Tag: Smiles

What I’m looking forward to in the new year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. A new administration! A new Senate!
  2. A coronavirus vaccine.
  3. Worshiping together again. Even face-to-face committees.
  4. Resuming daily lap swimming. As well as seeing the regulars and lifeguards.
  5. Singing together again.
  6. A Greek festival or two. Oh, yes, let’s not overlook dancing!
  7. Riding the Downeaster north or south.
  8. Visiting museums.
  9. The abolition of ICE.
  10. Dining out, indoors.

~*~

What do you have on your list?

A few big things in my life in the past year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Safe to say, it’s been unlike any 12 months before it.

  1. A hunkered-down lifestyle. Shelter-in-place and other Covid-19 social measures. (OK, we all have that much in common.)
  2. Learned to Zoom. But it’s not the same as face-to-face meetings.
  3. Tripped over my wife more than usual. More likely, found myself appearing unintentionally in her Zoom meetings.
  4. Appreciated a six-hour Smashwords writers’ conference online back in April. Those folks are amazing. Which leads to …
  5. Saw my novels become available in paperback at Amazon. Eight of them! Alas, book signings are still on hold, as are public readings.
  6. Missed having weekly choir practice, my daily laps swimming, and in-person Quaker worship and committee work together.
  7. Watched a lot of Met opera streaming. A different performance every night (or sometime during the following day, depending on my schedule). More than a hundred different works, in addition to the same pieces in different productions or castings.
  8. Returned to the workplace, part-time, as a Census enumerator. We were supposed to start in May, but that got pushed back to August before being cut a month short. Don’t be surprised if it has to be redone in two years.
  9. Missed the Greek community, Orthros and the festival, especially.
  10. Drank too many martinis.

~*~

I’m not counting the big move, which really fits more into the coming year. For now, it’s feeling more like acquiring a summer home, except that our adventure starts in winter.

What’s been big in your year?

It’s up and lighted!

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
Some years we don’t even venture out to cut the tree until Christmas Eve morning, and we certainly don’t bring it in and decorate before then. Often, the lights don’t even go on till dusk. Here it is, finally ready for the rest of the decorations and then the presents underneath. (Photo by Rachel Williams)

 

What are your favorite Christmas hymns and carols?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Frankly, I can do without all of the secular holiday music, or at least most of it. I want something less contrived and commercial. Even Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker score wears thin.

I’m not entirely insensitive, though. Here are ten I enjoy singing, especially in a choir.

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  1. People, Look East: this 1928 Advent carol by Eleanor Farjeon is a joyous accompaniment when making preparations ahead of Christmas.
  2. In the Bleak Midwinter: I want to think of this as a plaintive folksong, but the words are by Christina Rossetti and the music’s by English master Gustav Holst. It catches the blue side of the approaching winter, but also the hope and comfort to be found therein.
  3. Once in Royal David’s City: If you can, go for the fully celebrative midnight mass with a full pipe organ and all five verses sung in the Anglican style that alternates soft and loud.
  4. There Are Angels Hovering Round: It’s an old call-and-response hymn that seems to have hundreds of verses, if you want to keep going. There’s no escaping the sense of togetherness when you’re singing.
  5. Fairest and Brightest (Star of the East): I first heard this in a recording by Kentucky folksinger Jean Ritchie, but it also works in formal arrangements. The text is a protest song befitting the suffering classes of the story.
  6. Nouvelle Agreable: by Swiss composer Jean-Georges Nageli, the bouncy music almost sounds like Mozart though even Native Americans near the Arctic will sing and dance to it, too. (Check it out on YouTube.)
  7. La Valse Cadienne de Noel: words and music by Jeannette V. Aguillard. What, you don’t waltz during the Twelve Days of Christmas?
  8. Traveler’s Carol: A traditional Catalan carol of coming together for the holiday. We use English by Susan Cooper in an arrangement by George Emlen.
  9. The Coventry Carol: a haunting sense of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents and of the crucifixion to come infuse this lullaby.
  10. The Old Year is Dying: a cheerful Welsh piece to welcome the New Year. Again, New Year’s Day falls in the Twelve Days.

~*~

What are your favorites?

Among my greatest accomplishments

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Not to toot my own horn.

  1. Remarriage after years of wandering. Not that I’m anywhere near a mastery of intimacy yet.
  2. The novels and poems. They really are a record of my pathway to here, as well as my deepening skills in the craft of writing.
  3. A week on the Appalachian Trail. I was 12 and survived under a heavy backpack, unlike the lightweight gear available these days.
  4. Making it to retirement in a shrinking profession.
  5. Becoming a Friend, building on my ashram experience.
  6. Working with future Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom.
  7. Landing a job in the Pacific Northwest. I got to explore a dream landscape, including the trek to Camp Muir on Rainier and the mountain’s ice caves in the mouth of a glacier.
  8. Singing in an extraordinary choir. There were times in rehearsal where just listening to the others would blow me away. Public performances were always a revelation.
  9. Genealogy, connecting my line back to North Carolina, initially, and then all the way back to 1500s Cumbria, England.
  10. Blogging. It’s simply been personally satisfying. I never expected to be communicating with readers on six continents.

~*~

But who am I to say? What are you especially proud of in your own life?