A Certain Destiny

The world is so beautiful from above.

We flew to LA a few days before christmas and it occurred to me, not only am I over my fear of flying, but the pure, unadulterated joy that I used to feel while sailing above it all had returned. Gads, it felt amazing, thrilling and tears came to my eyes with just the feeling of flight. I was thrilled, I was moved...and it was a perfect beginning to a week with my family.

There's no one in the world like the people I share my immediate being with: Made up of four other siblings, two brother in laws, my parents, two nieces, and my husband, my family could make up an entire village with their energy, ideas, and "man" power. You need a picture painted? Done. You need a cupboard made? Done. You need all the electronics in your house to speak with each other and have someone explain the directions to you? Done and Done. An amazing meal in minutes? Done! Whatever it is I crave, I turn, and there it is...filled. I never feel alone when I'm with this crowd. I never wonder what they're thinking about me, or wonder how they'll respond to something I say. Which is not to say the response is always a good one, or the thoughts are always positive, but it's a strange comfort zone. A lot of time is spent talking about the past and how it affects the future. A lot of time is spent talking about the future and what we'll think about that when it becomes the past. We watched home movies from when my mom was a teenager and talked about a man that affected my father as a boy so much it moved him to tears, now, 60-some-odd years later. Usually, our time together is spent talking about the next time we'll all be able to get together and when are we all just going to get it together and live next door to one another. The same way we start talking about what we'll be making for the next meal before the last spoonful of the first meal is even in our mouth. Give us food, drink and a never ending conversation and we're set. During the week to month we're home, we usually get to visit with at least two or three old, old friends of the family (a good friend of one of us, well, you know the saying, may as well be a good friend of all of us...whoever answers the door is the one to get into it first), they stop by the house and we happily oblige a trip down memory lane and in-depth questioning of the present. Most friends know we don't travel far from the homestead once the suitcase is set down and are happy to take on the entire clan, and their in-and-out addition to the convo, for at least an afternoon.

So, home for the holidays: the tree is up and the stockings are hung with care and leaving is always hard to do. The last day at my parents house found the remainder of us up on the back hill burning sheets of joss paper. We used the one that is half orange, half white-- my sister instructed us to put our bad ju-ju, our junk, our left over stuff we wanna get rid of, the feelings that we don't want to be weighed down by anymore, the crap we vow to change, we put that on one half of the sheet....the other half was where all our future, positive intentions rested, the thoughts and ideas and purpose we enter the new year with. I wish I had a photograph of it, it was funny and beautiful all at the same time. You know, when you light paper and it goes up in flames, you never quite realize the speed at which fire laps at paper or which way the wind will blow...so, with lots of hoots and hollars and a-'damn, i hope we don't start the new year off with singed eyebrows!'-thought, carefully balancing with our suspension of dis-belief that this little piece of paper and all the energy we just put on to it may actually affect our future, we had a crazy little time of it. Without a photo, I just have to hope I'll always remember that moment. I'm not a big "new year" fanatic. Meaning, I don't think the good or the bad or the luck or the unluck of the next 365 days of your life hang on the moment it turns midnight in whatever city you happen to be living in. But I'm really, really superstitious and if you hand me a symbol for something, I'm allll over that. I'm the first one to believe you need to go to the top of the hill and burn a little piece of paper.

But there's things to do back in SF and I know we have to go...

There's a lot of things coming up this year that I'm really looking forward to, the first one on the list is the solo show, A Certain Destiny, I'm having at Candystore on February 7th...and it sounds like most of the brood will be flying in for it. The second thing we're already planning is the booth for the National Stationary Show in May, a good time trip to the big apple--totally excited by all the ideas we're flying back and forth. This is gonna be another good year...

I'm so very thankful for the people in my life, especially RK, and the family I have and the time I get to spend with them all.
A hella lot (as the local kids say) of realizations in the last 365 days, I'm looking forward to soooo many more.