Because a Friend Told Me I Should Be Writing More Blogs...

It is December.

A million December blogs run through my head-- about a season so draining it frays nerves like split ends down strands of blonde hair, a season filled with memories behind twinkling lights, banks of snow, poinsettias, weddings, friends who remember the anniversaries you are no longer allowed to talk about, and who toast your anniversary of independence, and of realizing that that being lonely while single is so much better than being lonely while lying next to someone who cannot love you, because being lonely while single means only that-- that you are alone, while being lonely while lying next to the man you are trying to love and knowing he does not love you means (possibly? probably?) you are unlovable, and of secret December lives, and lies, and people dying, and birthdays, and Rudolph's nose lighting the way home from Grandma's house along every radio tower in St. Paul, and drawing with your finger against the frozen molecules of the car window, and your mom telling stories about how she worked in the 1st bank downtown and turned the flashing light that dots the skyline on and off, and on and off, because she didn't think you understood, at seven, what statistics meant. And a Santa who knocks on Grandma's door when you are three because he sees you waving in the window and hands you a wooden toy car that has wheels you can take apart, and later, how you learn no one knew who this Santa was, that he appeared out of nowhere, and how somehow you brought that Santa down the aisle with you in December, twenty one years later, and how now both memories slide along the ventricles of your heart with slow, easy, deliberate serrated blade edges.

This is my December.

There are a million December blogs that dance in my mind, like sugarplums laced with acid.

But the blog I will write is my December 29th, the day after yesterday. And today I took a step forward only to have to go back, but stepped forward again, and, after visiting the phone store three times in one day, after making friends with gay, Jewish salesman Bill, the Somali couple buying a phone from the Somali salesman who recognizes me by the third visit, and after somehow offering to bring lunch tomorrow, two days after yesterday, to everyone in the office, I purchased a new phone. Finally.

Today, December 29th, I abandoned the flip phone I had borrowed to replace a much loved and dramatic Blackberry with another. Which meant I had to reenter all of my contacts. One. At. A Time. Phone. Number. By. Phone. Number.

So what I learned was this-- in the middle of My December, my emotional mini-drama, my endless lists of school work and course work and syllabi and syllables, I pushed everything aside to sit on my couch next to my yorkie-poo, watch Sandra Bullock in The Proposal, and type digits into my phone one by one--that while the first ten minutes felt tedious, suddenly a shift occurred. I learned that entering phone numbers into a phone, remembering birth dates, figuring out birth years and anniversaries, brought all of these people into my living room. All of these happy memories and people got my undivided attention as I thought about them and their important dates and numbers. I couldn't help but feel happy as I thought about each and every one. My favorite numbers went into my phone, right alongside my favorite people.

And everything felt right.

And that is why I wrote this blog, this, the day after yesterday. This is my blog for December 29.

Everything just feels right.

The Day after Yesterday

Today I am blowing off the mountains of schoolwork I am supposed to be grading.

Today is a slow morning and singing "Winter Wonderland" in my best lounge singer impersonation.

Today is addressing Christmas cards and buying groceries.

Today is yoga and holiday parties.

Today is remembering newspapers and coffee and French toast for two made with one egg per piece of bread, vanilla, cream, brown sugar and toasted pecans.

Today is smiling at the memory.

Today is making French toast for one and thinking it still tastes pretty damn good.

But Maybe Wear a Helmet

There is something I have lost. Something that recently has gone out of my life. It is the something that lets me send words out into the world without care and with a sort of blind faith that somehow my fingers know better than my mind what needs to land on a page.

Thus, (to borrow a transition word from the list of transitions I gave to my 9th graders the other day), I haven't been writing much.

And for a couple months this was fine. I was busy. I was moving. I was teaching and going to school and applying for another teaching position and training for teaching online and getting sick every other day and THUS, thus- I left writing.

So now my fingers don't know quite what to do. They start. They delete. They second guess. They worry. They pause...

But today, well- today I was walking through my office at school, eyes glued to the assignment I was about to copy for the students restlessly awaiting instruction in the computer lab, when I slammed my leg right into a file cabinet with a noise that startled at least two of the three co-workers that were in the office at the time.

"Katie!" said one of these dear co-workers, "are you ok?!"

"Yeah," I replied, but in my head I thought no. No. Something is very wrong with this picture. What am I doing here? What has happened to my life? Obviously there is a reason my eyes have been causing me problems for the last two months. Obviously there is something I am not seeing.

"I'm fine," I said to my co-worker. "It sounded worse than it was." In my head, though, I was saying, "Nice job. How clumsy can one person be? Who runs into a file cabinet?" And a story a student wrote in a creative writing class I taught one year long ago came to mind, one that featured a teacher who tripped over cords and bumped into things. I sighed.

It wasn't until I bumped into my stove for the second time later on the same night that I thought of my blog, and the tagline about being clumsy and running into things in an adorable way.

Thus, now that I am sitting on the couch with my hound beside me, watching Julie and Julia and trying not to be envious of the blog writer in the movie who became successful by writing about recipes and cooking. I am thinking maybe I should stop being jealous of someone in a movie and start doing work of my own. I am thinking maybe I can be successful writing about collisions? Accidents? Embarrassing mishaps?

Since there is no telling how many embarrassing mishaps I will encounter in my life, no telling how many slightly painful collisions I will have, since I am bound to run into objects and people for the rest of my life, I might as well keep writing.

Thus, I might as well let my fingers run as they will.

And just wait to see what will happen next.

No pausing, no second-guessing. No more worrying.