December Newsletter

The potential of time, the end of the holiday season, and leaving the door ajar.

Hi everyone,

I must start the newsletter, once more, by thanking all of you, subscribers, new and old.

Thank you for making writing my job!

This is the first time I am being financially supported for my writing and it’s an incredibly rewarding feeling. It gives my stories a purpose, and it makes me feel professionally fulfilled as I have never felt before, in spite of having published a book I am quite proud of.

So thank you, for subscribing, for renewing, and for being part of this community!

I hope you all are having a good holiday season with your loved ones. Holidays are so complex, with many feelings interwoven at times in harmony, at others in inexplicable contradiction.

Mine, at least, are, this year, in particular, because of the limbo I am experiencing in regard to my health and some old fears it has triggered. Despite receiving some reassurance at the beginning of the month, I am still waiting for more to be revealed.

This has been the cause of exhaustion, confusion, and disappointment, but during the month of December I have also been filled with joy and purpose, with gratitude, and with insight.

Harmony, I said, and inexplicable contradiction….

Catherine turned seven years old, a few weeks ago, and this year more than last, I felt the self-imposed pressure of making her celebration exceptional; when the birthday passed, I felt the one of making the festive spirit happen at every corner we neared, even though I was somber, rather than golden like the bright decorations around the house.

“We bought a Christmas tree and I barely looked at it,”

I said to myself almost every evening, when I’d turn off the lights before going to bed.

I felt disappointed — having fantasized tea and homemade biscuits by the fire, English baking from Mary Berry’s Baking Bible, or time to sit down and read a book looking at the flickering lights of the city below, with a throw on my lap and a pillow behind my back.

I am not the only one struggling with finding balance between fantasies and the reality of everyday life, right?

I seem to forget we all are bombarded with idealistic images of what “the holidays” should look, smell, and feel like, in the form of perfectly set tables with wintry tablecloths, a runner on top, and a Tetris-like pile of porcelain plates in at least three different sizes. I seem to forget we all face the reality of endless school activities before the winter break, headaches and aching bodies that require attention, maybe long shifts at work, colds and stomach flues, or birthdays, with a side of deadlines and preoccupations.

Ben and I tend to go to bed when Catherine goes to bed, watch an episode of a show while in bed, and then fall asleep, exhausted. But at the end of the day, the elf has always found a new spot, home cooked meals were served, love was there, friends were seen, and Catherine was happy.

Exhaustion, weakness, confusion, but also joy, gratitude, and insights.

I realize that, at the end of every month, I give you a newsletter that is always a mix of harmony and inexplicable contradictions, insights and questions that remain without answer. What I love observing, as I write them, is that I can always isolate a theme, a recurring motive that has lingered throughout the month.

And December is no exception: its theme is the potential of time, what time does for us with its passing.