On the essential feminine
and the simple act of creating the holiday
It’s Sunday morning and I’ve grabbed my mug of coffee and my book to take with me to the living room. Janyce is sitting at the extended holiday table, one hand on her cup, her cup set on a green cloth napkin, so as not to drip coffee on my red tablecloth. It’s my red tablecloth because I’m the one who sets the table for holidays. Always days before. It’s my most favorite creative act, setting a beautiful table. She laughs a bit and I look up from my book.
“What?” I say.
“Let me read you this one line,” she says.
I listen to her read as I look around the room. The house isn’t holiday ready yet. The step stool has been left out on the hearth overnight, the spray bottle for the wreath of fresh greens is resting on the top of the wood stove. We need one more chair still and a few place settings are missing coffee cups. There is a pile of amazon boxes in the garage that I walked by this morning with my arms full of cards and soft packages fished out of the mailbox across the street. I shuffled down our long driveway in pajamas and slippers, taking in a deep breath of the frosty air. Too bad it will be gone by noontime. The rest of the day and tomorrow — Christmas day —will feel more like Florida than New England. There is moss growing on our walkway. The front garden ground is soft enough still to plant in.
Janyce holds up her book of short essays, places her bookmark between the pages, and closes the book.
“You ready for ‘Nature as Teacher,’” I say.
She nods and sits up straight in her chair.
I’m reading a chapter every morning from Rick Rubin’s zen-like hardcover while drinking my coffee. The chapters are short. Each one a tiny meditation on a subject. Most mornings, Janyce has time enough to sit on the edge of the bed and listen to me read it aloud to her.
Rick is the founder of Def Jam records. I googled his picture the other day and he kind of reminds me of Santa Claus. White long beard, kind blue eyes. Although I had heard his name before, he wasn’t someone on my radar at all. I stumbled across his latest book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being from a “100 books of 2023” list as I was holiday gift shopping and I ordered it for myself, even though I have been happily plowing through novels again. This one caught my eye.
Nature transcends our tendencies to label and classify, to reduce and limit.
“See, there it is again,” I say. I stop reading and close the book for a minute, still holding it out in front of me, my feet now resting up on the ottoman.
“Remember we were talking about masculine and feminine ways of looking at things and how I said want to shift away from my default way of seeing the world this year? This is what I mean—labeling, classifying, compartmentalizing. Breaking things down. Intellectualizing. I’m good at that. It’s what has made me so good in school always. It’s why I still gravitate toward taking graduate classes when I’m trying to figure out my next act. But this way of knowing isn’t working for me anymore. Not at this stage of my life. I don’t think I have fully realized, until recently, just how much my father has impacted my way of seeing the world.”
“I know what you are saying,” says Janyce. “I actually have been associating more with my feminine side lately, too.”
“Really? How so?” I say. “Tell me more.”
“Well, like my new job,” she says. “I’m not sure I would have been able to accept a cut in pay, even a small one, a few years ago. But something was pulling me toward taking care of myself this time,” she says.
“You’re right,” I say.
“It’s not just that either, it was how I didn’t overthink the whole process. I just applied. I jumped in, I went forward with a feeling.”
Janyce gets up to refill my coffee mug. While she’s in the kitchen, I grab my computer and look up the gingerbread cheesecake recipe. But I get distracted by a note in messenger from one of my closest friends. She sent me an encouraging passage about the end of the year. I read it, then immediately judge it as too girly. I send her a message back. “Watch Mel’s latest podcast. We’re going to answer her six questions over the New Year’s weekend.”
“You ready for a dog walk?” says Janyce from the kitchen.
We walk the neighborhood loop, passing by couples dressed in hats and coats, wearing them out of winter habit, the air just barely holding onto the morning chill. We talk about our mothers and grandmothers on Christmas day. Janyce remembers how everyone would make themselves a plate from the dishes of food laid out on the dining table and sit together in the formal living room where the tree was, with extra folding chairs and tray tables. I recount my grandmother’s Christmas eve party every year, the house bursting with too many people, all sitting in a circle in a tiny living room, the kitchen table one room away laid out with a melange of mismatched dishes. A bowl of Spanish salted peanuts. A platter of Portuguese sandwiches stuffed with Bacalhau. A cut glass plate piled high with ribbon candy. It was always the women who created the holidays every year, with the simple act of setting the table and opening the house to welcome everybody in.
Back home, while Janyce makes breakfast, I read the message from my friend again. I wish I hadn’t been so quick to tear it down. At 57, I realize I’m probably not going to change this part of myself — the part that is impatient, with thoughts that race and razor sharp assessments all the time. But I could stand to try a different approach once in a while. Be a little softer this year. Lean into the feminine a little more. I message my friend back to tell her I was wrong, I like the sentiment she was passing along. And then I find Jody Gladding’s poem celebrating the essential feminine.
Softwoods By Jody Gladding We utter nothing true high among the needled fictions we create so many opportunities for truth as it happens continually not only up here but also under growth where we sink down in bogs filled with resolve nothing we utter is true still we groan gape and push a new thing out.
Happy Holidays!