Fresh starts

Happy New Year.

Let's resolve to:

Laugh often.

Whistle in public.

Forgive quickly.

Dance when we can, even if we're not very good at it.

And to all a good night

It's after 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and it's all I can do to keep from nodding off as I sit down to write this. I haven't sat down for hours -- but for reasons I truly love: cooking and baking for my family, wrapping gifts, touching up the paint job on the little stool I'm giving my youngest grandchild tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

If all goes well, the small person in our home won't be up before the sun. And that means a pretty decent night's sleep if we can manage to finish setting up his gifts before midnight. We have learned our Christmas Eve lessons well: Do not, under any circumstances, wait until late that evening to set up a train set under the tree. Not if you want to get some sleep before the wee ones wake up.

And remember to stock up on batteries.

Oh, yes: Keep it simple. You'll all have more fun if you do.

Merry Christmas.

Letting go -- again

I drove to Rochester today to cut some apron strings, the ones that have kept one of my grown children financially dependent on me for too long.

The thing is, I am as "guilty" as this grown child when it comes to this co-dependent relationship we seem to have. I, being a parent, think I can fix anything. It's what parents are supposed to do. Or so I thought. Give me a kid who seems to be doing well and needs just one more chunk of cash to get the next chapter of his or her life in order and I'm there with the checkbook.

At least, I was.

Today was a day for letting go and trusting that, as my mother-in-law likes to say, all will be well -- without my intervention.

We do our grown children no favor when we do too much for them. When they don't live up to our expectations we feel betrayed, resentful. Not a good frame of mind to be in at any time of year but especially not now, not a few days before Christmas.

Still, I have to admit to feeling a bit lighter tonight. I'm back home, and I am no longer tied to a financial arrangement that was sucking me dry. I have no one but myself to blame for that situation. But at least I've learned my lesson.

And, as usual, I learned it the hard way.

Two minutes and counting

We've gained a couple of minutes of sunlight in the afternoon. I know, I know, we're still losing a few minutes each morning, but that'll change soon.

Tomorrow is the winter solstice. The end of autumn. The official start of winter. And the beginning of that slow slog through snow and slush and ice to spring.

People who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (with that unfortunate acronym "SAD") may loathe this shortest night of the year, but on its heels come days when we start to notice it staying a bit lighter a bit longer until one day you realize it's still light as you sit down to dinner.

No, it won't be light enough for an after-dinner walk for a while -- a rather long while. But I'd rather be on this side of the solstice, anticipating the lengthening days, than feeling that sinking sensation I get on June 21 when the days start growing shorter.

Yup, it gets dark too early right now. But the darkness can't last. It never does.

No drama

We put up the Christmas tree last night. There were no serious injuries.

Actually, my husband assembled the tree, which we chose a couple of years ago because a) we didn't have to plod through deep snow to cut it down and b) it comes with lights already in place.

We fought the good fight with real trees for 27 of our 30 years together, making sure our growing children would get to enjoy the scent of fresh pine in their own living room. I'm happy to report that they both have good memories of those trips to the tree farm (and the hot chocolate and doughnuts that usually followed those trips).

I do miss the smell of pine and the way the cat would nap beneath the tree. She shows no interest in this tree that came out of a box.

But I don't miss the drama.

Anyone who ever watched their dad wrestle with a tree, a tree stand and a snarled-up string of lights knows what I mean. My memories of those wrestling matches include the night my dad threatened to pick up the tree, which was half-strung with lights and clearly not cooperating, out the front door and into the street. He'd had a tough day.

Last night, sitting on our couch with no other lights than the lights on the tree shining, I honestly couldn't tell the thing was a fake. But I know it is. And I'm OK with it.

News to me

Every time I hear someone say the newspaper industry is on life support and not expected to survive, I swear I can hear my bones creak.

I spent a long time, maybe too long, working for a newspaper and have, for far longer, been a newspaper reader. I credit my parents for that. Two dailies -- the local paper and the Cleveland Plain Dealer -- were delivered to our home when I was a kid. I took pride in how well I did on the weekly current events quiz that ran in my local paper.

And like many people of a certain age, I cannot imagine mornings without a newspaper in my hands. I've tried reading the morning news online, taking care not to drip milk from my cereal bowl on the keyboard, but it's just not the same.

Geez, I sound like an old coot. But even some younger "coots" I know agree that it would be difficult to do without a daily paper.

This weekend, after a long stretch in the same building, the newspaper where I worked for more than 30 years is moving. The building's been sold, and the paper will lease space in a building a few miles from its current site. I'm one of several people who were let go this year in yet another attempt to keep the paper afloat.

Sad as I am to no longer be a part of it, I wish the paper well. I don't like change -- and I would hate to lose something that's as much a part of my morning as that bowl of cereal.

A not-so-random act

I needed the story I heard at church this morning, needed it to remind me of the goodness that's all around us if we look hard enough.

Just days after a brutal killing at the campus where I teach, I heard that the good people of the church I go to had dug deep into their pockets to help someone who, literally, arrived on the doorstep of the church rectory about a month ago.

A priest from Malawi, who had visited our church as part of the diocese's annual missionary appeal, showed up unannounced at the rectory to raise more money for his desperately poor parish. He e-mailed the pastor to let him know he'd be coming, then borrowed $1,600 for air fare to New York.

Well, the e-mail never arrived -- but the priest did. The diocese, meanwhile, said "no way" to a second financial appeal for the priest's parish.

That didn't stop the pastor of my church from asking his parish family if they'd be willing to help this young priest who must rely on public transportation to make his away around his massive parish, where the monthly donations are barely enough to keep body and soul together.

This morning, as I sat in church and wondered what the coming week at the university would be like in the wake of the murder that occurred there a few days ago, the pastor announced that his parishioners had donated $7,000 for the priest from Africa. In the depths of a recession, that's a remarkable sum.

Even in good times, that's a remarkable sum.

I'm grateful for people's willingness to help a stranger from a strange land, grateful for this much-needed reminder that goodness is more powerful than whatever it is that turns a heart so dark it resorts to violence.

Random acts

The university where I teach is mourning the death of an emeritus professor who died today after being stabbed by a man believed to be a graduate student. Already people are saying this isn't the sort of thing that happens around here. But, sadly, it does.

After all, this community was the site of a massacre in April when a man shot 13 innocent people to death during an English class for immigrants. We just don't like to be reminded that we're like every place else.

I don't think I'll feel frightened when I return to campus next week. I do expect to feel sad. I did not know the professor who died, but his death at the hands of another member of the campus community will cast a pall over the last week of classes -- and beyond.

The shootings in April were followed by remarkable acts of kindness and generosity by the community. I hope for a similar response on campus. I promise to commit at least one random act of kindness next week. I plan to ask my students to do the same. Because it's going to take a lot of goodness to overcome the evil that claimed a life this day.