Presenting

What happens when one sends home baked goods to a sibling who is also a chef? 

That is the question that I accidentally answered this Christmas, when I decided to send some home baked kolaches to my brother. I hadn't ever sent them to him before, because I was of the opinion that the cookies were so easily available to him in Chicago that it would be silly to send him any. 

But it as Christmas and there were no parties due to covid. So, rather than cancel kolaches altogether this year, I decided to make a batch and send them off to my brother (and dad and one other lucky person). That would allow me to then eat some myself! 

After all, the whole reason I started making them was so that I could eat them. If I were in Chicago, then I would never have tried to bake them, because I would have just gone to the grocery store and bought them whenever I wanted them. 

The cookies themselves are not super hard to make. Involved, yes. A little complicated, but not that difficult. I hoped that the strawberry habenero jelly that I used would at least provide something a little different, a sweet heat treat. 

What I got was an immediate demand for recipe from my brother's girlfriend. A subsequent urgent demand from my brother for the recipe. Then lots of pictures of him trying the recipe. He became (his word) obsessed. 

So while I didn't explicitly give my brother a Christmas gift this year, I now feel like I accidentally gave him a cookie to bake. 

Unpack That

It was in 2006, I believe, that I was last at my childhood home with my own vehicle. My mother was always a bit of a pack rat (and I've taken after her there), and I wanted to take some things back to Idaho with me. Old school papers and such. Photos. I found a big plastic bin, and I shoved a bunch of papers into it, most of which were related to me, and loose photos. 

Over the years, and several moves, I've kept that bin. I rarely looked at the papers. Mostly, I would delve into it when I wanted pictures of my family. 

After my mom died last month, I went through the bin, paper by paper. I got to see things that she had touched, that she had chosen to save, that she had written. I was struck again by how similar my handwriting is to how hers used to be. 

It was as if I knew, somehow, that I wouldn't be able to go back to Illinois when she passed. And that I'd want, even need, something to help me connect and process. 

I'm still processing. Still reeling. Still considering what this all means. I've been thinking about the songs that I wrote after Chris Hill died. Some of the papers in the bin were of more recent vintage, things that I'd saved from college, and that included a list of those songs. But not all the lyrics, which I'm not sure I still have saved anywhere. 

Maybe I'll rewrite them, once I figure out how to play guitar accompaniment to them the melodies that I still recall and the choruses that are mostly still there. I think about recording the songs and posting them somewhere, but then I get this paranoid feeling that everything I've thought or written has already been thought or written before, that if I like the songs, then I must surely have copied them from something I heard. 

The physical bin that I unpacked and sorted is not the only bin being unpacked and sorted in my head right now. 

Jots and Tittles

I was already going a bit slower than normal this year in writing my book. My mom dying threw me for a loop, and I'm no longer expecting myself to publish before the end of the year. I want this book to be better than the ones before it, so I'm asking for criticism from my first reader that will help me make the book interesting to read. So far, he's giving that for sure. 

It won't be the first time that I've had to publish a year's book the following calendar year. It probably won't be the last. Life doesn't always give us what we expect. If 2020 has emphasized one life lesson, that would probably be it. We never know what the future might hold, whether in the next year, the next month or the next day. 

I'm finding it difficult to focus, and it's taking a lot of energy to keep up with my day job. I'm also putting a lot of energy into working out. Working out is good for me in many ways, but I also need to be careful about pushing my body too hard, because I am, at least in part, using exercise as a stress reliever. And I've got a lot to work through. 

Once I do finish my solo book, I want to update my trail guides. Then there's a kind of self-help and/or philosophy book that's tumbling about in my head. I don't know if I'm going to write it next or if I'm going to need more before I get to a place where I can. It depends on my confidence level at any particular moment. Do I feel like these ideas are important and that I can state them better than they might have been before? Or do I feel like these ideas are stupid and/or have already been written to death and/or I'm certainly not the best person to do the presenting of these ideas? 

I'm not sure how many of my ideas might have been written about before, because I'm still at the idea stage. I want to actually do some writing before doing any research. Otherwise, I'll be influenced by the reading of others' interpretations instead of presenting my own. But I have been thinking of revisiting some philosophy from college, specifically the book I wrote my senior essay on, Leibniz' Principles of Nature and Grace. If that book has influenced my ideas, then they're already influenced since I read it, thoroughly, before. 

My boss at work keeps reminding everyone looking forward to 2021 that nothing is going to magically change on January 1 (covid will still be here, etc...). It really annoys me when he does that, because when I bring that up, I'm trying to look at moving forward with a different attitude, internally. People want, perhaps need, milestones in their lives. Routine. Organization. Our calendar is designed to give us that. We get new weeks, new months and new years, all excellent inflection points, just waiting for someone to take advantage of them. I know that outside circumstances on January 1 will closely resemble those of December 31. But I can hope that attitudes can change. My own, if no one else's. 

The Hybrid Way

Back in March, we went remote from work pretty quickly, rather all at once. There were hesitations in the administration, but they did eventually cave to the push. Throughout the summer, I worked remotely because I had to. I wanted to be at the office, in large part because my living space is a studio apartment and my husband is home all day. 

In August, I got my wish. I was allowed to return since there was space enough for me to be socially distanced without impacting anyone who needed to be there for business purposes. While my work is more efficiently done in the office due to better internet and desk accommodations, it can be done remotely, business-wise. 

Another reason to be in office was so that I could use the Rec Center during the workday, but I quickly learned that when I went there, I'd come home with a cold. And it was probably in small part due to the fact that the showers were unable to provide hot water. Yeah, I'm not into cold showers post-workout. I balk at cool showers, heck, I balk at lukewarm showers. That wasn't cutting it. 

So, I requested and received permission to shift to a hybrid schedule that sees me in office 3 days a week and working from home 2. I'm liking the variety this schedule presents. And I really like being able to use my exercise release time from home, where I know the showers will be hot. Especially since that exercise is running outside in 30 degree weather... 

I find myself trying to imagine what it's going to be like after Covid. Will we actually all go back to the office? Will people shake hands again? Or will we never have an after Covid because not enough people take the vaccine? I could never have imagined a year ago that the changes that Covid has wrought would happen. So how can I possibly imagine what will happen in the future now? Before, I kind of expected that things would continue to be how they were, in general. Now, I'm not so sure. 

If you had told me a year ago that my entire department would go remote, I wouldn't have been able to guess why. This hybrid schedule is working well for me now. 

But who knows what the future will bring? 

Forgiveness

I am not the kind of worker who commonly makes mistakes. But the last couple weeks, I've been making a quite few at work. I forget things. I start to ramble. I click the clicks that shouldn't be clicked and forget to click the clicks that should!

I've also gained some weight. I've kept up, mostly, with exercise, but my diet has not been the best. Especially all the booze. Yeah, it was probably mostly the liquor. Mostly. 

And, for the first time in a long time, I snapped at my husband for pretty much no reason at all. I mean, there was an action on his part that caused my snapping, but his action was pretty irrelevant to my reaction. He could have said just about anything in that moment and I would have snapped. 

So, my mom died. 

Something that still feels slightly unreal, tinged with the hallmarks of a half-remembered dream. 

It doesn't matter what my relationship was with her at the end. She was still my mom. And I have good memories and bad. 

I am mourning. 

And I'm going to have to forgive myself for the mistakes I've made and will make as I go through this process. 

Berating myself for these mistakes is only going to add to the stress and the sorrow, and I don't like the way that makes me feel.