Holiday Non-Starter
The season of giving up
The seasonlessness of LA means that the holidays arrive with a soft whimper—just a subtle shift in temperature marked by the appearance of the light jacket and occasional scarf. You would think the sunny SoCal vibes would suck some of the stress out of the season—we’re on desert time, baby! Unfortunately, the fact that it’s a pleasant sixty degrees outside has made me no less anxious about the year I’m leaving behind and the one that lies ahead. The stress continues to pa-rum-pum-pum-pum and fa-la-la-la-la!
This past Monday, I looked at my to-do list and promptly dissolved into a fetal puddle on the floor. There were more to-dos than time to-do them. Simple arithmetic: my forever enemy. “Maybe it’s time for triage,” my husband gently suggested, as he and the cat helplessly surveyed my broken body from the couch.
Triage? The word implies that I will have to leave some of the things I have determined to do undone and that means I will never be deserving of the good life. You know, the “good” life! Triage means staying alive at the expense of what other people think. It means stopping the blood spurting from your neck rather than trying to go about your business while apologizing for all the blood spurting from your neck.
Interesting concept, especially when your brain has been conditioned to think that the reason the knife stabbed you in the neck in the first place is that you didn’t do enough to protect your neck. In fact, you made your neck entirely too enticing to errant knives. You may as well have been screaming “KNIFE IN MY NECK ASAP, PLEASE!”
But the fact was and is that time was not on my side. I gave in. I gave up. I abandoned tasks. Most importantly, I composted my anemic sourdough starter after a week of trying to coax it back to life. I let it die while the voices of a thousand farmwife YouTubers echoed in my head, telling me just how easy it is to make sourdough bread from scratch even if you have twelve children and pigs to look after. Especially if you have twelve children and pigs to look after! It actually makes it easier!
It’s the end of the year and I’m a big dumb failure but I’m going to get eight to nine hours of sleep tonight and maybe that’s okay.
What was this about? Christmas in LA? Yes, fairy lights on palm trees. Mall Santas sweating into their polyester fur. Fake winter wonderlands among forest fires. A Douglas Fir on Spanish tile. Hot cocoa on a hot day. Bandaging your bloody neck and heading to the bakery because it’s Christmas and this climate is too arid for sourdough starter.