Solstice 1995

December, 1995



Dear Ones,

Time again to pause, reflect, and attempt to connect to all the scattered and disparate stars in my small universe. Very like stars you all are, too, with my image of each of you a snapshot of the past, having taken light years to arrive here, while in reality you have each moved on. (Oh, shit, he's starting out sort of weird and serious. Hope this gets funny soon.) I yearn to hear where you all have gotten to, and figure everybody else feels the same, hence another saga of the year in our orbit goes to press. (Yep, he's lost it. Maybe next year's letter will be funny again.)
Anyway, life in Bible-land, America's smallest state and theme park, continues to agree with us, to my mild surprise. The reason for that is the fact that a very few things occupy our time and energy, leaving us the supreme luxury of ignoring just about everything else. The kids are doing great. Everett is 7, still enjoying little boy-hood, still cuddly for who-knows-how-much-longer. His major passion at the moment is singing, and he is constantly breaking into a Gordon MacRea imitation, complete with "Oklahoma!" gestures and cowboy swagger. He is plodding along with the piano, but recital time perks him up an he actually plays to the crowd and enjoys the result. He plays stuff already I never could have in my dark piano-playing past. Hannah, age 9, has gladly given up the piano for other pursuits. Maybe she'll tinker with it as she goes along. She is now enjoying 4th grade at her school a lot, despite the commute to Berlin, MD. She is rough and tumble, gangly, coltish, humorous, responsible, and slightly subversive, in short a dream girl. However, adolescent hormonal surges are starting to manifest themselves, as a falling weather glass may foretell a coming storm, so stay tuned.
Catherine is enjoying her practice and her colleagues immensely. It is really gratifying to see her flourish professionally. She is not feeling any need to move on, and that makes me happy. She is continuing with her piano playing, working hard at Debussy, Bach and others. She is also hot to find a Steinway Grand for a certain spot in our living room, so if anyone has one in the basement they are not using, let us know. We're still Roller-Blading most days of the week, trying to stave off the inevitable decay. We will let you know in 20 years if it is working.
Michele is in school and working in RI, working too hard but doing well. She is not so certain that nursing is still her calling but is staying with it for now, till something else occurs to her. Nathanael is back in RI taking another run at finishing high school. Before leaving here he did manage to re-establish a forgotten fact of my genealogy, that I am in truth the Evil One, Beelzebub himself. Pity I hadn't realized it before this, because I have kept working instead of conjuring up vast riches and limitless physical pleasure. Now I guess I have forgotten how to use my powers, so I remain a working stiff, still filling out those Publisher's Central Sweeps Non-Order Entries, and neglecting to influence the results. I can't even remember where I left my tail. I'll hunt around, and in the meantime if anyone wants to fax me his/her soul, I'll see what I can do for you.
Dorje the Dog is holding up remarkably well, still a frisky old guy at 11 years of age. He hasn't run off an Jehovah's Witness in quite a while, but we keep him on even so, if only in honor of yeoman service in the past.
As for me, it has been an interesting year. Work has settled into a tolerable routine of nights only, too many nights only, of course, but still a better schedule than I used to have. Recruiting is my biggest priority still, but finding an ER Doc who wants to live here in the heart of nowhere makes me realize what a demographic oddity I am, and that makes me long again for contact with my demographically odd friends, but I already said that...(now he's calling us odd)
I probably do get a biased view in the ER at night, but I do miss the sight of someone who has more natural teeth than tattoos plus hickeys. And I miss the simple pleasure of having the truth spoken to me on a routine basis. I am accustomed now to discounting the first two stories I hear, and waiting for the third, so I can average. It does make it easier when they use homey expressions like "well to tell you the God's honest truth, Doc..." because I know that then, invariably, will follow a lie. Occasionally I do run into a gem among the churlish and stupid, one with some grace and integrity among the seekers of instant cures, of absolution from all personal responsibility, and of chemical solace. Every now and then someone comes in with something actually wrong with them, and I recognize what it is and help them fix it, and they say "Thank you." And that makes it all worthwhile. But then, to snap me back to reality, a twenty one month old baby calls my nurses "Dumb Bitches", or a five year old child cuts loose with a murderous stream of expletives that would make Andrew Dice Clay blush, and I wonder again how people ever survive the violence of their lives. Some months it is a long time between fixable problems.
On the recreational side, we have continued our exploration of the southern Chesapeake by sailboat, aided and abetted greatly by friends with a similar boat and a 6 month old daughter, who lead us on in tandem adventures. I am getting to be a pretty fair boat repairman, replacing dead bilge-pumps, and broken latches as we go along. On one trip this summer, poor Hannah pumped out the toilet, and had the holding tank explode just behind her. She burst out of the head as though pursued by hornets. I'll never forget her face as she popped up on deck for that first breath of fresh air. She said, in her characteristic deadpan style, "Dad, we've got a problem." A bit like "Houston, we have a problem." Indeed we did have a problem, or to be more accurate, I had a problem. The inlet had blown out of the bottom of a fourteen gallon tank of raw sewage, and all had drained into the bottom of a locker and down the wall onto the floor of the head. Now I know why plumbers charge more per hour than doctors. They are worth it. Anyway, I plunged in and repaired the tank in an hour, sluiced the whole place out with bleach and had us underway again. Nevermind Hannah's near panic state at every mention of needing to go to the head. There is nothing wrong with her that a year of intensive therapy and a good box of prunes won't remedy.
We also garnered some experience in heavy weather sailing that same trip. We had to work our way back despite a thirty knot wind day, with gusts to 37 knots, and six to eight foot waves marching by in close order. It was a Guy Sailing kind of day, but Kathmandu shouldered through it without much fuss. The kids tried to stay below, where the Green Sea-Sickness Monster lurks on days like that. He found them both and chased them up on deck, where the sight of a jumbled horizon and the thrill of riding the waves soon relieved their symptoms. It gives me a little boost to feel we can handle some tough-ish conditions. This summer we are contemplating a circumnavigation of the Delmarva Peninsula. On the aviation front, I am still just a whisker away from getting my pilot's license, so perhaps this spring I will begin some hops to visit unsuspecting folks who thought six hours' drive was far enough away. It is only a matter of time off and weather cooperating, but that combination continues to be elusive, as this past year without much progress has shown.
And so, to long suffering friends who have read this far, and to our less patient ones who have skipped to the end, we send our hopes to you for another year of peace and contentment. The Earth has spun again to the time of longest nights, and fitful dreams of warmth and edible produce. Fear not, for the same spin and wobble will carry us inevitably on, through Omnibus Budget Resolutions, past posturing politicians and mercifully closed governments, past ancient tribalist madness, through brave and hopefully not futile troop deployments, around family values taught by morally bereft Amphibians, over infomercial-welfare for the formerly famous, and through the confusion over what to do now that Jerry Garcia is gone. We will be propelled into the warming light of increasing tolerance for others, into the strength to speak out for what is just and true, to the resilience to keep working on friendships that matter, toward the wisdom to surround our offspring with love and discipline, and to the return of OJ as a simple breakfast libation. To all of you we wish for more time to spend in your gardens, freedom from whining, time to read a really good novel, energy enough to exercise thrice weekly, a substantial decline in your consumer debt, participation in the bull market, and for understanding of Windows 95 without tears. May you already be "right-sized" and still employed, may your children grow up to be your friends, may re-engineering be shown to be redundant in your case, may your true genius finally be recognized by your peers, and may you be overcome by an irrepressible urge to be in occasional contact with old friends, especially us. We would very much like your e-mail addresses, so e-mail us if snail mail is too much of a chore. Gawd knows I only do this once a year. (Thank God!)

Salud, Wassail, Cheers, Peace, Love, Warmest regards, Festive Solstice, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Farewell. select as many as you desire.