When 42 comes to call

My birthday always marks the end the holiday season for me, and the end is highly anticipated.  In general i can't say that our family ever did really well with the whole holiday season.  There were the obvious things like trying to figure out whether we were/are jewish or christian, growing up thousands of miles from extended family and then just the usual weird family holiday stress that families around the globe experience.  Needless to say, childhood set the tone and by the time i hit my 20's i was regularly leaving the country for christmas, and avoiding family thanksgivings (to the complete annoyance of my oldest sister). Getting through my birthday meant all the "celebrations" were done, and the world was headed toward spring after months of cold weather and excessive spending meant to make us all feel good.

After years of fleeing from my childhood i then decided to cave in and just wade through these months and hope for the best.  Over the past 10 years i have had any number of really good individual holidays-a good new year celebration here, a perfect turkey there, christmas presents i needed, but still, the overall 3 month period felt hard and running away, or out of the country still wasn't working.  i'm sure you think i'm building up to one of those hollywood movie endings where i state that this year that all changed, but i'm not, well not quite..

However, while this year was filled with many of the same things that each year is filled with- large periods of stress, family fighting, too much work, not enough time....  it also miraculously included several of the best holiday celebrations i have ever experienced, and it culminated in a near perfect birthday-actually maybe perfect when you count the long anticipated blue egg laid on my birthday by my crankiest, most high strung, most likely candidate-for-the-soup-pot-chicken, Byrd.  This act went a long way toward redeeming her in my eyes.

In retrospect i think what was so great about so many of the celebrations this year was this theme that has been running through my brain (even if i am not consistently able to make it run through my life).  Live simply, eat good food and celebrate with friends.  Thanksgiving, chirstmas, and my birthday all included these things.  Homemade food, good company and really nice people who all got along.  It included very little excessive spending, and a great deal of love.

Will i look forward to next years holiday season in anticipation-probably not, but i certainly know that a really good thanksgiving makes up for alot of lost time.

Here (in my book) is the simple answer to a good holiday season-surround yourself only with people who you love and who treat you well.  You can do this in any city.

10 hours

Although this is a blog meant to be about things to do (mostly) in San Jose, sometimes a girl has just gotta get out of town. While most people take off over the holidays i decided to wait until i had wobbled through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and two weeks of work before throwing myself, 42 hours of NPR podcasts, my sewing machine and a computer into my car for for a 10 hour drive to-you guessed it...beautiful Langlois, Oregon.  If you are unclear where this is, you join most of America-google it-this picture shows pretty much the whole town

Let's first discuss the 10 hour  (each way) drive.  A 10 hour drive is daunting.  A 10 hour drive is a full work day-and then some.  If i was in a plane i would be most of the way to London in 10 hours. If i was on a bike i could ride 100 miles in this amount of time (yes even me, the slowest rider in the land).  But i was in a car, and let me tell you-this is a lot of NPR and a LOT of  time to think.  Especially at the end of a long couple of months.  Happily it turns out that this is just what this girl needed to reset herself, wave good bye to the holidays and prepares to enter her 43rd year of life. (Be clear though-this is what a girl needs every now and then-to do this too much when you are a person who already spends toooooo much time thinking, mulling and contemplating could be a disaster. Continue reading at your own risk.)

During the drive i spent at least 3 hours contemplating  this story i heard on This American Life.  A woman had gone to multiple psychics over the years and they had ALL told her that she would be a success, something monumentally special, amazing and talented. They followed her out of their shops (prediction palaces? businesses?) to let her know that they really meant it-her kind only came around every now and again-she was rare. And a few of them also told her that all these amazing things would happen before she turned 45-they were guaranteed, blah, blah, blah and on and on; and i just started to wonder....  if you heard things like this enough, would it influence you?  Would you be more likely to believe this to be true and feel somewhat blessed and invincible? Can predictions like this make you feel more sure of yourself, more able? Make failure seem impossible?

i  listened to this story and i couldn't help but wonder if she just felt better about herself than the average joe because so many people told her that she should.  Nothing particularly amazing seemed to have happened to her.  She wasn't overly successful, wealthy or outstanding at anything (her words, not mine), but she said that life always felt pretty good to her. She was nearing 45, most of these predictions hadn't happened, and yet she still felt that all those things could or would happen, and if they didn't? oh well, she was fine.  i think i spent so much time pondering this because most of us know that the reverse is true.  if you spend even a little bit of time telling people bad things about themselves they are very likely to believe it.  As a matter of fact there is some ridiculously large statistic attached to the fact that people are more likely to hear and believe the bad things they hear about themselves rather than the good.  Unbelievably unfair that brains work this way.

These thoughts eventually moved over so i could spend some of time thinking about this year, my overall life and the people i know and love, and those who love me back.  Thankfully in this area i felt pretty blessed.  i have really been lucky to have found and been found by so many spectacular people throughout the years, many of whom i  still count as close friends.  Because, while i really enjoy my alone time and frequently joke that i don't like people, i really like my people. i like the variety of people that i know and relate to and the different things that each of them bring.  i like it best when all these variables mix together   Between these two thoughts and long hours of driving i started to wonder if the real purpose in this life is just to pass on to those we love the knowledge that we do love them, day in day out-something like this quote (a favorite from mother teresa)
“Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

Enough of that. did i mention it was a 10 hour drive? That's a long time to sit alone!

Landing in Langlois Oregon brings good and simple things.  First and foremost is Jack who reminds you why hanging out with children-especially magical ones- will renew your belief in anything.  Here's Jack.

But beyond Jack is just the quiet of a small town that is off the grid.  The opportunity to sit still, to be productive, rather than busy.  To live simply.  And it is just what is needed to remind me that even in a bigger city where opportunities for everything abound, it is the quiet and the simple that renew you and prompt you to look inside for what you need.  And i am amazed that i always forget this.  This knowledge that everything i need is already here, and i laugh that i must run away and sit quietly away from the myriad distractions that rule my life in order to remember that i actually rule my life.  happy new year