Yule Letter 2010

Dear Friends and Loved Ones; ?/20??
It’s the day after finals, and the whir, hum and moan of winter’s wind has been beating against the house like an ambient drone since the wee hours of yesterday morning. All of life is quiet, except for the fact that it all sounds as if it’s taking place inside a tunnel. The dogs are curled up on the couch and fresh coffee is brewing. Winter is here.
I decided to take a page out of my mother’s playbook this year and throw presumed deadlines out the window. This letter will be finished and mailed when I have time, and not a moment before. Those of you who routinely receive my mother’s letter around Valentine’s Day will understand.
The reason being is that this fall semester, my first at Kent State, took on an entirely different tempo than anything I’d grown accustomed to previously at Lakeland. The satellite campus at Ashtabula is startlingly diverse, with many openly practicing Pagans, Buddhists, and Hindus studying right alongside the Christian/Agnostic majority. Ashtabula is desolate at first glance, but a closer look reveals the shabby, weather-worn makings of an artistic scene. It reminds me a bit of downtown West Palm Beach, Florida in 1989: it’s on the verge of everything.
This fall I decided Lord Ganesh was in need of a new consort on the altar in my office. The Hindu God of success, remover of obstacles and bestower of blessings on all new beginnings is now accompanied by the Millennial Gaia, She who is pregnant with Herself; the Great Mother of us all. My ongoing prayer is for prolific creativity. So as I sit here now, resplendent in the knowledge that I don’t HAVE to write anything for anyone other than myself, I am exhaling and letting the dust of this past year fall around me like snow, so that I may see it, make sense of it, and draw from it some articulate locution for you all.
This past year has been one of healing and transformation. Some days felt like scabs being ripped away from old wounds, while others shed light on the realization that a little air might be just what that old wound needed.
Mike sold his Ultra-Classic last winter fully believing that Medical Mutual would finally fund his long awaited (15 years!) knee replacement surgery. After all, what’s the point of making payments on a bike you can’t ride? But once again, they re-nigged and Mike was forced to endure yet another year of cortisone shots and pain relief prescriptions. They have seen fit to approve his surgery this year, thank the Gods, for there is no amount of massage therapy, cortisone or vicadin that can alleviate bone on bone pain. It’s been a long time coming, but once he completes his rehabilitation, his seventy year old knee will finally be able to keep up with his forty-seven year old body which is under the impression that he is still twenty-one.
I suffered the ludicrous humiliation of getting fired from Family Dollar. Their explanation made so little sense,(I hit the register keys too hard?) that I managed to write a blisteringly funny thirty-seven page story all about the petty small town politics that seem to run small town businesses. Interestingly enough, unemployment has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Virginia Woolf is famous for her advice to female writers. She believed that the masculine slant on written history was merely the end result of a patriarchal monopoly on the written word. A woman aiming to correct this imbalance must first accomplish three things: she must marry well, accrue an annual stipend of her own and she must have a room of her own, a sacred space in which she may cultivate her talent away from any menial day to day interruptions.
Now marrying well may sound arcane in today’s language, but as my past life in New York can attest, it really does take two people working full time to get one artist off the ground. I would be lying if I didn’t admit my gratitude at finally being the sole artist in the relationship. I’m afloat in the land of student loans now, so I imagine that’s my annual stipend and the room we were saving for a nursery has been converted into a cozy little writing room. Ms. Woolf would be proud!
Ganesh and Gaia oversee everything as the altar is situated at my back as I write. Their magic has been working. I am prolific. This fall I have managed to write several short stories as well as a short play. Being surrounded by young twenty-somethings at school has also managed to bring my poetry writing back to life. More importantly, I’ve found a few publishers I am eligible to submit to. This is a step I have never undertaken before, in part because I didn’t know how, but also because I just never had the time to decipher the whole process before. I am finally living the life of a full time writer and I couldn’t be happier. Also now that I’m completing the course work for my major, English Literature, I have an insurmountable list of books to read each semester. I don’t know that I would have had enough time for my studies if I still had a “job”.
Lastly it is with great regret that I touch upon the sadness of this past year briefly. As we watched big oil cut open Mother Earth and let her bleed out in the Gulf of Mexico, I was more distressed by how helpless I felt than anything else. Mike shipped a box of Dawn dishwashing liquid down to help with the animal rescue but beyond that, we didn’t know what else to do. Then we witnessed not one, not two but three people in our family fall ill with cancer. I can’t help wondering if there is a correlation between the way we treat our planet and the way we treat ourselves. With only my words to offer I share this prayer with you for the coming New Year.
Dear sweet Mother Earth, the Mother of all Mothers, Great Mother of us all, created from Light and Love ,the Mother of all the Heavens, who performed the Great Rite with Eros, and is thus the Mother of all humanity and Life upon her own dark fleshy soil, we offer you barley and honey, and all our honor and respect. We entreat you go forth with Ganesha, who is Lord of all infinite wisdom, who disperses all barriers to success, in his pine grove he shall heal you, Great Mother, and feed you fine oranges and gold. Let the union of Gaia and Ganesha, heal the wounds of the Great Mother’s crust in the Gulf of Mexico. Let Lord Ganesha remove the obstacles in the way we treat cancer at present, that make the therapy as painful as the disease. Let the ultimate cure gestate within Gaia. May we heal our planet. May we heal our people. May we unite in peace and harmony to bless one another in love and compassion from now until eternity.
Blessed be to you all this 2011. May the wheel of the year treat you kindly.
Love, Mike, Gabby, Frankie, and Mavis