Happenings: Bringing in a new year

We have had a wonderful time to be together this Winter Solstice — we did many of the things we set out to do; relax, clean up the house a bit and get into the studio, eat biscuits with jam (and marmalade — thank you to the beautiful bread members who shared their Autumn Olive Jam and Ginger Orange Marmalade with us — so delicious!), and spend a really lovely day in Brunswick. We can’t recommend Reverie Coffee House enough- it has fantastic coffee, is a supercute place, and is committed to local crafts and community. We also adored The Mix art supply store, where I found some lovely Maine-made metallic watercolors, and D got a great little set of fancy colored pencils and a calligraphy kit. We loved visiting Beth and Gary at Gulf of Maine Books — hearing stories about Gary Snyder and Lucy Lippard and buying books by both. We found treasures at Bull Moose; D got a goddess coloring book, I scooped up the Kim Deal album, and J got me the new Laurie Anderson. D bought a wooden spoon treasure from The Nest (where I could get lost for days), and we even had a good run in Morning Glory Natural Foods where I knew (and was right) I could get some Naan and now know I can get Wild Fruitings mushrooms, too!

We then went down to Portland to the Victorian Mansion for their holiday tour (all rooms are inspired by different holiday stories and decorated by professional designers). D is a junkie for all things Victorian right now (getting 2 crinolines, hair ribbons, and a chatelaine for gifts), so she was in her glory. Then we had brunch at Hot Suppa, our long-time favorite. We also hit Bard for some coffee and Rosemont on the Hill for snacks and a view of the old ‘hood and bay. At some point, J and I had a nice anniversary date (28 years!!!) at State Lunch in Augusta. And we ate at home like we weren’t worried about anything – lamb mechoui with gorgeous pinto potatoes (and then lamb gyro pizza), Ottolenghi sweet potatoes and chicken, pumpkin curry, peach crumble, breadboards with fancy cheese and fig/walnut bread, chocolate, and pomegranates, so many treats.

There was a little snow in there somewhere (and 50 degree rainy days), sushi luncheon with Nana (thank you for the lovely gifts! like Paco the giant goose!), homework on Washington’s Farewell Address, house repairs (water pressure problems, sump pump replacement, assessments, plans), movie watching, video game playing, dressmaking (for the Winterball!) and dance moves, board game playing, and art making. It was a great way to wind down from some bad habits and wind up into re-energizing our efforts.

The actual new year (for us and how the world actually functions biologically, astronomically, cyclically) is also the Solstice. Well, really every day is a new year but we don’t need to get into that. And some will question why we don’t just follow everyone else on their cultural calendars — claiming we are no fun. But it’s hard to be fun when the ‘holidays’ are built for folks who have the privilege of ignoring those who don’t and just make up ‘white culture’ as they see fit. It is strange to us, and not very fun at all. We’re adults, we can decide to jump on the bed and eat ice cream for dinner, we can choose to take care of folks better.

And this is where the homestead and the shop come together for us. If nothing else, if we can’t save everyone all the time, we can make better choices for a better world. We’ve tried out ‘social media’ and find that it is not the great equalizer or barometer of information; after a year of advertising and sharing our life there, we don’t necessarily see a benefit of more folks showing up for events or community (unless there is some drama happening, which we do appreciate the support when we are challenged). We’re not blaming folks, but the medium of flashy postscript hashtag fly-by-night engagement (and also Zuckerberg, he wasn’t great before, but now is worse for his support of fascism) is not for us. Word of mouth, deeper connection through our newsletter and blog, person to person relations — these suit us better.

Deeper engagements are our focus for this new year. Radical entanglements, deeper ecologies, intricate and discrete commitments, showing up for the community in the world we want to live in.