Variations on a Theme in G Major: Winter Waltz

So Here I am...not actually being abducted by aliens in the middle of the Siberian wastes, but strolling through my neighborhood after a concert. I went to hear the Rose Ensemble sing carols from Elizabethan England. I made friends with the woman who sat next to me. She was somewhere between my mother and my grandmother in age, and she agreed the sound of music from the 16th century was transporting and just the right thing to do during this Solstice season.

For some reason the carols that moved me the most were those tunes that were cradle songs for the infant Christ. I think they do well to convey the hope and peace that is forgotten in the rush of Life this time of year. It's the solstice today, so I've been thinking about darkness and light. The long dark is peaceful and deep, but can also be oppressive. On the other side of the longest night, there is lengthening day, hope that everything that now sleeps will bloom again, and I feel that my mind understands that cycle well.

The church I grew up in always included a call and response portion of their Christmas Eve service; the responses were all things like "And celebrate a new birth of hope/light in our lives." There's a reason I always enjoyed going to these services, even when I didn't give a fig for Christian dogma. Christmas is one of the only times they really get it.

In one of my fictional worlds, Longest Night is the most contemplative of holy days. It is a time of fasting, meditations and visions, followed by the second biggest party of the year. I gave it that significance because that is what our solstice holidays should be. It's also very reminiscent of the Christmas Eve/Christmas structure my life had when I was little. Christmas Eve was for going to candlelight service, viewing Christmas lights in the city and opening presents as a family. Christmas Day was a day of excess...food from the moment of waking up. Cookies for breakfast if we wanted (within reason), and then Grandma and Grandpa's house...where we could bounce of the walls and eat more. (I can smell the ham and cloves now.)

Anyway...I realized that I felt absolutely nothing for the upcoming holiday week, and that needed to change. I took it upon myself to become both contemplative and festive. The music was wonderful. I met a kindred spirit from another generation (always a blessing), and the winter night was wonderful for light-gazing.

The iPhone doesn't do so well with evening pics, but here are a few...

This is the church ceiling. I kept looking at it. The upside-down boat structure is even more pronounced in this church than in most I've attended, and the whole building is really designed to draw the eye upward. I kind of like it, even if it does have that most-Catholic of icons: Christ suspended on the cross, flanked by his sainted parents. (I've never been a fan of the crucified. I like empty crosses in my churches, thank you. I am, at least, that Protestant.)

This doesn't capture the radiance of the light coming through the snow at all, but it's still cool.

These are the footprints of Duke the Newf-Bernard who lives across the street from me. He's a gentle giant, and the quiet of his snowed-over footprints struck me as significant.

Markers leading up to a jolly holiday gathering.

One of my favorite local trees. It's enormous. Someday, I'm going to catch people in the act of putting lights on one of these monsters. Do people really hire bucket trucks?

I flopped into the snow underneath the great big tree to see what multi-colored stars look like.

I walked home and decorated my own little tree. I hope people driving by are cheered by it.

Work

The obvious right out of the gate: I am not dedicated to my job. It is a means to an end. I would hate to have it pulled out from under me at this point, but I also do not treat it like it is the most important thing in my life.
I have a coworker who cannot separate herself from her work. If she has to do it, she's going to make it important. This is not necessarily a bad trait to have. In a lot of circumstances, I imagine it's an asset. But I think she has told herself a self-importance story when it comes to her work as a faculty secretary. I also think she knows that I keep myself pretty separate from work, and I kind of think it drives her crazy that I can do this.
I don't think her job is made any easier because she's so committed either, if anything, it makes it more difficult because she starts to get edgy when things she sees as 'hers' are 'taken' from her. This has happened recently over the transition of a student activity that reports to one of my disciplines, but she has been taking care of it for the last four years or so.
She is forever saying to me: "Not that I think you're incompetent." But ah, when you hear it often enough, the message sure becomes "I think you're incompetent." I mean, I've been known to do that from time to time.

I had another one of these little run-ins after a meeting this morning. I ask her questions because: 1) she's had the job longer than I have, and 2) she's not my boss (who is a whole different kettle of crazy). Asking a simple question resulted in spew about the result of a faculty meeting in which "my faculty" were surprised that "her faculty trusted" her with website alterations from the word go.
Now, I don't have a lot of work on a daily basis, and maybe it is because these people think I'm "incompetent", but this was a meeting of department chairs. Most of the people who are department chairs right now are individuals I've had as teachers. They know I'm no fluff-brain.
They may indeed have implied that they didn't want me working on the website, I don't know, but I still got the impression that I was being put down, not by "my faculty" but by my coworker.

I've given this woman the benefit of a doubt a zillion times. She is brash and abrasive and not afraid to tell anyone what she really thinks, but man...I think this time, she IS afraid to tell me what she thinks. And she's doing a piss poor job with her passive aggression. (Unlike well...blogging about it...which is totally direct. Guess I'll step off my high horse now.)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I think I've wrung out the problems DB and I are having into one issue really...everything else is possibly work-on-able, but the make or break thing (after some observation last night), is a respect issue. I don't think I can be with someone who will listen to me say: "I'm not comfortable with this" and then say, "But telling me not to do it is going to make it irresistible to me, so I have to do it." (This is the conversation we've had in the past.)

I can be ok with a female friendship, but I don't think I should have to be ok with the way high spirits in said friendship turn into wrestling matches.

I haven't hashed this one out completely with him yet, but back in the beginning of summer when I was trying to set boundaries, Miss K pointed out that DB and I flirt with everyone. Crap. We do. And I crawl into girls' laps when I'm a bit into the wine. ...usually, they are my friends, not DB's friends, and ah...crawling into Bosie's lap makes having the above conversation difficult...without including her.

That's the wacky part here. I want their interactions to change, but she has to know why too, I think. ...also setting boundaries for him/them means setting boundaries for me.
I can't say: You don't get to be attracted to this person, when I enjoy playing with that attraction all cat and mouse. (Not that you can say: you can't be attracted to this person. It doesn't work that way. Believe me, I've tried to tell myself the same thing.) The point here is...we're still being reactionary. He flaunts his freedom to play (essentially) catch-and-kiss, so I react by playing up the titillation of the two girls fantasy which will go nowhere. Wicked. Evil cycle of pettiness and juvenility.

Adulthood is tricky this way, and I think that's what drives me super bats about this whole thing--yesterday's whole thing. There was a collegiate feel to the evening...that started earlier in the day when L, Bosie and I were sitting on the floor like dorm-mates having a lovely afternoon. We made cupcakes. We colored. We had grilled cheese. We talked about "what we want to be when we grow up". ...of course, we also talked about Batman...which in this circle is the equivalent of talking about boys.

DB's arrival changed the dynamic, but it stayed very college-party. (And the girls, bless them, don't know that things should be different.) Bosie and L like to play little tricks on him; he teases (often like an older brother). He shows off the things he's doing that will get the fangirls squeeing. Lovely girls with whom I have shared a quiet afternoon are reduced to DB's little ego-boosting squad. And they become a little exclusive, though not so bad as it was three months ago. (I think I have a little loyalty from L, after all. She notices things, is observant. Is wise for her age.)

I don't know a compromisey way out of this one...well, I do, but it's up to someone who is afraid that growing up means no fun. My half has already been completed: not walking out/saying outright NO to Bosie. The rest is out of my hands, but for the conversation that needs to happen.

I want us to just be able to have a good time without over-analyzing everything, and I don't feel like boundaries and fun should be mutually exclusive. At least I finally feel like (after nearly a month of break from high-spirits event-friendship) that DB and I are in a place where talking about this is possible.