One of my yearly rituals at this time is to read back to my journal entry the year before. And, at the turn of 2009, every resolution I cited could just be cut and pasted into 2010, with the exception of 'quitting drinking' which I actually did manage to do last year. But everything else is the same, and it's sort of how I feel about my recent sobriety. If you asked when I quit drinking, I'd have to really think about it, and then I don't know a date, just an occasion (the Autumnal Equinox). Whereas in other forays onto the wagon, I could tell you down to the second, practically. I think I saddle myself, and shoot myself in the foot (to sort of mix my metaphors while keeping it in a old Wild West-y sort of theme) at the same time by making goals and marking victories. So, even though the resolutions I penned for myself last year are still desirable and, God knows, healthy, if I get there, I get there. Not the destination, but the blah-da-de-blah-blah path: you know.
All in all, I had many days away from the salt mine. It takes a good week, but then my natural circadian rhythms emerge and I think that's really when you can start changing anything. Work = artifice, from the time I'm so rudely pulled from my warm bed full of warm cats, to the crappy chair I sit in all day, staring at the computer that is probably slowly blinding me, and so on. I was actually able to start meditating, one of those resolutions from last year, and I hopefully can continue. I'm presently reading We're All Doing Time (alternating with After The Flood - Yin and Yang, baby!) and it's one of the few books I've read that charts a path for beginning a sitting practice that is actually practicable.
The holidays were nice. On Christmas Eve, I trundled a good friend into the hay conveyor, aka, car, and we drove up to Bellingham for the day. It had been a while since being there and it was a balm to my soul. We drove back the next day, in perfect weather and little traffic and I made and ate rugelah for dinner - yes, I'm ten - and made cat nip toys for the boys and just hung with my kids. I listened to A Christmas Carol read by Jonathan Winters and in some ways, it was the best Christmas I'd had in a while.
Ester is molting again, and again, it looks like it's killing her. And brings me full circle to when I began to conceptualize this blog. Her rejuvenation costs dearly, but it is also a natural (although, from my vantage point, overly harsh) process. And this, I think, is what Ester's Feathers is really all about: change, the cost of it, but the knowledge that at the end of the day, you're only doing what you're supposed to be doing. Speedy molt, little girl. Or should I say, girl(s).
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