oh nine
Two thousand seven was like trying to herd cats. But two thousand eight is all about ducks in a row.That’s what I wrote last year around this time. You remember last year, don’t you? 2008?
The ducks were shockingly cooperative, quack quack quack. Because holy shit: I bought a house. If that was the whole list right there, I’d have to say it would have been enough. (D’ayenu.)
After buying the house I then (with much help) pulled off many of its floors and walls and ceilings. I haven’t put on new ones just yet but – well, one step at a time. I drilled in a new doorlock and wrenched in a new faucet and replaced the flapper in the toilet. I salvaged a dining table and steadied the steps. In the summer there were eggplants, and pole beans. In the winter there was a woodstove.
I didn’t know how to do any of this, when I started, except the eggplants.
And there would be a longer paragraph of house-things, but there were so many other things this year too. There was hiking and biking and two weekend-long weddings, trips to Detroit and Seattle and Southern California, a seven-day expedition in Eastern Oregon. There was yoga again, finally, and new running shoes that are ready for some mileage.
This past year I continued to hold down my first post-grad-school full-time job, and though it has not been where I’ve directed the force of my insight and energy this year, it’s come along ok. I spoke at a couple of conferences and filled out a few neat projects and helped pull in three big grants. I more or less know what I’m doing now, even if I’m not always doing it as well as I might be.
In 2008 I got out of, and then back into, and then out of, once and for all, a beautiful and surprising and frustrating relationship – a relationship that on its good days filled me with joy and possibility, and that on other days asked me to be more realistic. I’m still pretty sad about it. But as long as I’m laying out good things, I might as well say that I’d never before dated someone with an ex-wife, or with children. These things were really, really hard sometimes, in all kinds of new ways, and I didn’t always do the right thing. But I tried hard to do the right thing almost all of the time. I think I got better at it. I think that most of the time I did the best I knew how to do. There’s that, at least. That and the time we sat on a sunny rock in the forest, and I swam, and he sang. You can’t really regret much when there was that, even if my heart feels more tired than it used to.
I didn’t learn to play guitar in 2008; maybe I never will. But I had Passover dinner in my falling-down dining room, and hosted a night of Celebrities, and ate spaetzle in the park with Mo from DC. I baked a pumpkin pecan pie for Thanksgiving. I hung my first holiday lights. And to close out the year I visited my oldest friend in Philadelphia, a woman I’ve known since we were basically babies, and soon she will have a baby herself. Which is all a little bit crazy, and perfect.
I don’t know what two thousand nine is going to be about yet. I do know that I’ve been going dancing a lot lately. I’ve picked out a bar that’s going to be my bar, and I’ve found a long-term volunteer position that suits me, and I no longer get lost driving to the homes of my Portland friends. I think that means I’m beginning to belong here. Which means it’s probably time to shake things up a little.
posted by tortaluga @ 4:57 PM
1 Comments:
Ah, the spatzele...a shimmery, priceless moment.
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