I have been hopelessly muddled in a blog post that, if anything, is becoming more muddled as time goes on. It seems that all I can do is admit that sometimes life is more transparent than at other times, and move on to something else.
So I present a few progress notes.
1. I am still washing blanket squares. They are filthy and covered in cat hair and the process has been slow. At least until yesterday, when I made a concerted effort to move forward. I remembered the large sweater blocking board my mom had insisted I bring home the last time I saw her — at the beginning of the year. I did not know what to do with it, or where to store it so it was still in the garage. Yesterday I brought it in to the basement storage room and laid it on the floor next to my smaller gray blocking board. Although you cannot quite tell from the angle of this crude photograph, the white board has three times the blocking space as the smaller gray board. I filled it with wet blanket blocks yesterday. They are taking about 28 hours to dry in the December damp and tomorrow I will wash the last batch. This prospect sparks a little happy dance. Of course the job will not yet be done: I will have to begin the process of planning, repairing, knitting and reassembling.
2. Christmas decorations remain in flux, although truthfully I rarely get the decorating done before the third Sunday of Advent (last Sunday) as much as I always intend to do better. This year progress has been complicated by the fact that I cannot access the holiday ornaments until after I get wet blanket squares off the floor. So it will be later yet. There is still plenty of time. Christmas merely begins on Christmas Day. I always appreciate the period of preparation, of Advent, with its highs and lows, with its call toward mindfulness and care, with the knowledge that each year’s preparation will follow its own path.
This rustic tree is out. But by next weekend my grandmother’s crèche and the sparkly glass trees I purchased the year that I spent Christmas in a small apartment will be out and greenery will be up as well. I am as yet undecided about a traditional tree. The personal, the intimate, connection and kindness are what matter to me this year, including kindness to myself. I am not so much about putting up a brave front as about celebrating joy in the midst of darkness. No floodlights here, merely candles, candles whose light is warmly appreciated. A phone call or zoom, food delivered, a socially distanced glass of wine or cup of cocoa, a note, all are their own kind of lights in the darkness.
3. Surprises are still welcome. This blanket arrived. The purple of the blanket is almost exactly the purple of my couch. Poncho and Moises think it coordinates nicely with their fur. I assume, in time, all will be revealed.
And so I muddle through. I don’t think muddling is a bad thing. Just as the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, the opposite of confusion is not certainty.