December 25, 2025
Thursday

The picture above is mine. I took it some years ago, evidently on my birthday in early March, so technically still winter. The poem, of course, is not. In my bygone years as a Dickinson scholar I knew by heart the details of the works’ publishing history and the complicated copyright protocols of quoting it. I’d need to research those matters in order to respect those rules, and I have neither the energy nor the desire to do that right now, going on 10:00 pm on Christmas night. I just want to lay my thoughts on this moment in my life beside what has been the internal difference inside me as the energy of the world’s holly-jolly-jingle-bells shifts its focus to its traditional denouement. I dwell tonight where the meanings are. So sue me.

Tomorrow, the Feast of Stephen, I start a new notebook, a new calendar year, a new way of looking at my life, a new way that’s a lot like the old way, but with different questions that will need answers as I move into my future.

This morning I woke from a dream that followed me into full consciousness and lingered as I fixed my coffee, adjusted the blinds, and came to the table. In the dream, I was checking out of a dorm-like residence hall at the end of some kind of conference. All the participants seemed to be women. We were clearing out of the area and working against a deadline to get to an airport to take our separate ways home.. I was in turmoil because it seemed like I was trying to wrangle more stuff than I had arrived with, while the others had everything under control. Each had everything in one compact, easy-to-carry bag. I had a backpack, a wheeled suitcase, several tote bags , a cardboard box containing half a case of toilet paper, and six straight chairs. One member of the group was very angry with me because I had not exhibited the proper defer3ence to her in her role as my intellectual and social superior. I kept trying to reduce the volume/bulk of my load. Everyone’s flight was delayed. All was confusion in the waiting area.

Easy-peasy analysis: I’m trying to carry too much of the past into the new age that is just beginning.

I’ll think about that, in the days to come. Some call this week, December 26 to January 1, “Twixmas,” a hard-to-define period that can unsettle as much as it has the potential to restore. There’s a lot of leftover food, haphazard schedules, social media calls to throw out the old and define the new in terms of goal-setting, eliminating loose ends, and here — use this plan (of the thousands available for a price) instead of that plan, get started on your goal to get healthy in the new year, but first, indulge yourself into oblivion.

As for myself, I’m ready to play it by ear, and to regard each “clearing the clutter” task not as a chore but as an opportunity for self-discovery and healing from an emotionally daunting couple of years. And to try to figure out what those six chairs in the dream were all about.