Thinking From the End on New Year's Eve

 "Erin," you might be saying to yourself, "what are you doing home on New Year's Eve in New York City?  The whole world is there, milling excitedly around Times Square, wearing those goofy glasses and blowing those annoying air horns!  Why aren't you there?"

The answer is quite simple:  I didn't feel like it.

After spending five days in Utah (days that included wrecking the rental car (ALWAYS buy rental insurance) when I slid on black ice at 50 mph, smashing into a cement embankment and ending in the muddy median, then driving through "snowmageddon 2010" with white knuckled concentration that ended with a stay at a local Motel 6 because of horrible road conditions), I took the red eye home, landed at JFK and watched the sun rise gloriously through the windows of the air train.  Rose and saffron fingers delicately graced the water towers surrounding the airport, and the air traffic control tower was resplendently bathed in the pink and orange only gracefully bestowed by the muted, naive light of the dawn.

Bad things tend to happen to me in clumps and always at the same time of year.  For about seven years in a row, the end of January into February, the end of July into August, the end of October, and the end of December were months I met with trepidation.  What grisly gift does the universe have for me this year?, I would wonder, and then would be met with a barely manageable personal catastrophe.  2009 was particularly bad; with a skin cancer scare, getting fired from a teaching job, and the excruciating end to a very poisonous, addicting and deprecating relationship.

Until 2010.

It took all of this year to find my legs again, to stand with my shoulders back and head high, to realize fully that I am more than the sum of my parts.

This is why I am excited about 2011.  I'm waiting for this year like I waited to turn 16!  All the doors that would FINALLY be open!  I could date!  I could drive!  I got one more hour added to my curfew!  

The World Book Encyclopedia (remember those?) dedicated January 1st to Janus, the God of gates, doors, and beginnings.  The month of January was named after Janus, who had two faces -- one looking forward and the other looking backward.  I like that.  I like it very much.  One face remembering where you've been, the other looking forward, unlocked gates, doors, and beginnings within easy reach.  All you have to do is grasp it and open it. 

Have you ever heard of the mystic's idea of  "Thinking from the End?"   Mike Dooley of Tut.com (note:  I am a member of the Tut Adventurer's Club.  They send me an email every day with affirmations that I read first thing in the morning) says this:  "Define what you want in terms of the end result. Don't worry about the hows, or even the course. KNOW that what you want is ALREADY yours in spirit, by divine LAW, just focus on the certainty of this ownership, understand it, claim it, and 'it will be on earth, as it is in heaven (spirit).'"  In an article, Visualization Alters the Brain, Dr. Hamilton's writes, "Your brain cannot tell the difference between something that's real and whether you are just imagining it."  Dr. Wayne Dyer says, "In order to float an idea into reality, you must be willing to do a somersault into the inconceivable and land on your feet, contemplating what you want instead of what you don't have. You'll then start floating your desires instead of sinking them."

I once had a tarot reader/astrologer (roll eyes and snigger here) that I needed to let things come to me.  To open my arms and let things in.  I'm a bit of a folded-arm kind of girl, truth be told.  I'm not exactly well-known for my wide-eyed, rose-colored view of the world.  But I do not know that this is a view that has served me very well. A good friend told me (don't worry, your identity is safe here) that I thought most people were "stupid until proven smart."  I'm very surprised when people do the right thing instead of the easy thing. My doses are more heavily weighted with the cynical and belief that people generally care for themselves at the expense of others.  This is what experience has taught me.  After my baby brother and his wife had their baby in August, I went to visit baby K.  I was in disbelief that my baby brother had a baby of his own and I had a little meltdown in the hospital hallway.  He pushed me against the wall and grabbed my face so that my lips puckered out like Joan Cusack's in Sixteen Candles (can't be a Hiatt unless the serious is tempered by the comedic).  My 25 year old Kevie Pie said to me "you need to let things in.  Stop pushing things away."

That's why I'm waiting for 2011 with the giddiness of passing my driver's test.  TUT says "give thanks that life is... just as it is (and that it's been... just as it's been). Because of it, you're now 'READY.'" 

Michelangelo said this about his Statue of David: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."  I may look at this blog in a year and think that I was off the mark, that my cynicism will be met again with the laser point accuracy I've come to expect, but I no longer think so.  In fact, I know so.  Happy New Year!

A Little Christmas Eve Fiction

She hadn't gotten far, only to the gas station two doors over.  At 11:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve the place was nearly abandoned, only the bored girl behind the counter with the big bangs and royal blue polyester smock, elbows resting on the counter with her chin resting in the palms of her hands within.  Christmas music from the local country music station plays low in the background.  The "ding" when she opens the door is much too cheery.  Camel lights, she says.  The girl pushes herself petulantly away from the counter and grunts softly as she reaches on tiptoe to reach the smokes.  $4.75 she says, blowing air upward from her clumsily painted lips, only the liner remaining, to move an invisible hair from her eye.  She takes the money from her wallet, and the girl in the blue smock says I've seen you.  You come in here with a dog.  A yappy dog.  Yeah.  I've seen you.  She pockets the smokes and holds out her hand for the change, 25 cents.  Yeah, I've been here.  That's not my dog.  The girl in the blue smock examines a painstakingly painted fingernail, puts her elbows back on the counter, then puts her chin back where it started.  Yeah, well, Merry Christmas. 

She slides in the snow in the parking lot, catches herself with her elbow on the hood of her car.  She sees the slip marks behind her, then pushes herself up and walks gingerly on unsteady legs.  She squeezes herself into the small space between steering wheel and seat.  Not much room with all her shit in the back.  She doesn't remember packing those suitcases and is not sure what's in them.  It'll all be sorted out later, she thinks, as the car's tires seem to be feeling the ground with preternatural fingers, searching for purchase on the unforgiving ground.

She drives to a restaurant closed for the holiday between her house and the gas station and the car slides to a stop.  The snow is not yet thick but the clouds hang bloated and low.  She maneuvers her way out of the car and leans against the door, one sneakered foot resting on the tire behind her.  She lights a cigarette and breathes. The gray exhalation and the cold of the air mingle and she is unsure which is clean.  Her house, her old house now, is right next door.  She can't see the windows but she is certain that the lights remain on, that ESPN is playing, that her presence is not missed.  She looks up and blinks back snow, feels something inside of her once torpid, now wildly turning. 

Inside her jacket pocket her phone vibrates and there is hope...hope! that this could be the start of something different.  The screen flashes with the name of someone new; not the person hoped for, and her thumb hovers over the answer button for too long.  She stares at the possibility, now gone, and exhales gray smoke.  She raises her chin to see over the fence, to hear the voice, and wonders how long she will have to wait.  She grinds the cigarette out under her shoe and slides back into the car.  It is late but she has no idea where to go.  The keys swing back and forth, making gentle "tink" noises on the steering column.  The heat blasts on and the easy listening radio station plays 100 Hours of Christmas Music which she turns low.  The snow is thick and heavy now so she points the car south.