Well, I guess that's over
Dec. 28th, 2008 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersI'm back from Oregon, ready to recover from Christmas. I can't ever seem to get a handle on it, but Christmas is often the cruelest month for me. For whatever reason, it brings out feelings of guilt and inadequacy and uncertainty like nothing else. For the past few days I've been really out of balance emotionally, veering every which way. I don't get it. Everything was outwardly fine, it was great to spend time with my family, there were many reasons and occasions to feel thankful, yet I was still stressed out. Perhaps even glad feelings can be stressful or exhausting, but why this sense of failure? I don't get it.
Of course the weird winter weather played a part in throwing me out of my groove. I'm a creature of routine in many ways, and most of my routines were destroyed for days on end by the snow last week, from morning coffee to work to internet access to what clothes I wore to chores around the house (like shoveling snow). Yeah, maybe that's why this Christmas seemed even more intense than the past few. The lack of routine and the intrusion of the unexpected was disorienting to my poor pattern-seeking brain.
Well, as I say, there were many reasons to feel thankful, amidst the angst and confusion. This time last year, it was unclear whether my dad was going to survive his heart problems, and this year he seems to be doing real well, while obviously battered by the ordeal. I'd brought the recent collection of Budd Boetticher's Western films with Randolph Scott, and it evolved that Dad and I had the house to ourselves for a few hours on Boxing Day, so we watched Ride Lonesome. He slept through parts of it, as he does these days. He was intrigued with the supporting actors, including Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and a young James Coburn. It was just a nice thing to do with my father, just him and me. Joys too fierce to be express'd.
Another by-product of his improved health is that we will be taking another family vacation this year, courtesy of my parents. This year we'll be going to a resort in the Dominican Republic. These resort vacations seem so utterly bourgeois, but I've actually enjoyed them for the most part. It's a chance to hang out with the interesting characters in my family (except for my sister this year, who will be teaching and traveling in India), and a bit of tropical sun and sea is good for the spirits. Still, the point of these resorts is that they could be (and are) anywhere. Mass produced exotic luxury. This will probably be more like the Costa Rica trip two years ago than the Yucatan trip last year, which was actually a pretty interesting excursion in a foreign country.
Anyway, I returned today to a Seattle transformed. The snow is gone. It's over. The contrast with how it looked when I left on Wednesday was ... disorienting? Was the blast of arctic weather real, or was it Memorex? Hm. The withered banana plant says it was real. The physical world has its own memory. I was haunted in Oregon by memories of past Christmases in foreign lands, some of them tropical. Yap in 1998, for instance. Now that was a disruption of the traditional, and my mom seemed off balance because of it. That one wasn't so upsetting to me, because it was a voyage of rediscovery. Not sure that this year led to any discovery at all.
Of course the weird winter weather played a part in throwing me out of my groove. I'm a creature of routine in many ways, and most of my routines were destroyed for days on end by the snow last week, from morning coffee to work to internet access to what clothes I wore to chores around the house (like shoveling snow). Yeah, maybe that's why this Christmas seemed even more intense than the past few. The lack of routine and the intrusion of the unexpected was disorienting to my poor pattern-seeking brain.
Well, as I say, there were many reasons to feel thankful, amidst the angst and confusion. This time last year, it was unclear whether my dad was going to survive his heart problems, and this year he seems to be doing real well, while obviously battered by the ordeal. I'd brought the recent collection of Budd Boetticher's Western films with Randolph Scott, and it evolved that Dad and I had the house to ourselves for a few hours on Boxing Day, so we watched Ride Lonesome. He slept through parts of it, as he does these days. He was intrigued with the supporting actors, including Pernell Roberts, Lee Van Cleef, and a young James Coburn. It was just a nice thing to do with my father, just him and me. Joys too fierce to be express'd.
Another by-product of his improved health is that we will be taking another family vacation this year, courtesy of my parents. This year we'll be going to a resort in the Dominican Republic. These resort vacations seem so utterly bourgeois, but I've actually enjoyed them for the most part. It's a chance to hang out with the interesting characters in my family (except for my sister this year, who will be teaching and traveling in India), and a bit of tropical sun and sea is good for the spirits. Still, the point of these resorts is that they could be (and are) anywhere. Mass produced exotic luxury. This will probably be more like the Costa Rica trip two years ago than the Yucatan trip last year, which was actually a pretty interesting excursion in a foreign country.
Anyway, I returned today to a Seattle transformed. The snow is gone. It's over. The contrast with how it looked when I left on Wednesday was ... disorienting? Was the blast of arctic weather real, or was it Memorex? Hm. The withered banana plant says it was real. The physical world has its own memory. I was haunted in Oregon by memories of past Christmases in foreign lands, some of them tropical. Yap in 1998, for instance. Now that was a disruption of the traditional, and my mom seemed off balance because of it. That one wasn't so upsetting to me, because it was a voyage of rediscovery. Not sure that this year led to any discovery at all.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 06:47 am (UTC)My own holiday trip isn't done yet, and I was blessed with a welcome epiphany during the drive from Minneapolis to Chicago. But the guilt, inadequacy, uncertainty, angst, and confusion is there in full force, too. Right in there will all of the truly wonderful times, the joy of the days, and the wretched weather that every road seems to take me to.
Three cheers for the good news about your father's health, and for the upcoming family vacation, too.
As for the rest, I'd send you a new yardstick if I could.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 04:06 pm (UTC)Stay safe! I'm of course curious what your epiphany was.
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Date: 2008-12-29 07:00 am (UTC)Oh, and I'm being sarcastic. We finally got weather here in Bellingham on my way out of town last Wednesday.
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Date: 2008-12-29 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 02:45 pm (UTC)Tall piles of cleared snow sit around everywhere, though.
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Date: 2009-01-02 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-02 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 09:09 am (UTC)I register the point about the resorts. See this extension of the "Nine Nations of North America" concept into the rest of Mexico, in which all the resort areas are dotted together as "Club Mex" (which was a clever name until it started actually being used commercially).
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Date: 2008-12-29 04:11 pm (UTC)That's a fascinating map of Mexico. I'm particularly curious about the concept of New Spain, but I haven't had a chance to read the explanatory text yet.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-29 08:54 pm (UTC)