Tuesday, December 14, 2010

excitement

 

i DO have one holiday each year that i get all
excited about, that i look so forward to.
New Year's Eve.
i get some kind of food i normally
don't, sometimes it's that i make a
giant lasagna casserole. sometimes it's
been crab legs but not so much anymore
because it really needs to be excessive and
crab legs in Socorro are first hard to come
by at all, and if they appear in the Smith's
Grocery, excess is, well, Way Excessive...so
something more like lasagna with no holding
back on ingredients. ALL the cheeses. Fresh
spinach layer. real sauce, from scratch.
garlic bread and a salad to die for.
then, the new

~calendar~

after the gluttony, after its all put away and the
kitchen is
clean,
it's the calendar ritual. the old comes off the wall
and i sit, a particular very fine point pen in hand,
and
transfer all the important information, slowly. very
very carefully, month by month to the
new calendar.
notations at the top and bottoms of months as needed...
sometimes it seems important to note something from years back on
the upcoming year...

this is my most real ritual. it has intense meaning
for me. it places me somehow
and is extremely important.

today, going to the Dollar Store to get the socks for
the Giraffe sock puppets for the new man boy Julian Daniel Ortiz,
i also got the next calendar.
here it is and wouldn't you know.
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9 comments:

nandas said...

its beautiful, grace. you have really spread your wings this year and so it seems like the perfect image.... i'm smiling at the thought of your lasagne!

Unknown said...

Lasagna is just the perfect food for celebrating rituals; we will be having it here for noche de buena, Christmas Eve.

Calendars are like little windows to the coming year; I fill mine out on New Years day and this year, got one for free! Last week, went to my local thrift store, The Samaritan Center, to see if they had more cotton sheets and plain fabrics for my dyeing projects. Always check out the magazines and books for sale. For 25 cents, they had the latest Good Housekeeping magazine and it was still in its plastic wrap. Didn't pay too much attention to it and when I got it home, a treat was in store. A good sized 2011 calendar had been tucked inside as a special gift. The calendar is filled with recipes and gorgeous color photos. I cannot wait to make the recipe for March, Spring Pea Soup. It calls for shallots but here in TN, wild onion pops up all over the place and so I will forage for the onion and make this lovely soup.

Deb G said...

The beginning of the calendar year always seems like a good time to get organized.... I like your tradition.

Gilli said...

I share the calendar ritual. There's something so scribe-like about it, a pulling of the past years threads to weave into the new year. I love this ritual. And I love watching your work evolve. Beauty manifest.

Penny Berens said...

My mouth is watering!
A ritual that "places me somewhere"..so important..that is knocking on the walls of my heart for some reason.

Heartwideopen said...

I love your ritual! May I borrow it this year??? This will be a very important year for me. And YUM, lasagna is everyone's favorite dinner here in the Minter household! Yours sound extra yummy. I may have to get your recipe.

;~) Debi xo

Terri said...

I love the calendar ritual, too. My calendars are more like diaries, really. Used to read it all New Years Eve. No time in recent years it seemed. And also, I used to get my favorite calendars at the dollar store, because they had the biggest blank spaces to write in and the best textured surface, not shiny like a lot of calendars. Butterflies/transformation. Yes. Used to put stickers of butterflies on as symbols. It should be an interesting year ahead, creating or finding our myths. I love the feeling of fresh starts in a new year.

linda said...

Grace I finally got talked into putting my calendar on my phone and I have hated it. I loved reading your words about your calendar ritual and decided that this year I am going back to buying that special one for just me. I am also excited about the coming year and sharing spirit cloth here and other new experiences we don't even know about yet. We can fly away...

Peggy said...

Grace, this is so wonderful. I, too, love rituals for the changes in life. Thank you.