Halloween is over, we made it. A lot of you have the speed bump/minefield of Thanksgiving to look forward to/get through. For us thankless souls stuck on a rainy island there’s nothing but the wide-open runway all the way til Christmas.
I’m currently getting over my tenth cold of the season. The season in question being, of course, winter. Which, as you know, hasn’t even officially begun yet. Raise a glass to what’s yet to come. Also to my immune system, whose efficiency currently seems to be equivalent to fixing the foundation of a skyscraper with glue sticks and wet dirt. This latest snotastrophe is my excuse for the sporadic and unsatisfactory output here. You have no choice but to forgive me.
So hi, how’s it going?
Ah what the hell, I can’t lie to you. In all honesty, the cold has nothing to do with my failure to write. I’ve been positively overwhelmed with basically everything. Does this happen to everyone? (I ask this a lot, and I mean it every time: I am on a quest to separate my personal incompetencies from what everyone else also struggles with. Quick, pretend to be a helpless lamb to make me feel better, drop and break something. I don’t know.)
I was going along fine and then one new incoming piece of information caused a system-wide shutdown on all in and outgoing traffic. Outwardly, I’m as cute as ever. Inside, there’s nothing but white noise and an old toothpaste commercial jingle playing on a loop.
***
There’s a saying in Russian: “Keep your head cold, your belly hungry, and your feet warm.” This is really solid advice.
Thankfully, every year Jules prepares for me a winter starter kit. Historically it includes things like scarves, hats, socks, mugs, cute stationary. (One year it contained a little turquoise Tiffany & Co. box, that one’s been hard to beat.) Point is, I’m all stocked up to keep my feet warm from previous years while waiting for him to get this year’s one ready.
Here’s another earworm I like to go back to: “When in doubt, do nothing.”
No fighting, no fleeing. So I sit here and listen to music, wear fluffy socks, make spicy soup. Pour it in a mug. Let my kids watch TV. Check on friends.
***
I’m not even sure what it was. Maybe the dress I wanted to get married in being sold out in my size had something to do with it. Maybe yet another technical difficulty on the website of one of Zoe’s potential schools, turning a 15 minute task into a half an hour of frustration and a “gonna have to do this tomorrow”.
I don’t want to do it tomorrow, I don’t want to do it at all. Isn’t there an adult that can do all this admin for me? I’m only thirty years old. It’s like, fifteen in grown-up years.
***
My mom, like most moms, gives people socks as gifts. She once said to me that giving someone socks is the ultimate way of showing them that you care. She said she would knit socks for my dad, adding nylon thread for the heel to make sure it didn’t get worn out.
She’s right; keeping one’s feet warm is a third of the battle. So I give people socks, eat their food, and say: you’re welcome. Now all you have to do is go outside without a hat, stand in the wind for a few minutes. This is the Russian way.
Being this much of a sentimental maniac pays at Christmas. I never complain about receiving socks. My feet are always cold, always. And even if you don’t mean it, if you give me socks, I’m yours forever.
***
There’s been a lot of fireworks in the last couple of days. It’s the 5th of November, remember remember. Also known as the day something almost did, but nothing really happened. Just kidding, it’s also known as the Guy Fawkes Night.
It is the day of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, where a group of English Catholics tried to blow up the King and the House of Lords. Tried being the key word here, because it didn’t actually happen, they just got caught instead. So until the British police does the next good thing of note, we’re celebrating this one.
I can’t help but admire the morbidity of it all. Celebrating someone nearly succeeding at blowing up the Parliament and everyone in it by burning huge bonfires and lighting a bunch of firework is pretty dark. “Hey, this is what it would have looked like, but with more screaming!”
I enjoy the festivities, so I can’t disagree with the premise. Flimsy as it may be. I might go to the roof tonight to look around and grunt approvingly: “Ah, fireworks. Jolly good. Very well, time to go inside, look at a screen again.”
***
I continue working through my overwhelms. I leave the hard ones for last, hoping they will go away on their own before I have to deal with them. There’s one that can’t be put off, though.
A friend is going through a painful break-up. I’ve been doing some shopping, trying to figure out what to put into a small care package for her.
What could you give someone who’s sad, heartbroken, and feeling alone? I write a note for her in my barely legible writing, something about keeping her feet warm. I wrap it with a pair of woolly socks.
***
I shall see you soon, in a much improved mood, hopefully. All the love, I mean it. So much so, I’d give you all socks, just not sure if we’re close enough for me to ask for your address.
If I may, considering I have a few years on you in the adult thing (and it's something I wish I would've put into practice earlier), don't considering things as "good" or "bad", "enjoyable" or "irritating" -- they just are what they are: something that needs doing. Because we (I) can spend more time ruminating over why something that needs doing sucks than the time it would be done in. If you can have at it with a beige attitude, being totally neutral to it, it helps. Especially when you're feeling like merde. I hope you feel better soon, Ani. And do your socks smell like tequila? 😉🍹 xo
I'm always cold, too, even when it's a hundred kajillion degrees and feeling like the fires of Hell are coming up off the sidewalk--Arizona. It's a dry heat. They always overcompensate with the AC here! And would definitely NOT turn down a good pair of socks. I'm partial to bamboo material.