It's the stories we tell.

Happy Yule!

I'm writing this late in the evening of December 21st. The sun set a long while ago, and though I don't know a a lot about Pagan beliefs, I do know that the Winter Solstice is associated with both bonfires and with Yule logs burning on the hearth.

It's a feast that uses fire and light to mark the turning of the wheel.

It's also the sixth night of Hanukkah, another holiday associated with light, and it happens to be the night of the annual Lessons & Carols concert at St. James Cathedral. I went to the concert, since my daughter sings in Jubliate!, the young women's ensemble. Each piece of lovely choral music was bracketed by a reading and a congretational hymn, and the gospel was from John, Chapter 1...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

More light for this longest night of the year.

I grew up Catholic, and have been a church musician since way back, so the stories in both the readings and the music were wonderfully familiar. The angel Gabriel visiting a young girl. Mary and Joseph and the baby and the manger. Three wise men from the east following a star. 

Great tidings of joy for the whole world.

Every holiday has stories associated with it, and every person who celebrates has their own favorites, their own experience with the traditions. Some things cross over, though, like fire and light on a cold December night.

And because even in tradition, there's a place for something new, I'm sharing a recording of "There Is No Rose" by Benjamin Britten, from A Ceremony of Carols. This is an old medieval poem set to music written in the 1940s. I've never sung this piece before - not sure I've ever even heard it before, but it might be my new favorite arrangement of the text. The young women from Jubilate! did a lovely job with it last night, though this isn't them in the recording. Enjoy!

I hope you have a lovely holiday, however you choose to celebrate.
Liv

It's all about the B....

B is for Balance

That's right. It's all about the balance. See, this time of year is always crazy, and I'll tell you right now, I don't have any kind of magic formula for getting through. 

So why the blog post, then? 

Misery loves company, I guess.

There's kid stuff and family stuff and parties and shopping and decorating and why am I telling you this because you know it already. And this year, in addition to the annual holiday kerfufle, I'm desperately trying to finish edits on Aqua Follies, my semi-historic m/m romance. 

I call it semi-historic, because it's set in 1955, so not quite old enough to be a historic, but not exactly contemporary either. It's about the assistant coach of a water ballet team who comes to Seattle for the Aqua Follies, a swimming-diving-music-dance extravaganza that was a summer institution during the 1950s. The night of their first rehearsal, the trumpet player takes a solo, and our swim coach's life will never be the same. It's been lots of fun pulling from old Seattle Times headlines to build the plot, and my beta readers have good things to say about it, so that's been pretty exciting.

If only I could finish the damned thing.

I'd hoped to send Aqua Follies off to my agent by Thanksgiving. Didn't happen. Then I wanted to wrap it up by, well, last Monday.

Yeah, that didn't happen either.

Now I'm hoping it'll be out of my hands by Christmas -- and if we're lucky, into your hands sometime next year. In the meantime, I keep putting off any serious holiday preparation. Like, if I keep myself dug down deep enough in my writing cave, the rest of the world will just chill out.

Don't expect any Christmas cards from Chez Rancourt.

Getting the Christmas tree up was a huge step in a holiday direction. The image at the beginning of the post shows our actual tree. It started life as a sheet of aluminum. My husband cut the spiral with a jigsaw and tacked an LED light rope to it with zipties. He also punched holes along the edge for ornaments. My usual approach to tree decoration is the more the merrier, but with this "tree" I applied some self-discipline, limiting myself to gold and sparkly. It's not quite monochrome, but as close as I'm capable of getting.

Next think you know, I might even buy some presents.

The holiday season - with it's parties and presents and food (oh yeah, the food!) - will happen whether I'm along for the ride or not. In the interest of self-preservation, I remind myself of something Albert Einstein once said...

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

Happy peddling!

Liv

BTW, what's your secret? How do you maintain your equilibrium during the holidays?

Oh, and if you've got a minute, jump HERE to my friend Elizabeth's blog, where I'm talking about why I write romance. Cheers!

Christmas Drives Me Crazy

Last week I downloaded the Goddess Tarot app for my phone. It's a beautiful set of cards that were created by Kris Waldherr (http://www.artandwords.com/). To learn more about the tarot, I've been doing a one-card reading every day. I get quiet and breath and come up with a question for the day, then tap the deck and see which card comes up. This morning the card was the eight of cups, and the question had to do with how I was going to survive Christmas.

See, in principle, Christmas is okay. I guess. I just wish that the rather significant religious holiday could be split off from the secular kerfuffle. I love the idea that the first Sunday of Advent is the start of a new liturgical year. I love the darkness and the anticipation, the rhythmic and cyclical nature of it, the way it marks time and helps you see where you are. I love lighting the candles on the wreath and John the Baptist's voice crying in the wilderness and singing the O Antiphons on the fourth Sunday of Advent and if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, that's okay too. Trust me. It's cool.

I even love Midnight Mass, I mean, I would love it, if I weren't so damned exhausted by the shopping and the decorating and the Social Expectations. Christmas cards make me grumpy, I never get my packages in the mail on time, and the other day my eyes got all crossed because the husband put lights on the tree the wrong way. Did you know there was a right way and a wrong way to put lights on a Christmas tree? Me either, and I suspect there really isn't. If I was sane about all this. Which I'm not.

The tarot card I drew today, the eight of cups, signifies a period of change, a time to look at letting go of what's not working. On the http://www.learntarot.com/ website, the descriptors they use for this card are along the lines of focusing on personal truth, leaving the rat race, and concentrating on what's important. O-kay. Not unrelated to current events. So, if you usually get a Christmas card from me, maybe not this year. Consider it a nod towards resource management. And I promise I'll be mailing those gifts sometime soon. Before Valentines Day, anyway.
Peace,
Liv

(PS, you can get a copy of The Goddess Tarot from Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Goddess-Tarot-Deck-Kris-Waldherr/dp/1572810661
or from your phone's app store.)