Inch One Hundred Fifty-One: Wrapping Up Another Year

Last year, I wrapped up the year by looking at numbers. This year, I am not sure where and how to begin counting. It is a cold, gray afternoon, the wind and occasional rain or sleet lashing the trees outside.

It has been a year of losses, starting with the death of Kim Lance, husband to my friend Judy, from a massive heart attack in early November. It hurts to watch Judy grope her way through the deep grief of losing her best friend. Their three children, young adults all, are finding their own way in a world without their dad. I think more than anything else ranging from the national election to bad diagnoses sprinkled too liberally over friends and colleagues, Kim's death and the resulting holes his death ripped in his family, his college (he was a chemistry professor), and the community have been the hardest losses this year.

On the bright side? The Cubs won the World Series and the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and its allies stood their ground and, at least for now, won.

I am penning this out in longhand, sitting in the living room. On the coffee table in front of me, all three menorahs are ready to be lit in a few hours for the eighth and final night of Hanukkah. Given the ugliness of the campaign and the continuing rhetoric of the incoming administration, I worry at what point my personal safety will be at risk to light a menorah, given the strong sense of validation the extreme and violent right took from the election results. Think I am exaggerating? Two words: Whitefish, Montana. How appropriate then that I am celebrating a holiday celebrating a victory against a regime that wanted to eliminate the Jews, albeit by assimilation and not genocide.

At a recent gathering of the Death and Dying Coffee Club (to join, you have to have an incurable and preferably terminal illness, typically cancer), one of our members put to us the question of what was our most profound truth learned in 2016?

"How far backwards we have gone on race in this country, I said gloomily, "because I truly believed we were better than this."

My buddy Corroto was a little more (emphasis on "little") sanguine. "That the only place I can impact is here, locally. All politics really are local." And by local, Corroto means block by block, right here and now. He said he could not affect Washington, our elected state and national officials, and maybe not even our own City Council. But he could make an impact here where his house meets the sidewalk. His new effort was picking up trash when he was out walking the dog, based on an example set by another neighbor.

Small? Absolutely. Inconsequential? I would say not.

Jews are charged with tikkun olam, repairing the world. Our duty is to make those repairs, no matter how small. Picking up trash when you walk is one way. Will I do that too? Maybe.

As I finish typing in my rough notes, I glance out the second floor window. The day is getting gloomier. All the same, I plan to put on my coat and head outside, walking out the year that is dying, girding myself for the one awaiting us all.

Inch Forty-Four: Another Year

We have an old blanket we keep on our bed, on top of all the other blankets and comforters. It is green and soft. The satin binding has long since worn away or been cut off. Sometimes, if I am having a bad day physically, I will crawl under just that top blanket and let its warmth lull me to sleep.

The blanket originally came from my Aunt Ginger, who many years ago had earmarked it for Goodwill. Heck no! The blanket then had many years of service left and the steady use I have put it to for probably two decades now attests to its longevity.

The blanket is as good a symbol as any for my take on my year just ended. Despite our brutal early December schedule, I finished 2014 feeling satisfied and centered. Worn? Yes. Fatigued? Absolutely. But like that old green blanket, I carry on.

2014 held a variety of experiences, many of them good, many far better than good. We had the joy of having Ramona, my daughter-in-law Alise, and my son Ben come to Ohio in late spring and spend a week with us. The joy of having them here was great, the pure unadulterated love of a toddler indescribable. Along with my good friends and colleagues, I helped celebrate the eleventh anniversary of our monthly free legal clinic in October, serving our 2000th client that very night. I saw Warren and the Symphony reach new heights and gain national attention for groundbreaking community outreach programs. I spent time with good friends near and dear to my heart, either in person or through  correspondence.

And I read hundreds of books, always a sign of a superb year.  

Some of 2014 had to be endured. Friends and colleagues died. There is the steady advance of dementia in my mother and my Aunt Ginger. My own health was all over the board in 2014, before it and I finally stabilized. Last night, I finished my tenth round of oral chemotherapy, swallowing the capsule three hours before 2014 ended. This treatment has stayed the advance of my bone marrow cancer, although it has extracted its own price for that stay. For now, it is a toll I am willing to pay, although I know the toll will get steeper with time.  

Various authors portray the turning of year in less than glowing terms. Scrooge, before his transformation, characterized this time of year as a time for finding yourself "a year older, but not an hour richer." Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his short story "The Sister Years," portrayed the Old Year as a "weary, bedraggled, world-worn" woman who "heaved a heavy sigh" as she waited for her younger sister, the New Year, to arrive. 

I don't share those outlooks, despite my having many wearisome hours and days in any given week. (In fairness to Scrooge, he didn't feel that way either after his ghostly visitations.) 2015 holds promise. I head to Portland in two weeks to spend a week with Ramona, her parents, and my other son Sam, who I have not seen in two years. Warren will not be on that trip, but we are already planning to travel more in 2015. I was contracted last September to create a new OVI Court for our Municipal Court and that project is coming closer to being a reality. At Juvenile Court, where I work, we get a new judge on February 9. I am hoping the next six years hold great things for the Court and my work there.  I can only dream of what this year holds for the Symphony and for Warren personally and professionally. 

And there are always books—to read, to reread, to laugh over, to cry over, to reflect upon and hold close to my heart. Books are always waiting in any new year. 

Yes, 2015 holds great promise, although whether those promises will be kept remains to be seen. Come this time next year, I hope to be like our old green blanket, worn a little more but still comfortable, minus the satin binding but still of good service. 

Inch Thirty-One: New Year

Erev Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year and the High Holy Days, started at sunset last night. I sat through a Reform service livestreamed from a Cincinnati temple, Temple Sholom. It was the first New Year's service I have attended in over three decades. To my surprise, some of the prayers (I did not have a prayerbook, so I was lost at times) and many of the melodies came rushing back to me.

I once read a rabbi contrasting the American New Year and the Jewish New Year. We ring in the New Year in America (and, indeed, in many parts of the world) with partying, alcohol, and fireworks on New Year's Eve. On January 1, we come together to watch football games.

In contrast, the Jewish New Year begins with an evening of prayer and worship, and the first morning of the New Year is spent in more of the same.

Rosh Hashanah starts ten days of contemplation, atonement, and personal reflection that will not end until sunset on October 4 at the conclusion of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Sometimes that period is called the Days of Awe. It is a time of looking backward over the last year and of looking forward to the year to come. One of the rabbis last night reminded us that there is a continue pull between two extremes: "I am but dust and ashes" and "the world was created entirely for me."

The rabbi spoke at length about the latter statement. It is s statement not about ego ("look how special I am!") but about celebrating the uniqueness of every individual. For those of us who give constantly to others, she reminded us that we need to value ourselves and to make sure we also nurture our own lives.

The rabbi then quoted from a poem by Marianne Williamson: "it is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us." It is our obligation, she said, to see the Divine in every moment. Let your living be sacred in a way that reminds you of the beauty of the world.

This morning I rejoined the congregation for the Rosh Hashanah service. Rabbi Terlinchamp reminded us that Rosh Hashanah is a chance for renewal, to be a better person. Presenting a passionate, powerful sermon about marriage equality, truth, and justice, she alluded to Yom Kippur and the part of the service where we rap our chests over our hearts. That should not be seen as our beating ourselves in penance, the rabbi said, but rather as knocking our hearts to open them up to the wrongs of the world that it is our duty to try to correct.

Rosh Hashanah and the days that follow are a period that requires the Jew to look inward, to atone not only for everything that has been done in anger, hurt, or malice, but also for everything that was not done and should have been done.

These are Days of Awe indeed.

Of Dragons' Tails and Corn Bags

We saw in the New Year in the best way possible: sitting outside around a fire with our close friends Margo and Gerald. By the time 2011 was down to its last hour, the night sky had cleared and the stars had grown bright. Gerald came back from taking the dog in and announced that the Big Dipper was prominent in the northeast; I joined him in the yard and picked out Orion in the south.

When the New Year came, we all kissed our spouses. There were fireworks on the horizon in several directions. Warren and Gerald poked the fire until we could safely leave it to burn out. We said our goodnights, exchanged hugs and best wishes, and then my dear husband and I drove home in 2012, smelling of wood smoke and friendship.

The next day, I read a line in an old New Yorker that the "happiest civilizations had existed in the age of Homer, when the starry sky was the map of all possible paths." Certainly it seemed that way the night before as we watched the stars wheel by.

I have been reading the Byron Blakely biography of the writer, John Cheever. It is not the first biography of Cheever I have ever read, but it is the best. It presents an intricately detailed and ultimately sympathetic portrait of Cheever, who was a very complex individual on his best days. That alone is an achievement. But what Blakely does particularly well is make the reader see the beauty and structure of Cheever's prose. It is akin to Blakely placing a hummingbird in your hands for the briefest of seconds and then telling you to release it to the garden.

One such hummingbird is this excerpt from Cheever's essay, "A Miscellany of Characters That Will Not Appear." Cheever is describing the ascent and descent of an imaginary popular writer and criticizes the final works thusly:

You might say that he had lost the gift of evoking the perfumes of life: sea water, the smoke of burning hemlock, and the breasts of women. He had damaged, you might say, the ear's innermost chamber, where we hear the heavy noise of the dragon's tail moving over the dead leaves.

I have read those two sentences over and over for the last few days. I read them and smell the ocean. I read them and recall the smoke of New Year's Eve. I read them and hear the dragon's tail moving over the dead leaves.

I have written very little in the last few months. Chalk it up to any number of reasons: the press of life, family issues, Warren's and my schedules, niggling little medical problems that have put me in medical offices, the needs and demands of others, a lingering and persistent depression threaded through the holiday season. I pick up a pen to write, then set it aside. My inner ear is not damaged, but I am not listening well. I am mistaking the rumble of the weekly garbage truck for the heavy noise of the dragon's tail.

As I often do when in this place, I am scaling back everywhere I can, cutting the daily demands down to the smallest size possible. I am focusing on the small moments: writing letters to close friends, cooking savory meals, paying attention to the intense blue of the daytime sky when I am outside. My smallest moment occurs each evening when I warm a corn bag in the microwave and then read with it on my lap. (Corn bags, for the uninitiated, are large pieces of terry cloth (bigger than a washcloth, smaller than a dishtowel) sewed first to make a sack, partially filled with dried field corn, and then sewn shut.) A warmed corn bag has the weight of a fat puppy and the smell of a corncrib on a hot day. It radiates heat and comfort far beyond the physical. When bedtime draws close, we warm up several such bags and throw them under the bedclothes to take off the chill. I often drift off to sleep with the smell of harvest time lacing the air.

2012 holds great promise, I hope and believe. For now, though, it is just beyond the tip of my pen. For now I can only trust that I am building up a store of ideas and impressions and sentences. Somewhere there is sea water. Somewhere there is the sound of the heavy dragon's tail moving over dead leaves. Somewhere I will return to writing.

Counting Down

The ending days of this waning year have been piling up, one on top of the other. We are down to the dregs of 2011, and I for one am ready to put the year to rest. This has been an exhausting year at any level. Margo and I were discussing the year over coffee just yesterday, exclaiming at the fact that so much happened worldwide that has already faded from her and my daily consciousness: the Japanese tsunami, the Joplin tornado, the Arab spring. I wondered aloud whether they had faded because of the nature of news (in that we are always moving on to the "next" story), or whether they had faded because, on mental overload constantly, I let more and more slip through my fingers.

Back in the old days, when I first started practicing law in a small firm here in town, the last two weeks of the year were always a hectic time. Clients always rushed to get done in the last two weeks of the year what they should have done earlier, very often related to gift or charitable giving for tax purposes. Files would pile up precariously on the conference room table; staff members would be rushing to get copies made or documents corrected; lunches were discouraged. But in the midst of the rush and chaos, there was always that exquisite moment when the senior attorney would announce, "that's all we can do this year. We'll start again after New Year's. Close the doors."

I want to say that in my personal life. "That's all I can do for this year. Close the doors."

I worked this morning until early afternoon. Out of hours for the week, I then walked home. I am done at the office for the rest of this year, a luxurious sounding phrase if there ever was one. I just mailed off the Christmas boxes to Ben and Alise and Sam. I have nothing on my schedule, nothing of my calendar, nothing calling my name until 2012.

Close the doors.

****
Two updates from 2011 blogs. (1) I have not yet found my grandmother's popcorn ball recipe. I didn't even make popcorn balls this year - not because of the loss, but because of time and being too rushed on too many fronts. (2) Back in August, I predicted that our local legal clinic would see over 250 clients for the first time in its eight years of existence. Indeed, the Andrews House/Delaware County Bar Interfaith Legal Clinic saw and provided services to 254 clients (including a Wills Clinic that served 16) in 2011. By comparison, we served 206 in 2010. That's a 23% increase in one year. While deeply sorry to see that record set in terms of the community difficulties, I am proud to be associated with the many volunteers who make the Clinic happen month after month.

Mending

Mending is on my mind these days.

I am talking about mending in its simplest terms, which is “to make something broken, worn, torn, or otherwise damaged whole, sound, or usable by repairing.”

Mending used to be a kind of old-fashioned idea. Ma Ingalls mended. Marmee mended. Grandmothers mended. Tinkers mended. During World War II, the slogan “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” became a watchword for making sure you didn’t waste valuable food and resources that were needed for the war effort. Mending was a way to support the troops. I still use a pot that was probably mended around that time; my grandfather reattached the handle with a big nut rather than throw it out.

But then we forgot about mending. We got accustomed to tossing the shirt or the pan when it was broken instead of trying to mend. Let’s face it: it was faster and more fun to buy a new one.

In these recession-battered times, however, mending has seen a revival as more and more of us try to get more and more use out of our belongings. The difficulty is remembering how to mend. Too many of us have lost the skill.

I thought of mending the other night as I sat and, well, mended. I had two umbrellas, each with a rib where the stitching had pulled, and a pair of pantyhose that I had poked a toe through. Ten minutes, a little thread, a little stitching, and the umbrellas were whole again and the hose wearable for several more weeks.

When I mend, I sit with a green sewing box that has always been in my life. It originally belonged to my mother. As a little girl, I thought it was the height of elegance, with its green quilted covering. Somewhere along the line, my mother bought a bigger and fancier sewing box, and I inherited the one from my childhood.

I never look at that sewing box without thinking of mending. And sometimes when I think of mending, I mean the simplest definition applied on a larger scale.

Tikkun olam is a Jewish concept of repairing the world to make it whole again. By practicing tikkun olam, we are mending the world. We are making whole something damaged.By practicing tikkun olam, we are also revealing godliness in the world. In Judaism, that is called Kiddush Hashem, or “sanctifying the Divine Name.”

 The Gospels speak to this duty as well:

Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.  (Matthew 5:14-16, The Message)

Richard Stearns, the author of The Hole in Our Gospel makes this point with stunning accuracy: we cannot sit "smugly in our comfortable bubbles and claim no responsibility for the disadvantaged in our world. God did not leave us that option... Faith and work must be put back together again. We must move beyond an anemic view of our faith as something only personal and private, with no public dimension, and instead see it as the source of power that can change the world. Faith is the fuel that powers the light that shines in the darkness."

As with our everyday mending skills, we are too often out of practice with mending the world. We shrink from the task. It is too overwhelming. We forget that we are not charged with righting every wrong.

But mending is a small step. Mending is taking something close at hand, be it a damaged umbrella or a damaged spirit, and repairing the tear. Mending is strengthening a loose button or a shaky friend. Sometimes we use a needle and thread to mend something. Sometimes we use duct tape. Sometimes we use our hearts.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, starts tonight at sunset. Tonight also marks the start of the High Holidays, the holiest days of the Jewish calendar. The High Holidays are a time of reflection and repentance.

And they are a time of mending the world, one small stitch at a time.

 I'm linking up with Michelle over at Graceful today.

2011

The new year came in quietly with our staying home, watching old home movies until after two in the morning. There was a flurry of bottle rockets and Roman candles outside at midnight and we went to the kitchen to see them light up the sky, kissing while we stood there to celebrate the turn of the calendar.

The first day of 2011 dawned gray and rainy. We took a walk in the late morning, in between the storms passing through. The day was mild; by late afternoon, there was even sunshine spilling across the yard.

2010 is behind us now. It was a year of mixed reviews. As Warren and I walked, I asked him what he hoped 2011 held for us. He thought a moment, then observed that 2010 had been pretty good, but that he hoped "some areas" would go a bit smoother this year. What areas? Well, keeping the pace more controlled this year so things weren't quite so hectic and packed all the time.

I sighed. Me too. 2010 had been brutal on our schedules and personal time.

We walked on, talking of this and that. We walked past the house he'd lived in until he was ten: a small post-war cottage that featured prominently in the oldest of the movies we'd watched the night before. While we walked, Warren commented several times on the number of houses needing painting. I noticed the number of empty houses dotting our neighborhood.

The Great Recession hangs on tight here in Ohio, as it does in so many other places. Recovery, when it comes, will be long and slow. In Ohio, we have a projected deficit of over eight billion dollars for the next two-year budget cycle. The governor-elect has yet to announce his ideas as to how to proceed, but has already made comments, as have the Republican leaders in the statehouse, indicating the neediest and least protected are likely to be offered up first in the form of cuts to school funding, Medicaid, and other social services. 

If only it were that easy. The crisis is so deep that even the conservative, pro-Republican Columbus Dispatch ran an article today in which the writers noted:

Despite what you may have heard during the campaign this fall, there is no way state leaders can save billions simply by "trimming fat" or "enacting efficiencies" that won't be noticed. Experts will tell you that most of the low- and even medium-hanging fruit has already been harvested to balance the current budget, which suffered from an unprecedented drop in tax revenue.

Rather, state leaders will soon learn a political truism: Talking about cutting the budget is easier than actually cutting it. Perhaps that is why nearly every prior state budget crisis was at least partially fixed with tax increases, regardless of which party was in charge.

Last Monday we were in Detroit for part of the day. Detroit is one big empty town. It is almost a ghost town, which is sad and disturbing. There are many reasons for Detroit's plight, and I don't pretend to be able to write about them knowingly. But I also don't pretend to "not know" that when the Detroit auto industry was booming with a strong workforce paid good wages with benefits, Detroit had a large middle class of blue collar workers who were able to buy cars, buy houses, pay for their medical treatment, and send their children to college. And now Detroit is row after row, street after street of empty, boarded up, decaying houses and commercial buildings. Elizabeth, who was with us that day, was nervous in downtown Detroit and kept worrying out loud about our being "shot at or something." There was no one there to shoot at you.

Another sigh. The Great Recession will be with us for another year. At least.

And yet, on a personal level, 2010 was a year full of wonderful events: Ben and Alise's wedding, Sam starting college, triumphs by the Symphony, our travels. It was a year full of love and family and friends. It was the year of the Big Buffalo.

Wednesday night of the dying year we had our friends Linda and Mark over for supper. It was a simple meal with simple food: oven-roasted potato wedges, some ham from Christmas, a salad. Homemade applesauce. We sat around the table and told stories and basked in the warmth of good friendship and the good flavors on our plates. Even though the recession has bit hard into all of our lives, the lights and the laughter and the simple act of our gathering pushed away the darkness, even if only for one evening.

I began writing this longhand on the raggedy end of the first day of 2011. Warren was in the basement, playing scales on his xylophone. Ribs were slow baking in the oven and the rich smell of barbeque sauce carried through the house. Later that evening, Warren, Elizabeth, and I sat long at the table, talking and eating while the angel chimes spun around, delicately making its little tings. The candles were guttering low by the time we pushed back from the table. We spent the evening together watching Elizabeth's all-time favorite movie, "Pocahontas," before heading to bed.

2010 is over. 2011 is here.

This morning, the sun came in a blaze of glory.

The Franz Klammer in Me

Let me make one thing clear from the get-go: I don't ski. The last time I skied, some thirty years ago, I fell and tore enough ligaments in my knee to have to be rescued by the Ski Patrol. They put me in a small sledge and skied me over to a Sno-Cat operator, who took me on down the mountain to the ski lodge, where I gratefully embraced the warmth and accepted the painkillers proffered to me.

So, I don't ski. But I like the idea of skiing. I like the idea of all that speed as you fly downhill.

(Note: cross-country skiing is not skiing, in my book. Cross-country skiing is just going for a long, awkward hike with boards strapped to your feet.)

My all-time favorite Olympic memory, more so even than the 1980 "Miracle on Ice," is that of Austrian Franz Klammer winning the gold medal in downhill in 1976 in Innsbruck. I still remember sitting on the edge of the couch watching and screaming at the television as he flashed across the finish line. At times he was skiing on the edge of one ski, almost certain to go over on his side. At times he was airborne as he hurtled towards the finish. Ski commentators still call Klammer's gold medal run one of the greatest (and most daring) ever.

It was Franz Klammer whose spirit I invoked today when I posted "standing at the top of the ski run to the end of 2010" as my Facebook status. 

Discussions of the holidays and what to do, or not to do, for Christmas are starting to fill the airwaves. My friend Tonya emailed me about it last night. In answering Tonya this morning, I replied: My Christmas spirit I think this year is quiet - not gone, but very soft-spoken. I am trying to avoid the "one big 'to do' list" feeling and really, really trying hard not to get caught up in expectations (mine or others) of what Christmas "should" be to be "perfect." My friend Sharon blogged about it this morning, asking what readers were doing to simplify Christmas. In answering her, I borrowed from my note to Tonya, then added: And that is where I am trying to stay this year. I am trying to conscientiously weigh what I am doing and why, and making my choices from there.

No matter what I vow to do about Christmas, I know that at some point the collective piles of holly and mistletoe, along with the decked halls and visions of sugarplums, will hit staggering heights.  That's even before I add all of the "wrap up the old year and start the new one" tasks. Before too much longer, I will be poised at top of a dauntingly long run whose end is way, way, way off there. This weekend was just a warm-up run.

It's a slippery slope indeed, this end of the year trickiness, and one on which I don't want to lose my balance. I will check and double-check my bindings and adjust my goggles one more time before I push off from the starting gate. I want to slice down that icy hill at breakneck pace and feel the skis cut through the snow. I want to flash across the finish line, upright and victorious.

I want it to be Innsbruck all over again. I want to be Franz Klammer.

L'shana Tova

Rosh Hashanah begins here in a few more hours, when the sun sets. It is the start of both the Jewish New Year and the High Holidays, which end ten days later at the conclusion of Yom Kippur.

The High Holidays - the holiest days of the Jewish calendar - are a time of reflection and repentance.

Today is one of those brilliant, crisp, early fall days that holds all of the promise of the season. I find autumn to be the most invigorating time of the year and I thought about Rosh Hashanah as I walked home just now from an afternoon meeting. I always loved the fact that the Jewish New Year began in the fall, instead of in the dead of winter. When I actively practiced Judaism many years ago, I looked forward to this time of year - for the call to self-examination and reflection, true, but also for the visceral pleasure of exiting the synagogue on a crisp fall night and breathing in the newness and solemnity of the year being born.

Traditionally, honey and honey desserts are eaten at Rosh Hashanah, to symbolize the wish for a sweet year. Over the weekend, Warren and Elizabeth baked a honey-soaked baklava and there is still some left. Last night as the three of us shared the dessert, I mentioned to Elizabeth that, without intending to, she had managed to make a dish that was very appropriate for this time of year. By happenstance, I am meeting a Jewish friend for coffee tomorrow morning, and I will carry a piece of the baklava with me so that we both might taste the hope for a sweet year.

I have not written much about my spiritual beliefs in this blog. They change with time and I think I am in the middle of one such change right now. I know, though, that the qualities that drew me to Judaism over thirty years ago are still compelling. One of those is the emphasis on the individual to take moral responsibility for his or her actions, including making up for one's wrongs to others. An equally compelling concept is that of tikkun olam, or "repairing the world," a belief that each of us has a duty to make the world a better place. Along with the inspiration of my grandmother, my belief in tikkun olam has probably shaped my community work as much as anything.

The day is winding down. The new year awaits.

L'shana tova (a good year).

Looking Backwards and Forward

We are down to the dregs of 2009 and I am in that contemplative state that befalls many of us this time of year. I find myself sifting through the last twelve months - What did I accomplish? What took place? - as well as contemplating the next twelve - What will I accomplish? What will happen?

It is appropriate that the first month of our calendar is named after the Roman god Janus. Janus was always represented as having two faces looking in opposite directions. To the Romans, he was the god of gates and doors, doorways, beginnings and endings, and transitions. To me, he is a reminder of the bittersweet nature of my thoughts at this time of year.

2009 brought much good to my life. It was the year of my great garden adventures, of both of my sons making some sweeping lifestyle changes (I believe for the better), of greatly satisfying accomplishments both professionally and as a volunteer, of a rich and full life with Warren, of one amazing Symphony season ended (the 30th) and another one begun that will reach fruition in 2010 (the 31st). It has been an incredible year full of warmth and support and love and friendship and joy, so much so that I would stitch its memories into a quilt if they had tangible form.

And yet…

And yet I have to temper my assessment of 2009 with the reality of the Great Recession and its impact on family, friends, and community. Holiday cards arrived bearing news of difficult times. Both of my sons are looking for work, having spent much of 2009 unemployed. We saw 168 clients at our community's free Legal Clinic this year, a 83% increase over 2008. Our local United Way last spring had fewer dollars for more needs as job losses took away from the former and increased the latter. (As I write those words, I am already gearing up for the allocation discussions to come this spring.)

So many of us - institutions and individuals alike - did more and more with less and less in 2009.

I expect 2010 to follow suit. I believe the Great Recession will hang on longer at the grassroots level than the pundits and politicians realize or admit. It will change us as a people, as a community, and as individuals, just like the Great Depression did 80 years ago.

And yet…

And yet I am not soured on this year now ending or the one to come. Scrooge sneeringly denounced the Christmas season as "a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer." I am no Pollyanna - these times are hard and many of us are not only not an hour richer, but many hours poorer to boot - but I am no Scrooge either. I see the year now ending as one which gave me many gifts and responsibilities in these hard times; I see the year about to begin as being endless in opportunities.

I am not one to make New Year's resolutions. If I could not make life changes during the course of the year, why should I think there is any magic to making one now? So I will make no pronouncements here or anywhere as to how much weight I hope to lose or how much I intend to exercise or how many blog posts I hope to write in the year to come.

Instead, I have a sense in my heart of which projects will rise to the top of my list for 2010 and of what I plan on planting in my gardens - literal and figurative - in the months to come. Some of them will undoubtedly make their way to this blog. Time will tell.

Two centuries ago, the sage Hillel said "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself only, then what am I? And if not now, when?" Decades ago, I posted that saying on my wall above my desk. I have had it committed to memory for almost as long. I take it out now and hold it up against this time of year, against endings and beginnings, against old and new.

It has served me well all this time. It will guide me again in the year to come.

As I finish these words, it is early Sunday evening. A thick snow, the thickest yet of this winter, is silently scrolling down out of the dark, blanketing the lawn, kissing the outdoor holiday lights. By morning, our neighborhood will be a white slate upon which to write the day.

2010 - a long, clean slate upon which to write the year - is waiting.