Sitting and getting my haircut is one of my least favorite things in the world to do. A quick check of my yearbook photos will attest to that (I went through most of 11th grade without getting a single haircut, and being that I had no knowledge of hair products or styling techniques, it was a dark time). While I’ve come around to getting haircuts on a regular basis, I still don’t enjoy it, but I try not to take it out on the stylist giving me a cut.

On this evening, I booked the appointment and put on a smile as I went in. The place was empty except for the woman about to cut my hair. She was on the phone with her mother, and when she finished she sat me down and asked what I wanted. She began buzzing away at the back, and if there was going to be a friendly conversation, here is where it would begin. I can summon a pretty decent RBF (the kids just taught me that acronym) at a moment’s notice, but I didn’t bother. Years of experience have taught me that being difficult when you’re getting a haircut is not conducive to anyone’s happiness. Still, a good stylist reads when one wants to be left alone. 

“Are you doing anything for New Year’s?” she began, and I realized my fake smile had worked too well.

“No, just seeing some family on the day of – nothing for New Year’s Eve,” I said, perhaps a little too brightly. 

“Oh me too – I’ll probably be sleeping by 8:30!”

I loosened my smile a bit and looked over at the hair products on the nearby counter. She continued working on my hair and I felt bad. 

“There aren’t any parties anymore,” I ventured. She made a smart remark that maybe I just didn’t have any friends, to which I gave a weak laugh. 

“Do you watch any TV?” she asked. 

“Not really…” I said.

“Well what do you do?” she asked with slightly-feigned exasperation, looking somewhat at a loss. “You don’t have friends, you don’t watch TV…” and she laughed. I laughed too. 

“God, what do I do?” I mused aloud. “Well, I have a blog that I write in all the time.”

“Oh? What do you write about?” 

“It’s mostly just a personal diary…” I said, suddenly and inexplicably shy, and letting the sentence end there.

“I wish I could write. My life is a train wreck,” she replied, and went on to tell me a story of her many kids, her husband, and something to do with a misplaced baby and a broken washing machine. 

I told her it sounded much more interesting than my boring life, as she finished up and pulled the cape off my shoulders. I stood up, then bent back down to brush the hair off my shoes. 

“Maybe your husband should have a blog,” I said as she rang me out. “I have to struggle to make the most mundane things seem interesting.”

Her next client entered, and she wished me a Happy New Year. 

I don’t think I did her story justice. I hope she doesn’t read this. 

Cool on the heels of its closing days, the sky has only had brief moments of revealing its blue self, winter being more comfortable in shades of gray, cocooned in cloud-covered obscurity. On the dimmest days, the sky runs into the bare trees and dull ground with barely any demarcation – just one long monotonous sheet of a color that could be called ‘Doldrums’.

When a stretch of blue sky appears, one rushes to the nearest door to step outside and take it in. The light moves quickly at this time of the year, and the days are not as endless as they so giddily feel in the summer. I’ve admired a stand of fountain grass in the afternoon sunlight, then languidly took my time getting a coat on so that when I got outside to freeze it in a photo, the light was gone and the magic dissipated. Winter can make movers of the most reluctant of us.

Mercury goes into retrograde motion tomorrow, and is slated to be that way through January 18, 2023. My plan is to hunker down for the duration, keeping my head low and staying as quiet and low-key as possible in the hopes that the rascals of Mercurial motion pass by without much trouble or hassle. This is when meditation and a baseline of calm works to keep the rollercoaster ahead in somewhat manageable form. It’s also the time to be more accepting and forgiving of fall-outs, flip-outs, and wig-outs; my usual MO is to avoid all those outs anyway, but even the best of us can fall prey to such acting-outs at these perilous times.

Though the title of this post is all hellfire-and-brimstone/doom-and-gloom, I’ve actually learned to take these periods of uncertainty and tumult as times of learning and practicing flexibility. The tree that can never bend often ends up breaking. For far too many years, my Virgo nature wanted rigid structure and organization. It still does, and I’ve learned to appreciate that to an extent. I’ve also come to understand the importance of going with the flow and not being so tied to unreasonable constraints and order. Sometimes even reasonable boundaries need to be broken or eased. The older I get, the more amenable I am to these sorts of changes. Both meditation and therapy have helped in my acceptance and reconciliation of the largely imperfect nature of life. When Mercury slides into retrograde, and plans and routines get whacked and bumped out of alignment, I try to take it with a laugh and chuckle rather than an angry outburst or diatribe against some other entity that’s bothering me. Displaced aggression is never a good look on anyone.

For the next few weeks, let’s go a little easier on ourselves, be more forgiving and ready to laugh at our foibles, and enter the New Year with a lightness of heart that allows for minor disruptions to glance off our egos like drops of Mercury…

We have burned most of the month up, and our holiday season nears its close. I am ready for the shift, having never really gotten into the holiday spirit this year (though I came close a few times). A winter of mindfulness and meditation lays ahead, filled with baking comfort foods, nestling into heavy blankets, turning the pages of a book, and finding the subtle, sparse beauty of the season. Before we turn the page to January, however, we burn a little brighter, and a little hotter, as we round up the year in review, and close out this year with a ring or two of fire. Stay tuned…

Christmas morning began in crisp, brisk form, with clear blue skies and a stiff upper wind. Much of the snow had already been driven off by a bout of rain, and the dry cold air that’s currently pulling from the remaining snow cover. There was a clarity that only seems to come at Christmas, but I’ll watch for it on the days to come. Maybe I’ve only ben pricking my senses up on the special days when the magic is there for anyone who takes the time and care to notice. 

I only made one quick turn around the edge of the pool, to reach one of the only spots of nearby greenery still green at this time of the year – the juniper bush. Prickly of texture, it’s one of those landscaping feature that wants nothing more than to be left alone, admired from afar, and given water only at the most drought-like stretches of deep summer – and even then it would likely turn its nose up at such efforts. 

An austere visage of beauty for the beginning of winter, this juniper stretches high into the sky, having been planted well over a decade ago as something to lift the spirits at just such a point in the season. We have a wider stretch of junipers on the edge of the yard – more difficult to access with the snow, but maybe worth the little trek for a bouquet to ring in the New Year. 

The day after Christmas is sometimes a bit of a let down, though I’ve never felt that way. This was always the day to start again – and it fell just as winter vacation got under way. So for those who don’t find the holidays as happy as we pretend them to be, this is the day to return happily to the grind, and as it’s a Monday, here’s a weekly recap – the last of the year. 

My circle of friends, and their children, convened in Boston amid a winter storm, and after shaking beginnings, the kids once again found my Christmas spirit. 

It was such a grand time, I stuck around for brunch and my first brush with the World Cup.

Waking to the winter solstice.

In the vernacular of the young, I christen myself a snack. 

What light of a winter solstice.

A torch and three ships for Christmas. 

Happy holiday hygge.

The eyes lost it.

Bearly Christmas.

Music for the eve of drama.

O come, O come…

Merry Christmas from our family to yours. 

“That Welsh rabbit was ginger peachy,” but no rabbits were harmed in the making of this holiday dish. 

Dazzlers of the Day included Lionel Messi, Patrick Dexter, and Ziwe.

Well, friends, here we are.

My first double-glasses day. 

Never thought it would come to this, but it has. 

While balancing my check-book (because I’m THAT old guy) I realized I have trouble seeing close-up just as much as I have trouble seeing at a distance, so I popped an extra pair of reading glasses on top of my prescription and it worked. 

My vision has been substantially deteriorating at an ever-quicker rate. These last few months especially I’ve noticed a marked decline – so much so that I am going to put readers and eyeglass chains on my Amazon wish list so I have a pair for every room and every restaurant I frequent. It’s utterly ridiculous. 

Thankfully, the utterly ridiculous has always suited me, and if I have to become the old lady at the office who peers over rims of multiple spectacles so be it. To the manner (sic) born. (If we’re being honest, I always wanted to be that lady.) My career aspirations were largely based on Juno in ‘Beetlejuice’ and I’d say it’s been accomplished. 

As for this double-decker of glasses, such is the point in life where I find myself: mostly unbothered, somewhat amused, and a little frightened of where this might be headed.