Somehow without most of us really wanting to notice, December has slipped right in and is wearing all her bright shiny lights and singing her favourite carols. Of course, I resisted knowing she was coming and ignored her impending arrival by my refusal, once again, to participate in the "Feast of the Cash Register" (thank you, Blue Witch) on the days following our American annual Thanksgiving celebration.
The Thanksgiving was lovely, by the way. Emily Gilmore and I stuffed ourselves even more than the turkey at a buffet meal served at a fancy local hotel. We were both thankful for someone else to do the cooking and the cleaning and for no left-overs to be consumed in a variety of ways for days after wards. We were also thankful for one another. Yes, I am thankful for her. I know I moan and groan about her frequently, but let's all admit it. We're all thankful for our mothers, if for no other reason than for birthing us, and I am no different.
So December, yes? With it, a small challenge of both celebration and remembrance of the year that has just passed. As I am a person of ritual, who spends the majority of my day on 31 December recounting the good, the bad, the beautiful and celebratory of the year only to burn it and release it, Gwen Bell's additional blog challenge seems a good way to help me with that list. I'm joining in.
I'll share that I first discovered Gwen Bell at the Blogher gathering in Chicago that I attended this year. What a beautiful, gorgeous, lovely and just awe-inspiring discovery she was for me. Her words, her life, her very being encourage and inspire me to be a better me. I have many, many lovely people like that in my life. Gwen isn't even really in my life. Just a shiny star, like many other amazing bloggers, whom I admire and am inspired by from afar.
There are 31 questions to be answered in this month of December. One for each day. It is my intention and hope that I'll answer each and every one with both the honesty and naked truth that you all have come to expect from me.
1 December: Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?
I was tempted to write about the trip(s) to Santa Cruz. Truly, if I'm going to write about the best trip of 2009, as a trip, my trips to Santa Cruz, back to the soul seat of my heart, are the best. All of them.
However, looking at the entirety of 2009, I honestly have to share that the best trip I took in 2009 was an inner journey taken from January to December. I traveled from a sad and unsmiling and broken me who could barely cobble together a laugh back to the woman whose heart feels whole once again, whose laugh carries across the room, whose mega-watt eyes sparkle with magic and wonder.
I will admit that my trip to Oregon, to my family at the Oregon Country Fair, played a huge role in that journey. It renewed me, it filled me with a joy unbridled, it restored my love for me. Yes, love just for me.
The journey back to loving me. That is, without question, my very best trip of 2009.
