intestines the seat of courage and fear. And I seem to recall the liver and the kidneys coming into play somewhere, but I never took it remotely seriously, because of course nowadays everyone knows that it all comes down to brain waves.

Not that I ever believed that we were reducible to brain waves. But I guess I always thought that our souls were connected to our brains, and our brains were connected to our bodies, and that the my experience of my body was something of an illusion, everything being mediated by my brain. But come to think of it, in the intermingling of soul-ish activities, I always experience ideas as trickling down into practice, and emotions welling up into my conscious thought.

What if my soul permeates the whole of my body?

This changes everything.

At a dragonfly's pace

This weekend, I learned from an extremely reliable source--a string cheese wrapper--that the life of a typical dragonfly spans 24 hours.

And I wonder... does the dragonfly realize just how short his life is?

Or is a day nearly so short to him as it is to us? Is that day, in fact, a lifetime to him?

And is our life really significantly longer?

Maybe 80 years isn't much time at all, except at a dragonfly's pace.

Angels

Today could have been a very bad day. We were flying on the busiest travel day of the year, which also turned out to be the foggiest day in several years. And so it was that our quick little Portland/Seattle commuter flight turned into quite a "clouds of the northwest" tour, as the pilot circled the airport in hopes that it would clear up, and then headed over across the mountains to some tiny airport that wasn't fogged out. I don't remember the name of the place, but I do believe it was about as close to the middle of nowhere as an airport can be. Amazingly enough, this refuge from the fog actually was the final destination of one of the passengers, so it turned out beautifully for her. For us, though, it meant that by the time we made it to Seattle, our connecting flight to Houston had left several hours ago, and suddenly we were a party of five on standby on the busiest travel day of the year.

Today could have been a very bad day--but it wasn't. Today, on this busiest, craziest, most stressful airport day of the year, every airport employee we encountered went above and beyond to make sure everything went smoothly. From the lady at check-in who stepped right in and took care of the carseats, to the lady who rearranged the seating on the flight we squeezed onto, so that we weren't split up to badly, to the wonderful shuttle driver.

Today was a long day, a full day, but thanks to these wonderful people, it was a good day.

And I'm thankful.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

But they don't want to get on the planes this time around.

Cousins

It's an absolute madhouse.

But oh, the bliss of knowing that our progeny are only responsible for 3/5 of the toddler-related chaos.

Parenting loves company.

Happy Thanksgiving

Praise be to the Father who has provided for us so abundantly, tables heavy laden with good food, warm shelter from the crisp winter air, and dear friends and family with whom to enjoy these blessings!

Hope your day was warm and wonderful and full of scrumptious turkey.

Perspective

We would have gotten a direct flight, had one been available.

All things being equal, we probably would have avoided trying to navigate a plane change with three toddlers.

But oh, it made for a wonderful day for the wuggies. Instead of just riding on one plane--treat enough!--they got to go on TWO planes. A great big jumbo jet and a tiny little prop plane that we even got to board from outside.

Oh the bliss, the ecstatic joy on those dear little faces.

You know what? Destination all aside (and oh, everyone is having a grand old time!) I think that was actually a perfectly grand way to spend a day.

But now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for bed.

Singing as we wind our way through the grocery store...

"Three bottles of car on the wall, three bottles of car--take one down, pass it around, three bottles of car!"

Sufficient to the day is the laundry thereof

Which makes packing... complicated.

Time to load up that washing machine.

Hobbies

We were in the parking lot this afternoon when September gave a delighted little giggle. "A birdie! It's a birdie!"

This prompted her affectionate father to remark that surely our little girl was destined to grow up into an avid bird watcher.

At which point Isaiah (being very eager for his lunch) burst out saying "Wugger's gonna be a hot-dog watcher.

This afternoon, I we experienced a very odd tantrum.

Isaiah greatly objected to our plans for the afternoon, which would not have been so very strange, had our plans been less vague.

But I never expected to hear such a distraught little voice earnestly crying "No! I don't want to have fun! I don't want to have fun!"

Faerie Stories

"Makin' maple candy, Mama?"

"No, I'm making a sourdough starter. Even though you can't see them, there are all sorts of little animals all around us, smaller than mosquitos or ants..."

"And a man?"

"Much, much smaller than a man. And we're going to try to catch some. And then they'll eat some of the flour, and they'll blow bubbles in the dough so it will be nice and puffy when we make bread."

Sometimes the strangest fairy tales of all are the ones really believe.

Bob the Builder Shoes

A few months ago, I went shoe-shopping with September, and her sweet little heart was set on Bob the Builder shoes.

And so I dutifully scoured the little girls shoe aisle for Bob the Builder shoes.

Not surprisingly, I didn't find any. There may very well have been lots of Bob the Builder shoes just a few feet over in the little boys shoe aisle, but I wasn't about to open up that can of worms. Much as Tembo wanted Bob the Builder shoes, I wanted her to have something at least a little bit girly.

I was just about to sadly announce that they didn't have any Bob the Builder shoes, and wouldn't she like to try on this nice pair of T-straps, when Tembo gave a little cry of delight and discovery. She'd found them.

Bob the Builder shoes.

That's what we call them, and she's very proud of them indeed. They're Bob the Builder shoes, and don't you dare suggest otherwise.

Christmas Wish

Over breakfast, Meepo was telling me that he wants Scrooge to bring him a new back yard for Christmas.

One with ducks, and bears. And no lions, just monkeys.

Works for Me Wednesday: Practice Makes Perfect

We're working hard on manners here in Wuggyville. For some time now, the wuggies have been saying the "magic word" ...when prompted. Oh, they would make the sweetest, most polite little requests, cute enough to melt your heart, but only after I would remind them that Mama doesn't listen to whining.

It had me stumped for a long time. Teaching them to say "please" and "thank you" was a piece of cake. Teaching them to do it the first time was another story altogether.

Anyway, I've got it figured out now, and it's oh-so-simple. They just need practice, that's all. Lots and lots of practice. If they ask me nicely the first time, then I answer them right away. If not, then it's time to practice, practice, practice. If they ask nicely the first time, then I'm quite satisfied with sweetly polite toddler-talk, but if I have to prompt them, then it has to be word perfect, and repeated several times. This can take a while. When you're only two years old, sometimes your "Mama, may I please" gets sort of tangled up with your "have a cup of milk," and it takes a while to get it all sorted out. SoI was originally thinking of this as a deterrent-- they would have an incentive to do it right the first time so as to avoid the drill, and get straight to the cup of milk or whatnot. But they actually love it. At this age they love nothing more than memorization, so it's a fun game for them. What's more, they really do want to know how to communicate their needs properly, and they're eager little learners.

Three days in, and I'm noticing a marked difference already.

Works for me!

And oh, there are very few things in life that are sweeter than the sound of your little son saying, "Mama, may I please have some snuggles."

Transplanted

Houston is a strange sort of place, and we're still strangers. But the strange thing is, everyone else is something of a stranger, too. Not just to us, but to the place itself.

It was bittersweet leaving our dear community in Los Angeles, but we knew it was inevitable. Even if we hadn't left, people were leaving all around us, and many more would soon go too. It was only a matter of time. The very nature of our community was transient. A stage of life on the way to something else.

And that is precisely how Houston, as a city, feels. It's not really home to anyone. Nobody lives here because they want to live in Houston, they live here because Hewlitt-Packard is here, and NASA, and the oil companies. And because Hewlitt-Packard, and NASA, and the oil companies pay enough to send their children to nice private schools.

There are lots of reasons to live in Houston, but Houston itself doesn't seem to be one of them.

It's a weird contrast to Los Angeles. Lost Angeles (I'll let the typo remain) is the promised land and hell all rolled into one. Some love it, some hate it, but it's always one or the other, and usually both. Los Angeles may induce apathy, but never toward itself.

Houston, on the other hand... well, I suppose it makes sense. There's a certain sort of person who dreams of living in the big city, and there's a certain sort of person who dreams of living in Texas. Houston, being both, is satisfactory to neither.

So folks settle for Houston, and make the best of it. The city feels remarkably calm and clean compared to Los Angeles. I hear such horrible things about the inner city, but where's the graffiti? Houston just isn't nearly so rough around the edges, and it feels a little soulless by comparison. Soul-less... but very pleasant and attractive.

Strangely, the one place in the city that looks most loved, most truly home to its residents, is the artsy-hippie community nestled in the notorious fifth ward. But that place is well loved precisely because of it's transient gypsy happy-wanderer feel. They may stay for the rest of their lives, but even so they're really just passing through.

It's just like all the rest of Houston, just a little more explicit, that's all. The rest of the city approaches with a much different aesthetic, but in the end, everybody's just passing through, and making the best of the time they spend in Houston.

And I think that's okay.

Because whether we're thinking about it or not, we're all just wandering wayfarers on this earth.

And I think it might be a little bit easier to live lightly in a place that knows its place.

Bragging Rights

My lowly little blog is google's top-ranking page on alphabetical excuses.

Come to think of it, I'm not quite sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.