winter solstice.

It&#146s that time of year again and if I haven&#146t already said it, I&#146ll say it again. Boy am in the holiday spirit. It must be because of Ryland. He&#146s made everything in my life brighter and better. It feels so good to have my own family, to know that I&#146m building the sort of memories and traditions that I have right now, with my family. I&#146m making that foundation for Ryland. It feels so freaking cool. I&#146ll stop and think and imagine years down the line, when my son will come home for christamas and bring his girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husband and we&#146ll laugh and talk and drink and remember past holidays and be all jolly and merry together.

I just am so in love with that idea, which is probably a bad thing because if it doesn&#146t happen I&#146ll be devastated and by stating my desire for it now I&#146m undoubtedly jinxing it.

So I&#146m not religious and I still do the whole christmas thing, because that&#146s how it goes. And I was all worried about what to do with Ryland regarding this particular holiday. I certainly don&#146t want to instill in him this sense of materialistic expectation, but it&#146s fun to give and get presents and you try telling my family that we&#146re not going to do the whole christmas thing. They already think I&#146m a weird enough person and a weird enough parent. Tell them I&#146m nixing the santa/christmas deal and I&#146m sure they&#146ll have me locked up.

Anyway, like I was saying, I&#146m not religious. But I do have spiritual beliefs and I want to give Ryland some of that spirituality. And there is just something so perfect and comforting about this time of year, as if the cooler air somehow thins the barriers between worlds and waves, dimension and time. I want this to be special for him, for us. So when I read about what my friend Marianne is doing, I felt so much better. We&#146ll call christmas christamas, which of course we should all be doing already, and we&#146ll do winter solstice and I&#146ll teach Ryland about being spiritual and how to blend it in with the way the rest of the world celebrates. It&#146s perfect!

He&#146s still just a little baby right now so if I don&#146t get it quite right this year, it will be okay.

By the way, if I could marry Marianne, I would. She&#146s quite seriously the most influential person in my life and her depths, complexity and intelligence surprise me every single day. But I have to say, it really upsets me how my family (and probably most everyone else who knows us) thinks that I worship her and follow her every word and do anything and everything she says. They give me no credit, like I don&#146t have my own mind and my own choices and am smart enough and strong enough to think for myself and come to my own conclusions. I happily admit that she is a positive influence and strong and steady force in my life, but people should be thankful and happy that I have someone so in tune with the world looking out for me. But I know this so that&#146s all that matters.

This time last year I was busy making Ryland. I had no idea how my life was about to change so dramatically, no clue as to what was happening inside me and what my body was preparing to do. So many changes over so little time… It&#146s a little scary and a lot seductive.

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