Twenty Years, this journal

At the end of this year, I'll capture this line and attempt to draw meaning from it - this line starts the theme for the twentieth year of this journal.

Last year's theme was clearly "Work". I didn't actually set a theme - it simply happened upon me. This year end I was lucky on two counts: I had two weeks of vacation at the end of the year, and I didn't get assigned a massive year-long objective that I had to plan for during the break. (I got assigned something, to be sure, but it didn't require my working on it during the break.)

This year, I'm choosing a theme: Create.

But I didn't create anything new this year, other than some good PowerPoint slides at work and a new scarf that I crocheted to give away as a Christmas gift.

I am sufficiently freaked that my mother started to decline at age 52, and I am age 51 and a half. In other words, now or never, even if "now" means by the inch. That's how you grow a garden, according to the song.

I've long used it to pour out every bit of angst/struggle, such that I might release it. I've had good reason to need an outlet. But sometimes the outlet has been a reason for the angst/struggle to exist, which was never the intention. It's kinda like setting a metric and then the behavior changes to meet the metric.

I want to shift this journal to containing things I want to remember, starting today. I might not always succeed, but it's a good intent for the third decade here. I think it complements the drive I'm feeling to create for this world.

Off to it, then.

Don't Eat the Potpourri

In 1988, my family rented a house on Capitol Island in Maine, just outside of Boothbay Harbor. It was a lovely setting in a house that reeked of three floors of mildew. My mother kept a pot of orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves simmering for two weeks.

Last night, we hosted a Dungeons & Dragons game. Food delivery wasn't available because it was New Year's Day, so I made a chili, cornbread, and rice. Tortilla chips were offered on the side. Crockpot with the chili was on the stove, next to a small saucepan with a Maine-style concoction.

My dear, beloved man, the Dungeon Master, served himself a bowl of chili with a healthy helping of potpourri on top of it.

I took a side glance at his bowl and thought "gosh, those tortilla chips sure puffed up." I took a second glance. And a third. Then my body curled in on itself in revulsion when I realized what he'd done. I'd even brushed a tiny bit of mold off of this particular orange, before I peeled it.

He'd gamely eaten one cinnamon-laden orange peel and accepted that parts of the meal must simply taste awful.