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We were watching Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer today, the first feature length film Tin has watched in his life. Of course, it’s the first night of Hanukkah but it’s a story for all ages. Rudolph is a misfit who is made fun of by the other reindeers and he hooks up with a bunch of other misfits and through their adventures they find out how to fit in.

How appropriate – in the world of nonconformity, you either dig being on the margin or you pine to be like all the others.

Accepting differences is tough for most people, especially those who really don’t want to stand out in crowd. Take the latest rage of getting tattoo’d – everyone and their mother sports at least one tattoo these days, which made it clear to me that I don’t want one.

You have to be very clear of who you are to enjoy your status as a miss-fit and then you have to just go ahead and let your freak flag fly.

Hanukkah

The story of Hanukkah is the story of religious freedom. In 168 BC King Antiochus the 4th, who inherited his kingdom from Alexander the Great, set up an idol in the Jewish temple and ordered Jews to worship it. He was a zealous Hellenist and wanted all people to follow Greek ways. A revolt led by Mattathias and his son Judah the Maccabee to overthrow Antiochus raged with the odds against the Jews; they were ill-equipped and vastly outnumbered. But the Jews were fighting for their homes, their faith and their freedom as the Syrian mercenaries were not. So, in the winter of 165 BC the Jews were victorious and marched into Jerusalem. The first act was to clean the temple and get rid of the idol. When they arrived, there was only a single flask of oil to light that should have lasted one day. It miraculously lasted eight.

Later, to commemorate the victory, candles were lit for eight days. There was an interesting dispute between the followers of Shammai and Hillel. Shammai advocated lighting the eight moving downward to a single candle. Historians believe Shammai basic view was that the glory of Israel lay in the past and there had been a steady downward trend among the Jews. Hillel’s followers foresaw a glorious future for Judaism. Symbolic of their faith and hope, they advocated a rising crescendo of light. Of course, they prevailed.

The basic issue of the Maccabean struggle was religious freedom. The Jews fought for their right to worship God in their own way. Not long after the victory, war broke out again, this time Judah was killed in battle and the new colossus, Rome, bestrode the Middle East. The Hebrew state was crushed until May 1948. It is interesting to speculate on what this victory of the spirit has meant in human history. If Judaism had been destroyed in the second century before Jesus, would Christianity have come into the world, or Mohammedanism? Both were products of Judaism and both derived sustenance from the living Jewish people.

I’m trying to reach sources on a Friday, usually this is the best day, but today you’d think that they were all out at recess or something funner than trying to reach them. Meanwhile, there is a sort of June gloom outside that everyone once in a while breaks into a stream of sunshine. But it’s in the 70s and who is going to complain about living in New Orleans when the weather couldn’t be better (except for more sun).

The Transracial Parenting blog is under construction and I mean that literally. Something went haywire and we’re waiting for it to get fixed and in the meantime, there is still a lot to do to make it ready for prime-time. So I read two famous bloggers to get an idea of what they are doing and instead of leaving me depressed about how successful they are and how unsuccessful I am, I actually was inspired by their posts. One of the bloggers is Heather Armstrong and the other is Penelope Trunk. They both dispel the notion that blogging will get you anywhere when in fact it got them everywhere, so why take their advice?

For me, I’ve been content to work out of my office, sitting instead in the dining room since my need to be tethered is great and with my partner gone, I have to have access to the kitchen, Tin and my laptop 24/7. But this is the beauty of it all – outside my window – gliding over the bayou is this beauty who could care less about blogging, success or anything that does not smell fishy:

There was an earthquake in Japan yesterday. This morning, before dawn, I noticed the stars had been rearranged while I was sleeping. Three years ago today heaven and earth moved my life in a new and exciting direction. I met my son, Tin. Or rather Constantin Pavlovic Dangermond.

My mother died on November 30th, I was in New York. I flew home on December 1. We buried her on December 2. On December 3rd I got very ill. On December 4, my dear friend who had lost her child came to see me and I received a phone call that a nine month old baby needed adoption yesterday. We contacted an attorney and on December 5th, the natural mother signed the papers. On December 6th I drove nearly 1,000 miles to Illinois. On the morning of December 7th, I got in my truck and drove to Gary, Indiana, where I met my son for the first time. We spent the night at Flower’s house with her giving me minute instructions on feeding, clothing, sleeping, and caring for an infant and then left the next morning for Indianapolis in the middle of a snow storm to meet Tatjana and our attorney.

The most profound events in your life are not planned, instead they happen when you least expect or are prepared for them. What follows for the next three years is my life as a mother to a wonderful and spirited boy, who is growing up so quickly that if I blink he will be 11 years old as he now tells everyone he is when they ask his age.

Happy homecoming anniversary, happy adoption birthday, happy day that I became your mother, Tin.

Someone asked me to define love the other day and I was stumped for an answer. Years ago I was explaining my father to a friend at a cabin in the Sierra and my friend said, “That’s not love.” It is to me, I thought. And now, many relationships later, I still couldn’t tell you what love is, but I found a definition that will suffice for lack of my own:

Love is what you’ve been through with somebody. ~James Thurber

Here in Louisiana we have the skinny on bugs. Danielle at Zumba was describing the first time she moved here from the midwest and encountered a flying cockroach (she ended up staying in her car till someone came and got it out). I remember the first time Steve flew in to rent an apartment for us in 1995 and when I arrived, I opened the door, the handle fell off, and a flying cockroach buzzed by me. Welcome home.

I was out on the porch this evening star and planet gazing – the night sky is wonderful these past few nights. As I sat there, a Landcruiser was about to turn the bend when it slammed on the brakes and three women got out screaming at the top of their lungs. A bug. When they finally got back in, one of them kept saying, “I hate bugs!”

Danielle had said she went to Zimbabwe and encountered a spider the size of her fist. Her host family said, “It’s fine, it’s good because it eats bugs.”

You can’t hate bugs if you live here, you have to coexist with them. Some are good bugs and some are bad bugs, but who really knows the difference. It reminded me of earlier today when I was in the backyard looking at all the oxalis sprouting everywhere. I had read about someone who went away to meditate on a retreat and came back with no sense of weeds or flowers, believing all of them had a reason to be here.

And so it is with bugs.

Tatjana left today for Croatia for two weeks and along with Loca being on the farm, it’s gotten pretty quiet around here. I’d like to say I will use the time she is away to rest and restore, but my dance card is swollen with events, meetings, work, full-time parenting, as well as all the rest of what goes into my life.

I have to say I loathe traveling in December, always have. There is something about the winter nights, despite the fact winter is a visiting uncle here in New Orleans, that make me want to curl up at home and put my fireplace video on the TV, and listen to Christmas music at full roar.

Tin got out his crayons, I cranked up Johnny Mathis, and while he was thinking about presents, I began thinking about latkes and menorahs and dreidels and holidays past and present.

There is no place like home for the holidays.

Evan took Tin to the zoo on Saturday and they rode the train and talked to the elephants. They had started at First Cup Cafe, Evan’s and Tatjana’s favorite hang out in New Orleans. Upon entering, Tin stopped to speak to a couple of French girls sitting outside.

Later sporting a mask, Evan was able to call himself the dog father – there is nothing like a cute kid or a puppy to break the ice, but the combo is irresistible.

Most times I have to write. I try to avoid it, but I can’t help putting down what is going down and it has some soothing balm for me. Like writing about my divorce and the Federal Flood and switching teams, my mother dying and the adoption of my son and everything in between.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the second coming – mine that is – because I’ve been through the wringer and in order to stay sane I had to put words to the unreality of losing myself and finding myself again. I’ve looked in the mirror – nay, stared in the mirror – and asked myself one too many times who am I? I’m still becoming and I do like what I see but it is still a new me, a new set of clothes that I’m wearing for the first time and still getting used to.

So yes, I have to write, I’m compelled to, but sometimes I have to read. Today a friend who has a thyroid condition and who was sent to hell and back by doubling down on Synthroid sent me a link to a blog where a woman writes a post that sings to me about this and that and more. It’s about shedding your skin, taking the photo of you in the bikini from 1994 down from the fridge, it’s about looking in the mirror and smiling at the reflection.

I’m asking you to read her post because volumes about life are contained within it – about our soul’s resilience and about perspective.

It’s early in December and I have been running around in shorts and tee shirt, a casualty of living in the Gulf South. We seem to like it this way as we tolerate August to not have to deal with winter, but this winter will make the second in a row that the garden blooms as if spring had sprung while butterflies dot the moist warm air.

I spent an hour with my life coach yesterday formulating a plan – email is a time suck, social media is distracting (even though social media is my work and I can’t ignore it) – how to create the work day with less urgency, less panting, less obstacles? And so it has been a process of elimination – you can’t have it all, you can’t do it all, you are it all, so give yourself time to breathe.

I’m building breaks into my schedule and allotting certain areas time to breathe as well. In the race to do it all, priorities got shifted and I was the one left holding the bag.

So when I look out the window right now and see rain drops hanging from the almost colored crepe myrtle I realize that once again life has a way of introducing many things and people into your life and you are the gatekeeper. You decide what to leave in and what to leave out. You are the master of your own destiny.

Captain of the ship so to speak. And now to find someone else to swab the decks.