New Year's Inventory

At ten days into the new year, I thought it might be time to see how I did on the resolutions I made the previous two years.

Last Year's Resolutions were based on the verse my daughter M. has tattooed on her wrist.: 
To wonder at beauty
stand guard over truth
look up to the noble
resolve on the good


I think it's the first thing I've been the best at. Beauty, it seems to me, is everywhere. If my eyes are open and I'm paying attention, there's always something to wonder at.


As for the truth, I try to think it and say it. And write it.


The noble, when one can find it, is easy to look up to.


As for resolving on the good, I suppose the phrase has a couple of interpretations. I don't always see the good in a given situation. I'm prone to complaining about the bad part of things. The downside often captivates my attention.


In 2009 I resolved to:
1) finish my MFA---check! 
2) keep in touch with friends---I don't think I did particularly well with this one. In fact, I completely failed completely in some cases.
3) work harder at what I need to learn---My brain still has a lot of teflon-coated spots.
4) tell my children I love them every time I see them and in every phone conversation---More often than not, I succeed at this. It's really not hard to remember.
5) Call my mother more often and visit her at least 4 times a year---I only made it to the east coast 3 times in 2009. But one of those visits when on for weeks because my mother suffered complications when she had a tumor removed from one of her lungs. I did better in 2010 with 5 visits.


This year I resolved to say thank you whenever it's due and to be more attentive to my friends. I started on New Year's Eve by giving the friends I saw that night a bookmark I made. The message I wrote on it is this:

 I raise my glass to you, and on my lips are sighs of thanks.

Thank you for the tea and roses, for red wine and your company, for beer in green glass bottles--in your living room by the fire, in the shade of your patio, walking next to you on a path as parrots call overhead.

Thank you for the phone calls and invitations and patience and words of encouragement or for just listening.

I believe fervently in love as a force beyond all imagining. I believe I have been borne across deep rivers in your arms.

In 2011 I will call you more often than you call me. I will cook, lay feasts upon my table and bid you to eat. I will fill your glass as you have filled my heart.

I hope to have a little dinner party every month or so. Or a bigger party. 

We've got to drink up this champagne.

Warning

I'm over at  SMARTLY today.

It's not about a dream. No oceanside houses or handsome men or sexy shoes.
It's about real life.
Don't read it if you don't want to.
But it could be a perfect New Year's post.  In 2011 don't become the person you don't want to be.

Oh--and Happy New Year. From that peaceful place in the bottom of my heart.  Really.

The Bad, Bad Nanny

I'm obsessed with dreams right now. My dreams to be more specific. Why I'm having them and remembering them when for years I awoke feeling that I had dropped into a cavern in the center of the earth when I slept--or that I hadn't really slept at all--just lain there all night almost asleep, but not quite.

I tried to dream a dream for my friend Elizabeth last night. A dream of something light and healing for her and her daughter Sophie. All I managed was a setting that would be perfect for them--a fabulous beach house on a rocky cliff that dropped to the sea. Elizabeth sometimes says Sophie is like a mermaid or a selkie because she always seems better by the ocean. There were tide pools in my dream. A path. A wooden platform at the bottom for sunbathing and a ladder bolted to the rocks for climbing out.

I was a nanny in this house. One of two nannies because I needed time off to attend something that was very much like the MFA program in creative writing that I graduated from last year. Sometimes though the other nanny and I were both in the house together tending to a little girl and a little boy. And both of us were having  affairs with their father. The physical attraction I felt for this man was intense. We couldn't pass one another in the hallway without groping. If we both ended up at the refrigerator at the same moment, we'd stand there with the door open, the cool air and the light bathing us while we kissed with one hand on the carton of milk. He was tall and trim and movie star handsome. Straight sandy-colored hair with a craggy complexion. Not someone from my real life.

When I went off to write, I spent a lot of time walking around with a friend. A short skinny man with glasses and hair that fell across his eyes. We walked with our arms around one another, talking and  adoring each other platonically, and there was something we were worried about, but I'm not sure what. I have no idea who this man is either.

When I returned to the house, I came back with a poet I know named J. V.  J. V. was wearing a dark business suit and a tie. He went crazy with happiness when he saw the house. We walked along the cliffs, the wind blowing his black hair so it stood straight up from his forehead. He laughed and laughed because the beauty of the place made him happy. So happy he  ran down the steep slope to the water and jumped in business suit and all. I went down to the water by a more gradual route and slipped in too. We paddled around in the waves and climbed back to the house drenched.

One thing I know about J.V. in real life is that he's terrified of flying--like me. Once I gave him my instructions:  Hit the bar as soon as you get to the airport. Also bring your own little bottles of booze--the 3 oz. size that you can fit in your one-quart zip-lock bag. After you go through security, buy your mixer. Then you can fix your drinks on the plane without having to wait for the cart.

Three different men in this dream. An affair. Children. A house by an ocean. A refrigerator. A carton of milk. A ladder. A platform. A job.

Premonition?

Long ago I had powerful dreams that proved to be accurate premonitions. I dreamed my father died--that he had a heart attack while I was away at college--and he did. I had a series of  negative dreams about a college acquaintance I eventually lived with for a while in L.A--rather disastrously.

Then for years there was a dream drought. Now the dreams are coming like the rain.

Two nights ago I dreamed I was at a party with my daughter M.'s high school basketball team. "Where's M's dad?" her friend Niki asks me. We're in a gym and there's dance music and flashing party lights. I have to shout over the din. "He left me for a younger woman," I say. We're surrounded by  a crowd of people--basketball players, teachers, parents. A few feet away, M. is standing in a brightly lit area, and I see she's holding a glossy Christmas card with color photos. There's a big headshot of Mr. Ex's little boy with his name under it. Across from this picture is an empty box inscribed with "HD xx 2012." I puzzle over the symbols. Another baby, I think. Huge Dumb Girl. His Daughter. Harriet something....they're naming the baby Harriet? She will arrive in 2012.

But it's only 2011 now.
Happy New Year, Everyone!