In my head

It is quite possible to wear mala beads daily as a reminder to be present, and still find your thoughts taken over by family strife. This angers me. These issues barely deserve my thoughts; they are not my problem. We receive the ripples of the actual problem, and it's up to us not to let it overtake our emotions, especially when we have no control over any possible outcome.

Heather B. of beautythatmoves is hosting a Hibernate workshop in January. I've found my gift to myself this holiday season.

*****

I ache with Mandela's passing.

Checked Long Walk to Freedom out of the library the next day. The only reason I didn't buy it that day is because thanks to the purchase of a new washing machine, we are poor as church mice for the next 2 weeks.

I read it about 10 years ago, on a whim, and it, along with Kingsolver's exquisite fiction The Poisonwood Bible, stirred my interest in African history. I never retained much history in my schooling; I considered it boring and the teachers I had did not help matters, as they were, for the most part, a stuffy and monotonous lot. As an adult, my brain's finally mature enough to see different sides, and the layers of these stories are fascinating. Also fascinating are the number of fallacies that make themselves known, the difference between what I was taught in grade school and what we know to be true today (or think we know to be true). Imagine how different history will read in another 50 years...

Watched Obama's speech at Mandela's memorial today. It was just boilerplate enough to piss me off and set me wondering how many white men are still on the speechwriting staff at the big white house. Mandela wasn't a pacifist or even a thunderous orator, so why compare him to Gandhi or Dr. King? Because those are people quoted just often enough to make a dent in the short attention spans of the populace?

I'm a fan of President Obama; I've drunk the Kool-Aid and am among the whiners who believe he is a great man who won't leave nearly the mark he should in history, because he's stuck with a tight-assed Congress that's petrified of social change. I just wish he'd had the time to throw some more of himself into that speech.

*****
The holiday tree is up, a handsome artificial model from Lowe's that was a bit of a splurge, but looks much better than any of the crap they were hawking at Walmart. Bought it at the same time as the new washing machine, so there was a bit of holiday cheer to accompany the sting of throwing down $400+ cash on our first real major appliance. Les's mom bought our first set used, as a house warming, from a nice enough mom-and-pop outfit in Asheville, but we looked at their inventory and realized the last thing we wanted was to be in the same boat a year from now, with another broken down machine.

The soft light of the tree in the living room in the evenings is like a blessing. I'm itching to make some new ornaments. Those we have are OK, but hold little history. It needs some garland too. I'd love to make a construction paper chain for it, but finishing knitting of holiday gifts has to come first.

Image from here.