My heart is full and I am finding it so very hard to start here.  So many middles.  So many riches beyond any expectations.  Joy that I have no way of deserving and for which I am thankful beyond expression.  As I have noted previous, joy does not come without some measure of sorrow but perhaps there is a lesson that joy and sorrow are not the opposites as I’ve always thought them to be.  They are neighbors of the soul and neither is diminished by the presence of the other.  This idea may be deeply ingrained in most people but it is discovery for me and I am grateful for it.  I have no choice but to live with and in my grief, my period of transition, but I do have the choice to also embrace the joy that is close at hand.

And so I do.

First and foremost, I miss spending Christmas with Cheshire.  She is growing into a life that is her own and that I am not always a part of.  She is glorious and I have not any part of a wish to stop her growth but my heart aches for that wondrous person.  If the stars keep their present alignment, I will give her a very big hug on Saturday and we will usher in the new year together.

Then there is this incredibly odd and wonderful Christmas.  Julia and I have been taken into family, my dear friend’s family.  Something not deserved or worked for, something so serendipitous that it feels like the universe is flexing its muscles and working overtime to throw buckets of joy over our heads -- not unlike the ride at Universal Studios Jurasic Park that we went on two days ago.  They told us that is we did not sit in the front of the “jeep” we would not get wet and so we took the middle seats and were soaked!  Surprise!  Soaked and . . . we could have groused or we could have laughed.

It is the ability to chose laughter that seems to be the miracle. 

To back up (and I may have written this all before), after the summer, I was looking for some way to celebrate Christmas that was not tied to expectations and mired in the past.  I thought of being in the warm but had very little concrete idea.  Cheshire was in Indy visiting Marcia and told Marcia my thoughts and Marcia had a solution.  Her brother had rented two condos in Orlando for his very large extended family and there was a bedroom that was still empty.  Marcia and Matt were going down and why didn’t we join them.  My first thoughts were pretty negative about spending Christmas with strangers but I put that away.  It would be wonderful having time with Marcia and Matt and over the years of our friendship, I have met and spent some significant times with her family.  And so, casting caution to its own purgatory, I signed us up.  It was only after we had been here a day, that Marcia and Matt had to back out of the trip because of health reasons, leaving Julia and I spending Christmas with her family without her.  I realize that this is such a similar circumstance to the west coast wedding that we went to in September -- more people to whom I am not related and cannot claim any loyalty due to friendship  who open their arms and hearts to us.  

This is grace.  

And so, we spend our days at the “parks.”  A first afternoon at Universal’s Island of Adventure mostly in the Wizarding World, then Saturday at Universal Studios and Sunday at Legoland.  In the morning, 12 of us gather for breakfasts and at night we regroup for supper and/or a beer and desert.  We make plans, we shop for food, Jon bought a Christmas tree today and we will make decorations on the eve.  We are planning a Christmas dinner at “home” with a day away from the parks which will probably include some swimming and cooking and exchanging silly gifts.  My reservations of place and belonging have slowly melted away.  We are simply who we are -- we are here, we belong.

I am present and grateful.  My heart is full and I rejoice in finding joy that has no payment  up front or to come.  

Lisa and I are working on a family church service to be held next Sunday at the church where she is a minister.  I have never done anything like this before which does not stop me from fully contributing to the planning.  We will talk about the new year and letting go of what we do not need to make room for what we want to open our lives to with the important caveat that what we want may come in ways we almost do not recognize.  Thinking about this topic -- which has been evolving over the past week or so -- is perfect during this time.  It is where I am but where I am right now is a surprise -- like that water ride. Explaining the possibility of joy, defining the experience in serendipity, offering enough story to serve as example without slipping into self-indulgence, offering a path without prescribing a journey, those are all Lisa’s job.  In these tasks, I have no expertise and I will trust that she will take what raw material I can bring to this task and shape it into some viable message.  

But the thinking, planning and doing is such food for consolidation and movement.  The process is a gift to my now, providing a frame for this joyful Christmas.  

Christmas cannot be what it once was.  It is not the child’s blind joy or the teen’s alienation or the young adult’s created celebration or the parent’s tradition making or anything else.  It cannot be what it was because it can only be what is now.

And I will say once more, now has be in joy.

And Julia is having a pretty good time too. (Pictures of the last two days are in Photo)