January. Digging out and throwing away. That stack of mail arrived yesterday after being held for a week … luckily amid the junk and catalogs there were about 20 fabulous Christmas cards! And the folks at our nursery school have finally put their foot down and insisted that I bring home the pile of art that has accumulated over the last couple of months. The eternal dilemma of parenthood: what to keep (10%) and what to throw away (90%?)? The early chicken scratch writing definitely has a special place in my heart (check out her fabulous R’s) … but we would drown if it kept it all. So, back to one of my favorite tasks in life: throwing things away!

The new year has dawned rainy and bleak. We’re stuck in the house and everyone is crawling the walls (save daddy who’s been on a conference call since 8am). Tomorrow morning’s school day can’t come soon enough. We’ve already been to Target and Bread & Circus and I’ve made about six kinds of organic vegetables and homemade chicken nuggets for the children. And it’s 9:50. Diego here we come …

An oldie but goodie that gives me solace in a time of such change and flux:

….have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
– Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The last night of the year. As usual new year’s has me reflective and introspective, and somewhat sad. Matt and I put the children to bed (Gracie in her new sleeping bag from QB, on top of her bed!) and then I made dinner – a delicious rack of lamb from Savenor’s which we had with a beautiful 1975 Medoc that Eric gave us last week. And homemade brownie sundaes for dinner. Yum.
I will keep details until everything is final, but big changes coming up for the Mead-Russell family. 2007 is going to be a year of transition, changes, new opportunities. This fall, and the process at Providence, has raised a lot of issues and questions for me. I realized that I’ve lost sight of ME in the past few years; my identity as myself has been subsumed by that as mother, wife, employee, board member, etc. I need to find some ways to get the essential LEM back. Working on it. I am optimistic, at least on some fronts. Picture above is in honor of that effort. Many thanks to those who offered wise counsel and patient listening as I worked through the pros and cons of this Providence opportunity. Ultimately, providence intervened – I will provide details as soon as I am able.
So, goodbye to a good year, a year with some upheaval and much status quo. And we open the door on a new year, sure to have more changes and less status quo. As we know, the only constant in this world is change. The challenge for me is to learn to embrace it. And so much love to those who are dearest to me – you know who you are.

“Never travel in a line if you want an education.” – Reynolds Price, The Surface of Earth

“Ah, I have asked for too much, I plainly see.” – Ovid, The Loves

“Her life stayed closer to the skin than most people’s.” – Alan Gurganus, Blessed Assurance

“Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.” – Danny Kaye

I’m sitting in front of this gorgeous vista in the pouring rain. We had a lovely Christmas, with presents and breakfast at home with Nana and Poppy followed by a blessedly uneventful (though woefully short on Whit sleeping) ride to Vermont. When we got here we bundled the children up (unnecessary as it was 40 degrees) and let them run wild in the fields outside the house. Grace and Whit were excited to see Grandma and Grandpa (and Whit has added “Bobo” to his ever-expanding vocabulary, which means Grandpa). Everyone crashed early and is still tired today so we are having a day of vegging in front of the TV and the computer (and Matt is, given, on a conference call). The rain contributes to the day-after, let-down mood around here. My present was a great new camera so I’m going to spend some time figuring that out!
I’m putting off emailing Glenn to tell him I can’t take my dream job. Sob. Need to do that today.
I like the picture of the children and me because I imagine that we’re looking forward into 2007.

Yesterday: a day of naps and decisions.

Morning was Grace, Matt, Marti, and John at the Pops while Whit and I went to the Lavallees’ brunch in Chestnut Hill. We all came home and passed out – Matt on the couch, Whit in his crib/cage, and Gracie and I in our bed. It was heavenly. Then more frenetic activity: stopping by the Brennans’ (where Grace kept eating the raspberries from the bar, intended for the bellinis, and incurred the bartender’s wrath), dropping the children at home, and then hitting the Jacques/Shattuck party and finally dinner at the Harvest bar (our favorite place). Yesterday was apparently THE day for festivities – we missed the van Ogtrops’ party and also the Youngs’ tree trimming.

At the bar, over burgers and zinfandel, there was some reckoning.

I am not taking the Providence job.
Matt is pursuing his opportunities in New York.

Here comes 2007, with a commuter relationship and a studio apartment in the City …

“And so we turn the page over/ to think of starting. This is all there is.” -John Ashberry

“Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.” – Tennessee Williams

“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.” – Richard Bach