First, an announcement: Thank you to all who entered our plant drawing. Ali has picked out a lovely green specimen and randomly selected a winner. And that winner isâŠ
AMY H.!
Amy is a lawyer living in Chicago. She has a beautiful soprano voice and crushes it at CrossFit.
Weâll keep doing giveaways like this for you. So keep reading, and keep sharing the newsletter with friends you think would enjoy it.
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Dear Ali,
This weekend, I decorated our apartment for Christmas. A wreath studded with pinecones. A gingerbread house lined with royal icing and gum drops. A stocking my husbandâs grandmother made for us, intricately stitched, her name and the date inked with a Sharpie. The nativity set my great-grandmother brought back from Jerusalem. Itâs carved from balsa wood, and smells like cinnamon. A shepherd holds a lantern and a staff. Three camels stand watch. There are the familiar folds of Maryâs cloak, and the touching astonishment of the kings with their gifts. I arrange the characters around the manger. They are a gift in my hand: heavy and smooth, a reminder of people that proceeded me and a story thatâs been told for a long time.
I am searching for gifts like this: for instances of awe and peace. Not the freneticism of commercial Christmas, the âeverythingâs great!â glitter of tinsel. Little things. Bittersweet things. A string of lights. A sad carol on the radio. A cup of cocoa. For some, grace is a glimpse of snow from a window. A bed. A meal. The red of a poinsettia petal. A card with a few words on it: hope youâre well. Someone, anyone, who loves us. This is grace. How do we deserve these things? How, possibly, can there be something good, especially for those of us who already have too much? I look at the last fractious year and think: the miracle is that it isnât always this bad. That we manage to live together at all.
Experiencing gracesâquieter and lonelier and more precious this yearâshow me that I should be better (much better) about extending grace to others.
Itâs easy to blame and judge. The travelers who boarded planes. Those who gathered for large feasts. Those who stay home, in isolation. Those who wear masks, those who donât. Those who want kids in school, or at home. Those who want businesses opened, or closed. Depending on your politics and point-of-view, any of these choices and opinions can feel like selfishness or idiocy, unadulterated evil.
I have my own views about whatâs right, whatâs reasonable. I become enraged when I feel those around me donât share them. How could they behave this way?
My anger sits in my shoulders, in my stomach. It shames me. It keeps me from seeing all of the accommodations that have been made for me when Iâve chosen foolishly, or upset someone else. It keeps me from seeing the ways in which things are complicated, and the ways in which they are not.
Perhaps itâs still possible to believe that most people (many, at least) are trying to do the best they can with what they know and what they have. Most people are not masterminds, or villains, entirely corrupted and beyond repair. Theyâre trying to do right by those they love. Theyâre trying to make sense of whatâs senseless: sickness and death. Often, they (I) make mistakes. Often, they (I) act out of hypocrisy. But itâs too easy to see malice where really thereâs just fear, or grief, or fatigue, or need. And itâs often too easy to disregard people (greedy, childish, petulant, irredeemable fools) at the expense of something like peace.
These weeks, Iâm looking to receive grace and give it: to understand, ask, comfort, serve. I canât wait to see you at our virtual Christmas gathering: all of us sitting in front of different trees, telling stories and putting on brave faces. Itâs sad, and insufficient, really not enough. Somehow, also, itâs a gift.
Love,
Kate
My book rec: Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Poetry often helps me notice the world more closely and graciously. Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong writes about grief, war, melancholy, and loss. He also allows for relief: a father saving a beached dolphin, gathering the âwet refugeeâ into his arms. âFireflies strung / through sapphired air.â I love this line: â& remember / loneliness is still time spent / with the world.â
The book:Â Night Sky with Exit Wounds
My rating:Â đđđđ
Read more:Â âThe amazing story of Ocean Vuong, former refugee and prize-winning poetâ