This year I thought I was going to give up TV (which is what I gave up last year, though I returned to it fairly quickly afterwards). But then I signed up for Christine Valters Paintner’s Lent class at Abbey of the Arts, and realized that instead of giving something up (as I was schooled to do during my Catholic childhood), I was going to acquire a new habit: a daily spiritual practice.

Christine’s class focuses on the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, that is, reading a sacred text each day and allowing it to resonate within (listening with “the ear of the heart,” as Benedict wrote). While reading about this concept in Christine’s book, Lectio Divina, I realized how seldom I really listen (which is probably why my experience of listening to the plants was so profound). I’m usually preparing an answer or adrift in a sea of my own thoughts. And I thought about how deeply the people around me, particularly my daughter, want to be heard. She’s always talking, but probably because no one’s listening. I think she would be shocked, and possibly a little terrified, if she realized I was really listening.

Listening doesn’t mean responding, so I have to curb my desire to be useful and to give advice. If my desire is to fully hear, to seek to understand, to allow my heart to be touched, that’s enough.

So I’m listening for Lent. What are you doing for Lent?

Pussy willows had always seemed mythical to me. They didn’t grow wild in Southern California. We only saw them when we went to the Farmers Market in downtown Los Angeles which we only did when relatives came to visit. The pussy willow branches came wrapped in plastic. When brought home and put in vases, they remained frozen in their fuzzy bud stage.

But on this tree, I saw all the stages in their development. First, tender milk-white buds. Bristling green catkins came next, which were gradually frosted with yellow pollen before dropping from the tree to litter the sidewalk in soggy clumps like so many used condoms. And, as I thought about it, I realized this tree was in a constant wave of orgasm as each little flower puffed out its pollen and then collapsed, spent.

It amazed me that I had walked past this tree for years (I’ve lived in my neighborhood for 14 years) and never noticed this miraculous transformation. (To give me credit, this whole cycle is over in one month; for the rest of the year, the tree is rather boring:either bare branches or green leaves.)

The goat willow tree surprised me again this year when I realized there is another stage in its development. Before the milky white buds appear, the ones we think of as pussy willows, they have to push through the brown caps that have protected them through the winter. Right now the sidewalk is covered with those light brown husks, like so many tiny insect shells.

It is only necessary to behold the least fact or phenomenon, however familiar, from a point a hair’s breadth aside from our habitual path or routine, to be overcome, enchanted by its beauty and significance…. To perceive freshly, with fresh senses is to be inspired. Thoreau.

On the other side of the table you get an upside-down view of the collage my friend Janis made.  We love this ritual which we have been sharing for years. We light candles, make wishes, drink tea, nibble on cookies and play with images.

My cards right now are up on the wall in the entry way of my home where they will remind me every time I enter of my themes for the year.

As I walking to my car, I passed two crows eating a dead rat (or mouse?) that was lying in the road. Seattle was experiencing a sunny spell, with balmy breezes and blue skies. But as I headed north to Bellingham where we met, I watched ribbons of rain streaming down from a dark bank of clouds. I wondered about these omens.

Our three days together were fruitful and nourishing. We stayed at the Fairhaven Village Inn, which was a lovely place to stay. My room had a view of Bellingham Bay and the huge Alaska ferry (in dry dock) and the train going by. We met and talked and went out to eat and talked and made maps and went out to eat and ate chocolate and talked and went out for gelato and talked and made lists and talked and came up with a plan for the year that is both refreshing and sustainable (two of my theme words for this year). I’m not ready to reveal the details (because it’s not completely clear yet) but I should be ready by Spring Equinox.

When I left Bellingham, it was raining. I took a wandering course home, along the coast, and through some lovely farmland. Ahead of me the clouds were dark but I could see golden sun streaming out from behind them. And I passed a field full of white swans (they like to over-winter in the Skagit Valley). That seemed like a good omen.

Here’s a video of trumpeter swans in the Skagit Valley. You can tell why they are called named after trumpets.

I accidentally watched part of an episode of the TV show Hoarders last year. I don’t recommend it for anyone who has any hoarding tendencies–I’ve been horrified ever since at the prospect that I might become one of those old ladies who lives in an apartment with little paths between the stacks of newspapers. But this tendency does run in my family. My Uncle George, who was the family eccentric in my Mom’s family, apparently had an apartment like that (he also had about a quarter of a million dollars in his estate when he died—unfortunately that part of the hoarding gene seems to have passed me by).

It’s hard to launch into the new year when you’re carrying the weight of all that clutter, all those unfinished projects, all those unread magazines, all those unsorted photographs. And I’m noticing this same theme among the participants in my New Year Dreams class.

I’m hoping that this is all due to the backwards influence of Mercury and Mars both being retrograde at the same time. Madeleine Gerwick, the author of the popular Good Timing Guide says not to initiate any new projects until March 20. That might give me enough time to clear and organize my house.

I’m also reading Julie Morganstern’s new book. I’m a big fan of Julie’s work. The four-step system she explains in her Organizing from the Inside Out book has been very helpful to me. The first step is sorting, and the second step is purging. The third step is containing (finding the right space for the stuff) and the fourth step is maintaining the system you’ve developed. You can use this with clothes, with papers, etc. Over the summer, I used it with my books (and actually got rid of some–a first!).

Her new book, Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life, is more about how to get rid of stuff you’re holding onto, and she extends it from clutter in your house to clutter in your schedule to bad habits in your personal life. Again, she has come up with a simple system and an Acronym to remind you of it in SHED. First you Separate the treasures from the trash in your life, then you Heave the trash.  The final two steps are Embrace your Identity and Drive Yourself Forward.

What I especially like is her focus on the end result. What are the values you are trying to manifest in your life? And do the items in your house (or schedule or life) serve your purpose/help you achieve your goals?

Once you identify the arena in which you want to work, you create a list of entry points, for instance, the pile of unread magazines, the box of unsorted photographs or the box full of old Christmas cards. Then you choose the point which will cause you the minimum amount of difficulty and get you the maximum amount of effect. This is about where I am in the book so I don’t know yet how it will work out. But I have until March 20 to carry out all the steps.

Do you have a system that works for you?

This gorgeous photo of an Indian Plum leafing out was taken by Alyss Broderick and is one of many beautiful seasonal photographs in the new Calendar Companion Weekly Planner.

Although I haven’t seen any Indian Plum, I’ve already encountered the fragrance that I call  the Scent of Spring.This year I smelled it for the first time on January 8, just outside the front door of an apartment building in my neighborhood.The next earliest smelling (can’t call it a sighting) was January 18 in 2004, so this is really early.

The next night, I noticed that the sweet box (Sarcocca hookeriana var. humilis, also known as Christmas box) outside my apartment building was already in bloom. When the landlord redid the landscaping around our apartment, he planted a row of sweet box.The first year it didn’t bloom at all but this year it is going crazy.

When I smell this lovely, flowery scent, I know spring is coming soon. What is the first sign of spring where you live?

My goal is to read 2 books a week. I usually read a novel or memoir on the weekend and a non-fiction book (often related to something I’m writing about or teaching) during the week. I still haven’t found my journal from March of 2009 but even without that month, I read over 100 books last year. But to my disappointment, there were far more books marked “boring” or “pleasant” or “only read half of this” on my list than in any previous year. I can’t tell if it’s because there are less well-written books being published or because I’m crankier. If I had to guess, I’d say the latter.

Here are some of the books I did enjoy (in varying amounts) (skip to the bottom for my top ten books, if you don’t want to read the whole list):

Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory (historical fiction)

Master of Florence by Doug Preston (true crime)

Rounding the Mark by Andrea Camilleri (Silician mystery)

Secret of Scent by Luca Turin ( an intelligent book about perfume)

A Year in Scent by Chandler Burr (a more commercial approach to perfume)

Luca Turin’s pefume blog

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

A Rose By Any Name: The Little-Known Lore and Deep-Rooted History of Rose Names by Douglas Brenner and Stephen Scanniello

Tribes by Seth Godin

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg (memoir about mentally ill daughter)

Essence and Alchemy by Mandy Aftel (book about perfume)

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore

Barry Lyndon by William Thackeray

279 Days to Overnight Success by Chris Guillebeau (downloadable report from his web site)

Central Park in the Dark by Marie Winn

Anatomy of a Rose by Sharman Apt Russell

Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

The Path by Chet Raymo

Scattershot: My Bipolar Family by David Lovelace (memoir about manic depression)

A Year in Place by W Scott Olsen and Brett Lott

Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

North and South by Mrs Gaskell (excellent 19^th century novel)

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter (memoir about Oakland farm)

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks (schizophrenia memoir)

Time Exposure by Richard Fenn

Motion of the Ocean by Janna Cawrse Esarey (a charming memoir about a honeymoon trip across the Pacific in a small sailboat)

The Hedgehog’s Dilemma by Hugh Warwick (about hedgehogs)

Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri (Sicilian mystery)

In Search of Lost Roses by Thomas Christopher

Crow Planet by Lyanda Haupt (a lovely account of finding nature in the city by observing crows)

Voluntary Madness by Norah Vincent (memoir of woman who has herself voluntarily committed to three different sorts of mental health treatment centers)

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Hellfire Conspiracy by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

#1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

Cities and Natural Process by Michael Hough

Lights on a Ground of Darkness by Ted Kooser (poetry about a small Midwestern town)

Not Becoming my Mother by Ruth Reichl (food writer’s memoir)

On Good Land: The Autobiography of an Urban Farm by Michael Ableman (Goleta farm)

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

Black Hand by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith

The Yellowplush Papers by Thackeray

The Lady in Red: An Eighteenth Century Tale of Sex, Scandal and Divorce by Hallie Rubenhold

To Kingdom Come by Will Thomas (Victorian mystery)

One Inch of Silence by Gordon Hempton

In Search of Silence by Sara Maitland

Persistence of Purgatory by Richard Fenn (interesting academic book linking our obsession with time to the doctrine of purgatory)

When Organizing Isn’t Enough by Julie Morganstern

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg

The House of Hope and Fear: Life in a Big City Hospital by Audrey Young

Flower Style by Kenneth Turner (awesome book about an outrageous floral designer)

Dancing with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Kidd Taylor

Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharatt

Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer ( a truly smart book about being a writer in the 21st century)

You can see a certain number of themes. I was reading memoirs about madness because I’ve been contemplating writing an essay about the madness (bipolar disorder) that runs through my family line. All of them were good, that is informative, but none of them were great.

At the start of the year, I was reading books about new ways of doing business—all of them had at least one inspiring idea. And in the middle of the year, I was reading (or re-reading) books on perfume as I was writing an essay on preserving the scents of flowers.

I was also working my way through several series. Two were triggered by my wanting to read the books that inspired the HBO series: True Blood and #1 Ladies Detective Agency. The first few books in each series were charming but by the fourth or fifth book I was bored.  True Blood, the HBO series, is richer and darker than the books, though it retains the wonderful premise (that vampires are a minority group claiming their rights). The #1 Ladies Detective Agency series is stunning in its beauty and very faithful to the books in its charming portrayal of the small triumphs and sorrows of life in Botswana.

I also enjoyed Philippa Gregory’s historical novels about the Tudor period—especially  The Other Boleyn Girl and The Virgin’s Lover—but when I tried reading books she had written before that time period, I was disappointed. Very disappointed.

My two favorite series for the year were Andrea Camilleri’s series of Silician mysteries which are translated from the Italian. They feature Salvo Montalbano, a police inspector in a small town in Sicily who is plagued by incompetence underlings, corrupt superiors and bureaucratic obstacles and yet manages to solve crimes through his persistence and close observation. He also loves his meals, which are lovingly described. And the mystery novels set in Victorian London written by Will Thomas which feature a Holmes-and-Watson like duo, the mysterious enquiry agent Barker and his Welsh side-kick Llewellyn. They solve crimes that take place against a backdrop of various ethnic enclaves: the Jewish quarter, a crew of Irish revolutionaries, the Italian longshoremen.

Prize for best book of the year has to go to Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, a memoir written by Novella Carpenter who grew her own food (plants and animals) on the vacant lot next to her rental apartment in a run-down section of Oakland. I appreciated how unabashedly unapologetic she is about her unconventional life style.

Second best was another memoir: A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg, a food blogger’s charming stories each paired with a mouth-watering recipe.

Because I was working on my own Victorian novel, I read a lot of Victorian fiction. The best and definitely, my third favorite book of the year, was Wedlock: The True Story of the Disastrous Marriage and Remarkable Divorce of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore by Wendy Moore. It’s one of the best history books I’ve ever read. The story is so enthralling you can read it through like a novel, yet Moore gives you all the information you need to understand the situation and setting. Once I learned that the villain of the piece served as the inspiration for Thackeray’s novel, Barry Lyndon, I read that again. What a delightful romp of a book that is!

I loved the premise of A Year in Place! W. Scott Olson and Brett Lott invited talented writers to submit a story about one month in a place they live. Some of them are brilliant. I especially enjoyed the essays written by Rick Bass and Naomi Shibab Nye. I want to do something like this on my web site.

Flower Style: The Art of Flower Design and Decoration I picked up at my local half price book store during their after Christmas sale. It features lavish photographs of the baroque flower designs of a London flower designer. Think of Martha Stewart on steroids! It’s beautiful and bizarre at the same time. I love reading about the life paths of people who love what they do.

Daughters of Witching Hill by Mary Sharatt is a great historical novel about the Pendle witches who were condemned for witchcraft in fifteenth century England. She’s done an amazing job of historical research and thoughtful re-imagining about what it was like to be a “cunning woman” in those desperate times. I’ll write more about this when I’m done with it and hope to feature an interview with the author on my blog.

Cities and Natural Process by Michael Hough was a rather dry book, designed to be read by urban planners, and it was written fifteen years ago, but I found it eye-opening. As one reviewer said on Amazon: “In many ways the profession is just catching up with Hough’s thinking.” Like any good academic book, it challenged my assumptions and gave me a historical perspective on nature in the city. Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness by Lyanda Lynn Haupt was another book that encouraged me that I am going in the right direction with its wise stories.

That’s it for 2009. Hoping to read many more good books in 2010

I was grateful to learn that others felt the same way, and have developed their own methods of coping. Havi, for instance, replaces the gratitude list with a lentil list of things that don’t stuck, and I was totally thrilled to appear on this year’s list. Other folks, like Cairene, have now adopted this tradition (and I made her list too!).

Several people wrote to tell me how much they do enjoy Thanksgiving, for instance, because it’s the least commercial of all American holidays (so true!) or because they are grateful to be with family and friends. But this only made me feel more Grinchy. Then, this week, I got some insights that helped my Grinchy heart grow several sizes.

It started with a good session with my counselor, in which I clarified my longings around Thanksgiving, and was followed by the serendipitous arrival of a newsletter about NVC (Non-Violent Communication). In the newsletter, Evan Gorsline wrote about his negative reaction to the word “happy.” He experienced it as a judgment, a way that he was expected to feel, and it was often used to describe a false optimism that repressed other more complex feelings. What Evan longed for in relationship with others was authenticity and honesty and the felt demand to be “happy” often prevented that. (You should read the whole article here, as I can’t really do it justice in a few sentences.)

What I long for at Thanksgiving (or any dinner party) is meaningful, challenging and playful conversation (something sorely lacking at my family’s Thanksgiving feasts where we were expected to focus on “happy” topics and something difficult to achieve in a group of strangers) and delicious food (and I really don’t like turkey). No wonder I was having trouble with Thanksgiving.

Having identified what I do want, I can set up about getting it next Thanksgiving. Just like when I took charge of my birthday parties, after years of being disappointed, and they suddenly became fabulous, because, after all, I am very good at knowing what I like. But the good news is that good conversation and good food can be enjoyed all year around, not just at Thanksgiving.

I decided to experiment in November with writing it from different points of view. It’s been really interesting; I learned a lot about myself as a novelist. (Mostly that I can’t write a really coherent novel this fast.)

But I have a rough draft of a complete novel and I might be able to fix it through revision. Not that I’m going to start on that anytime soon. I’m waiting until April when I expect to teach a revision class.

I love holidays that are seasonal, whose themes and symbols derive from natural phenomena but have a hard time relating to holidays whose origins are historical or political. Part of my discomfort with Thanksgiving comes from its founding myth, although I can divert myself from the political issues implicit in it, by telling myself it’s just another late (very late) harvest feast, like Michaelmas or Martinmas. I also dislike the bloated feeling that is often the result of excessive eating, and the afternoon slump which follows the consumption of turkey, when conversation dwindles and eyes glaze over. I’m not a big fan of turkey, either.

But perhaps the most thorny issue for me is the definition of family that is an inevitable part of Thanksgiving. There is an Italian saying: “Christmas with your family, Easter with your friends.” In America, Thanksgiving is all about family. But which family?

I have one friend, a grown woman whose son has just left for college. She is worried about telling her parents, who live in the same city she does, that she’s not planning to spend Thanksgiving with them. Instead, she plans to tag along with her son, who is eating dinner at the home of his father, her ex. She is choosing to define herself as mother rather than daughter for the first time in her life.

I stopped going home for Thanksgiving when I moved away from Los Angeles in 1981. I’ve never gone back and I’ve never missed it. Instead my struggle has been to define what is family for myself. And this is where the question: “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” comes in.

If I say I have nothing planned, I am assumed to be an “orphan” and in need of a family to take me in. If I say I am fixing dinner and my questioner has no plans, they will expect to be included. I can’t think of any other occasion when people invite themselves to dinner but at Thanksgiving the table is assumed to be elastic and there’s always room for one more.

Thanks to Lynn Jericho, who sent me a copy of her book Six Ways to Celebrate Christmas and Celebrate You! , I decided to take a more thoughtful rather than a reactive approach to Thanksgiving this year. I looked back at childhood memories of Thanksgiving to see what had shaped my picture of the holiday. The location passed back and forth between my mother and her sister. Uncle Bob and Aunt Jo always provided pumpkin pie and turkeys cut out of cranberry jelly. My mother always made a jello salad and a sweet potato casserole topped with marshmallows. I can remember sitting around waiting for the meal to be served and reading the Reader’s Digest . The food served, while good, was never exquisite and the conversation was designed to please the common denominator (perhaps a good argument for the children’s table). For me, it was the most boring holiday of the year.

After reviewing the roots of my distaste for Thanksgiving, I decided to think about what made a Thanksgiving special. Two very different Thanksgivings stood out in my mind. For a few years, my daughter and I were invited to eat Thanksgiving with my friend and mentor, Helen Farias and her husband James in Clear Lake. It was a long drive for us, about two hours, out of the city on a rainy, grey day, and north through small towns, into the country, until we finally turned off the highway onto a gravel drive and parked outside the tiny ramshackle structure that was their home. It would be just about dark when we arrived and the house would be lit with candles and the windows steamed up. Helen and James loved cooking and the kitchen would be stacked with piles of dirty dishes but the table would be laden with beautiful presentations of the usual fare. Somehow it all tasted better at Helen’s house. Joanna Powell Colbert and her husband would come over bringing food and we would sit around the table, and sip wine, and talk. The talk was always fascinating: about myths and symbols, about costumes and goddesses. My daughter, who was an adolescent, always felt included in the conversation. Someone would play the piano—I can’t remember who–and we’d sing songs. The evening often ended with a rowdy game of dictionary. It was a totally satisfying experience.

The other Thanksgiving I cherished is totally different. One Thanksgiving I was all alone. I can’t imagine where my daughter was. Perhaps she had been invited to eat with a friend’s family or maybe she was visiting her dad in L.A. I decided to cook a special meal just for myself and made my favorite squash stew, a recipe that has to be started the night before, by soaking the ancho chiles. The next day I made a roux of the chiles and various spices, and added tomatoes and butternut squash and mushrooms and zucchini. It takes hours to cook this squash stew. It was all very leisurely, no pressure to get things on the table. I also made cornbread and green beans tossed with Dijon mustard and butter. I probably cooked with a glass of white wine in my hand, because the recipe calls for white wine. I don’t remember dessert. What I do remember is the pleasure of spending all that time making a fabulous meal just for myself. I ate by candlelight and felt well nourished, rather than orphaned.

This year I do have plans for Thanksgiving. They’ve changed four times but I’m looking forward to what I’ve got planned now. I’m going as a “tag-along,” (not quite the same as an orphan) with a friend to his friend’s Thanksgiving. I’ll know a few people there and I’ll bring along my cranberry apple chutney which is easy to make and good to eat. I don’t know if I will have a good time but it will give me another chance to observe what happens when people work to create a celebration that combines good food and good company.

I invite you to examine your thoughts, hopes and dreams for Thanksgiving and post them as comments. Is American Thanksgiving unique? I wonder if Canadian Thanksgiving has a different flavor.