This Year's Gumbo

My family has an annual New Year’s tradition that I love.

Our longstanding custom is for Mom and Dad to host the Colorado relatives (i.e., Dad, his two siblings and their families) on January first for a New Year’s celebration where Mom serves seafood gumbo. There is no separating these elements, and there will be no compromising: It will be January first, Mom and Dad will be hosting, and on the menu will be Mom’s rapturous seafood gumbo. This has being going on for over 35 years, without exception.

It’s who we are. It’s in my blood.

And if you understand that, you might understand that as far as I’m concerned, it’s not really the New Year until all the gumbo is gone.

Mom makes a big pot, cher. Some years, if we haven’t crowded the dinner table with out-of-town relatives, extended in-laws and cherished friends, there is some gumbo leftover at the end of the night. That represents a jackpot for the Denver relatives (i.e., me and Frere) who get sent home with tupperware containers of rice and gumbo, rolls, sometimes salad.

The homemade goodness of the take-home gumbo provides a nice cushion against the last of the celebrating and socializing that will go on before normal routines are resumed. Because Oh my God, am I tired by January second. I love my family and I am so glad to see so many cherished friends during the holiday season. This year was another year of blessed, plus blessed. But it was an advanced-level social schedule, especially for a reclusive curmudgeon like myself, especially when you add in the rich foods, late nights and extra boozing.

On our walk last night, The Handsome Man and I were comparing notes on how raggedy we felt.

“I feel like I have something in my stomach, and it’s hot, and it’s just been sitting there for the last five days.”

“I feel like there’s a film all over my skin, just a thin layer of toxins, like I’m dirty.”

Yeah, once again Handsome and I were under-equipped for the entirely welcome holiday onslaught. Fortunately, we’re through the insanity now, and back on the also entirely welcome solid ground of our normal level (i.e., intermediate level) of socializing. That’s weekend plans for big events, weeknite plans with small groups, easy-peasy professional obligations, you know.

Fittingly, Joe and I are polishing off the last of the gumbo tonight. In honor of the new year, I’ve been reviewing the year that has passed, and giving more thought to the year ahead. And I find I sort of want to do a midnight countdown and sing Auld Lang Syne.

Happy New Year!

“If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.” - Dr. Maya Angelou

Here’s to making our best dreams come true in 2010!

Happy Winter Dreams

We just got back from the sweetest late nite neighborhood walk with the hound.

Ours isn't usually the neighborhood for late nite walks, being kind of sketchy and Colfax-proximate. But it's a gloriously bright pink glowing night tonite, with the overcast sky and six sparkly, twinkling, untouched inches of snow on the ground. We took Badgin off the leash -- yeah! I know! -- and he left broad, cheerful tracks in the snow, while he looked back regularly to see, You still there? Is this okay?

It was totally okay - nary a car, nor man, nor beast to be seen. The snow twinkled, and the sky glowed, and the pounch scampered. My nose froze.

It was a damn cold night.

It was especially cold earlier, when we were caroling amidst blowing snow and dropping temps. But at every occupied home, the residents opened their doors, and gathered their children to hear us, and clapped, wishing us well, when we had finished our songs. One fellow applauded us and then played us a carol on his steel drum set! (No, seriously. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear.)

I love that crew - my dad, and my dear friends, and the rest of this group of singers, and sons of singers, and friends of singers, and folks of good cheer. Thank goodness we maintain a holiday caroling tradition. What would my Christmas season be without it? "I just love singing with other people," said my beloved L tonite.

Me too.

A lovely black man is president, and a glee club has its own hit tv show.

It's possible that I'm asleep, these are such sweet and funny dreams come true.

Last night I dreamt that a friend and I were dancing on a bar, and as regards our hosts I was thinking, "Well, they really must have expected that this was going to happen when they invited us...", and not regretting a thing.

This Week's Soup: Spicy-Sweet Apple Wine Soup

A special selection for the holidays.

Wednesdays, I mostly come home from Soup Group smelling like sauteed onions. Last Wednesday, when we made the wine soup, I came home smelling of Christmas: cloves and cinnamon and honey and burgundy wine. It was a delightfully aromatic cooking experience.

The soup freezer is full, and Soup Group is on hiatus until January, freeing up us volunteers to handle our Christmas preparations and bask in the enjoyment of the holidays. Personally, I'm going to be spending time making gifts and enjoying company and, apparently, recovering from excessive revelry. Ah, the holidays.

Frere had a birthday party last night and it impacted my morning today, if you feel me. Turns out I'm not a grown up, as evidenced by my inability to refuse a drink. Foolish girl.

Nice party, though. I never know what to expect with Frere. Or, rather, what I expect from Frere, frankly, is to embarrass me. All too often, I'm right on the money: The house will be messy, from clutter, or neglect, or any one of a number of home improvement projects left unfinished. The food will not be ready until hours after the invite time, even for a dinner party planned days in advance. Worst of all, Frere will make mean commentary about me, or give me backhanded compliments in front of his friends.

So why go?

I'll do you one better at the end of 2009: Why include him as a part of my life at all? He is incredibly narcissistic, he stresses and exploits my parents, he has a hands-off parenting style that is truly disturbing sometimes. He makes epic bad decisions, monumental both in scale and in impact. He is nimble and swift like a ninja when it comes to avoiding accountability for his personal failings. He's kind of a jerk.

There is a long list of my complaints with Frere, beginning, maybe, with the time he tried to drown me in a water fountain at age 3, and spanning thirty years' worth of bullshit at varying levels, including an extremely rude interaction he had with The Handsome Man just last month (since which time I've been avoiding him).

But he's mon frere. He's my brother. And no matter what proclamation I might make in anger about excising him from my heart like a malignant tumor, it's just not possible.

Not because of my exhaustive love for his three perfect daughters, who give my life a whole other beautiful dimension than I would have known to ask for or miss in their absence.

Not because of the way my mom worries after the relationship between her only two children, and her heartache when she knows Frere and I are not getting along.

Not even because of the fact that Frere wants me in his life and, in his own way, values and likes me.

No. Those are all good reasons, I guess, but the thing that really keeps me in his life, or keeps me keeping him in my life, is that he's there regardless. As A described it so perfectly, "You keep bumping into him in your head." Yes.

And then there's the likelihood that one day, he will be all that remains and all that I'll have of my natal nuclear family. That was a happy place for me, a safe place, and a very specific place. My growing-up experience feels to me intimately unique, like nobody else could ever understand it. (Ironically, I think everybody feels that way about their growing-up experience.) It's where I first felt like I made sense. My family was a context that didn't just surround me, it explained me, it was part of what made me who I am.

Frere's my older brother - he was there for all of it. He understands. The tv shows we watched, the rules we flouted, the songs we sang, the tricks we played, the fears we shared, the fevers we endured. When I'm talking about my childhood and I say "We..." (as in "We loved that place!" or "We hated that guy!") I'm referring to "me and Frere".

And because Frere's my older brother, he was also the bossa me. I didn't eat cheeseburgers until I was 10 years old because Frere told me they were nasty...and that was sufficient recon for me - I didn't in all that time feel the need to try one for myself.

Our views and choices and even our recollection and framing of past shared events differ dramatically now, but...

There is no me without him. That's just a fact.

I had a good time at Frere's party. And when his friends toasted his best aspects, I was happy to raise my glass.

On December 1st

Can you tell that there is a "partridge"? In this "pear" tree? Mom and I came across this holiday display on our morning walk, and it's really quite adorable.

Regrettably, this photo comes courtesy of my iPhone's camera, which I'm constantly wishing had a bit more oomph. Case in point: At Thanksgiving dinner last week, I snapped a few photos. And I'm thankful for them. Go cell phone camera function! As a family, we don't bring cameras, we don't take pictures, and there are few records of our many good times together. So having even the crummy photos is the upside.

The downside is that they're crummy photos. (iPhoto's editing functions help a lot.)

Anyway: A partridge in a pear tree. Well done.


Photo credit: The Preferred Daughter

Winter Cheer

The Handsome Man and I just returned from a chilly walk around the neighborhood with Chaco. It felt so much later in the evening than it really was. Two short months ago, Handsome and I were playing tennis on the park court at 7:55 PM. Tonight the streets were deserted and the air was cold even through three smart layers and a parka.

Beautiful night, all the same, with the stars on Orion's belt low in the dark eastern sky and twinkling like the Christmas lights everyone seems to have put up already.

For our part, I don't think Handsome and I will be going the route of outdoor Christmas lights, despite the abundant supply his mother keeps at the ready. Since we've been together, Handsome and I haven't ever done outdoor Christmas decor, period, so it's not like we'll be foregoing some tradition if we don't hang the rafters and windows and trees in the yard with lights. (For my money, I'd rather get a motion sensor light for the front porch.) I would adore some of those giant ornaments to hang on the tall pine by the front walkway -- so tasteful and old-fashioned and quietly cheery.

Meanwhile, I didn't bother to take down last year's indoor Christmas lights, at least the white lights ringing the dining room. Too sparkly wonderful to end. And I'm excited about bringing home a tree and hanging it with lights and with our growing collection of ornaments, including one or two new items that we'll make or buy this season. I'm looking forward to the fresh and wintry smell of spruce, and the Christmas tree's tall presence in the living room, positioned strategically near a window so that people driving by might see the sparkle and smile to themselves.

I'm looking forward to all the extra smiles of the season.

Thanksgiving Prep

There was a time in my adult life when I would spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother, Meemo, my mom's mom.

It was a tradition that began after the weakest Thanksgiving ever, Thanksgiving 1997. I had graduated from college, dropped out of grad school, and moved back to Denver. That year, my parents bailed out to the mountains for Thanksgiving with my uncle and aunt, leaving me and my brother stunned to find that we were on our own for Thanksgiving, being explicitly not invited to join the elders at elevation. Frere and I tried (a little belligerently) to rally. We'll have our own Thanksgiving, we said. We'll do it ourselves.

So with Frere, and my best pal, and Frere's young family, I celebrated Thanksgiving 1997 with a late and lousy meal at my parents' house, where I was living at the time. Some important things were overcooked, some important things were undercooked, and both cheer and ambience were noticeably absent from our proceedings. I vowed internally to have a better option next year, and with gritted teeth, started to craft a plan for a meaningful Thanksgiving tradition of my own.

And I was successful in that goal. Every year thereafter for Thanksgiving, I'd fly down to Meemo's house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For a few days, I would visit with family, watch cable, and be overfed. I'd spend hours cooking Creole specialties with Meemo in her pretty, yellow kitchen. I'd spend hours lolling on her bed with her watching tv after dark (we liked Emeril, Wheel of Fortune and the news). I relished the hours I got to spend hearing stories about her life and telling her stories about my life. And on Thanksgiving Day, Meemo and I would gather with the relatives at my aunt's house to celebrate with a decadent feast fit for kings, or Romans, or Southerners, I guess. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I went alone and basked in the attention. I went with my boyfriend in 2000, and came back subsequent years with that same handsome man, now playing the role of husband.

Then in 2005, three days before my 30th birthday, my grandmother passed away suddenly.

(And I still want to kick somebody.)

So, naturally, I spent Thanksgiving 2005 and Thanksgiving 2006 surly and isolated and drinking about it.

But in the last few years, I have come to understand that's not how Meemo would want me to play it. I never thought I was "honoring her memory" by acting that way, I just didn't know what else to do on Thanksgiving Day when I was supposed to have plans with her. Mom finally called me out, at some point, and I had to agree, Yeah, Meemo would want me to hold my head up. If she could weigh in on it, Meemo probably would want me to spend Thanksgiving with "Alta" -- my mom. Thanksgiving with Alta is something Meemo would love to do, if she could.

So in the last couple of years, I've been showing up for Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom & Dad, brother, nieces, and other local family and friends. I say "showing up" because while I typically aim to scintillate in social situations (youknowhowwedo), I'm nothing but a presence on Thanksgiving. I'll put on a dress, I'll bring mashed potatoes, I'll bow my head for prayer. But I'm waiting for it to be over.

Thanksgiving 2009? I'm not aiming for a lot more than showing up again this year. Frere's divorce has just become final, my uncle recently had to file for bankruptcy, the Handsome Man and I are entering another holiday season childless and not pregnant. Thanksgiving 2009 and I are hardly making eye contact at this point.

But here's one thing I plan to do this year to try and make the holiday a little special for me. I'm thinking maybe this year I'll have the heart to come home and watch the last and only video I took of Meemo, from Thanksgiving 2004 -- which was an awesome Thanksgiving, if it had to be the last one. It was great. And from it, I have my grandma on video, talking one-on-one with me about her visit to Denver the previous summer, and about her childhood in New Roads, and about her satisfaction with her life.

I haven't watched it since 2005, but I remember that in the video, Meemo talks about me. She talks about a conversation she had with my Baton Rouge aunt after the two of them visited us, the Denver clan, the summer before. And what Meemo said was that they agreed: "Alta's got a daughter, child."

I remember it word for word.

And it will be nice to hear it again.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.