In the Air, There's a Feeling of Christmas...

I love Christmas music.  My husband does not - mostly because he's forced to listen to it non-stop at his place of work, and it drives him crazy.  So we don't play much around the house - but in my car, it's another story.  I love that there's this one time a year, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, where we can enjoy timeless songs - and then we put them away for another year with all the ornaments and wrapping paper.  My favorite secular tunes are "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (mood: wistful) and "Silver Bells" (serene.) 

Last night on my way home I listened to a mix CD that a friend made a few years back.  It's pretty eclectic, from Sting's version of "I Saw Three Ships" to Run DMC's "Christmas in Hollis."  My favorite song on the CD is NSYNC's version of "O Holy Night."  It is one of the best renditions ever done, in my opinion, and that is my very favorite religious Christmas song.  Say what you will about NSYNC, but those boys can sing, and listening to this feeds my soul this time of year. 

So here is a treat to get you in the Christmas spirit - if you aren't a Grinch.

Thankful List, 2011

So many things.  Sooooo many things. 

Parents who love me, who always loved me, who always tried to do their best for me.
Marrying into a wonderful, sane family.
My affectionate, intelligent, hardworking husband.
My sweet-natured, healthy, adorable little boy.

A job I like.  Some things about it I love, some things I don't like, so it averages out to Like. 
A pretty, safe neighborhood in which to live.
My health.

Peace in my nation -  that I don't have to be a refugee or victim of war crimes.  Lack of famine, that I might be able to be fed and feed my child.

And now, the sillier things:

J.R. Martinez, champion of Dancing With the Stars season 13.  I started watching a lot more television once the baby was born - who has energy to do anything else, especially at first?  For some reason I began watching DWTS, and I fell in love straightaway with J.R.  His joyful energy was a delight to watch all season.  And Bruno's ridiculous judge's comments are always fun too!

Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, the cast of "Modern Family" (another recent television discovery.)  Reruns of "The Office" and "Seinfeld"   - for making me laugh on a regular basis.

The New York Yankees.  Not a championship season, but fun to watch nonetheless.  Baseball season is the best three-quarters of the year - it's springtime, then it's summer, then it's early fall.  I married into a passion for the Yankees, and it's really been fun learning all about the mechanics and history of the game.  Baseball is definitely a game for nerds, so I fit right in the demographic.  (Although I'd be more thankful if we'd never gotten rid of Johnny Damon or Matsui.  And if we could gently unload A.J. Burnette.)

The patience of my friends for looking at all the pictures of Baby I post on Facebook.

The 30 minutes a day I get to read, uninterrupted, on my lunch break at work.

Cute baby clothes with wry, silly sayings on them, like the Halloween onesie that says "Take Me to My Mummy."  They didn't have such things when I was a baby.

Coke Points, which allow me to subscribe to magazines I otherwise wouldn't bother subscribing to.


Good warm bread spread with butter.
Mmmm, butter. 

I am going to eat so much food tomorrow.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

EAT popcorn, PRAY the movie's good, end up crying all day because you LOVED it.

I saw "Eat, Pray, Love" yesterday. It met all of my lofty expectations. I adored the book, and was so thrilled that Julia Roberts was involved. She really threw herself into this movie, with joy and gusto. She really "got" it. I left the theater teary-eyed and raw, in a dewy haze of love for the world. I was spiritually moved and wanted pasta - STAT.

The character of Ketut, the sweetest old toothless medicine man you'll ever see on screen, says to Liz (Julia Roberts) near the end of the film, "Sometimes you need to lose your balance in love to find your balance in life." Something like that. It hits Liz hard and she runs to the lovely, sweet man she nearly pushed away out of fear. It struck me similarly, like a gong going off in my brain - DING! - TRUTH! Sometimes I feel like parts of myself are so intertwined with my husband that I don't know where he ends and I begin. It's not terribly liberated to admit something like that. But that's precisely what brings my joy and balance in life. What I lose of myself, I gain back from his wellspring, and together we are both whole. Love is both changeable and constant, chaotic yet serene. I give of myself and open myself to vulnerability, and in return I am strengthened and supported.

I don't see many movies at the theater - too expensive. The ones I do see are special treats. They are an escape and a visceral experience. I like the anticipation, the immersion, the darkness. I came away from this one with a silly smile on my face, like I knew a secret. It reminded me that really, I do know what life's all about - love. I'm given to grand statements of hyperbole, but as I told Eric yesterday, everything else is pretty much bullshit.

Found

(Note: This post contains spoilers of the LOST finale. If you have intentions of ever watching the show and haven't yet, you might want to skip this one.)

Much has been written, and will be written, about the series finale of LOST. I've resisted writing about it since Monday, but I can't hold back any longer. I am a true fan, unapologetically and completely in love with the show from the beginning. I feel like a geeky fan-club kid attempting to write about my feelings with any kind of intelligence, but I've got to give it a shot. This show matters to me. And I know I'm not the only person who feels this strongly.

The finale wasn't perfect. I still have questions about certain characters. What happened to Walt and Michael - will they get to head towards the light? Why wasn't Sayid reunited with Nadia instead of Shannon? Why didn't we get more Desmond and Penny love - and where was their son? However, at heart I am satisfied with the finale. It gave me what I desperately needed after caring for these characters for six long seasons - a feeling of peace.


When I regained my breath, after sobbing as the dog Vincent lay down beside a dying Jack, I felt deeply moved and inspired. My husband said, half-jokingly, the next day, "You felt the touch of God." And I did. Never before have I watched a more spiritual scripted television show. It made me want to be a better person. It reminded me to appreciate my life for all it is worth, while it's here. It didn't espouse a certain religious path - although there were echoes of Christianity and Buddhism that were obvious to me - but it left me certain that the show's producers were men and women of faith. They led these characters on a winding, arduous journey towards redemption and possibly rebirth.


Everything that happened on the island - and a lot of it was bad - mattered. Some of it was horrible - watching Jin's and Sun's deaths come to mind - but bad things just happen. They happen to everyone whether or not you've crashed on a mystical island that no one can find! But the horrible things these characters went through changed them - made them stronger, more compassionate, braver, self-aware. I'm not saying that they couldn't have grown without Jacob plucking them from their pre-island lives. I'm not saying it was fair that he did that to them. But my father's most famous words to me as a child were, "Whoever said life was fair?" And the older I get, the more I see his point.


Sawyer, Desmond, Jack, Hurley, Locke - they were GREAT characters. They were vibrant, complicated, intelligent, courageous. I cared about them as if I knew them. I'll miss them as if I knew them. A woman I see regularly at the library talked about the show with me and said it felt like a death, that she was grieving the show. It's hyperbolic, but I see what she means.


I wanted to know that these people had some measure of peace. Whether it was in this life, or in the next, they did. Even Jack experienced peace as he watched his friends fly away from the island as he died. I don't know how I'd feel about the show if I didn't believe in God or an afterlife. All along the show dealt with faith versus reason, and as the show progressed you could feel which way it was going. I'm not sure what my afterlife looks like yet, and I'm still wrestling with my picture of God. But I feel God, if I don't intimately or intellectually know God. And I'm operating on feeling here, with my assessment of the finale. My intellect isn't completely sated, but my heart is, and that's enough. To borrow a tweet from one of the producers, I will remember, and as much as I don't want to, I will (eventually) let go.