Dear Friends and Family,
Our Christmas letter usually involves an exhaustive (and exhausting!) recap of our annual adventures, but then isn't that what this blog is for? Still, it's nice to reflect from a wider perspective once in a while, so we're going to take this tradition to the electronic age and hope we save a couple of trees in the process. This year we really focused on our families and wanted to share with you how the year's events made us more thankful, thoughtful, and present.
On a humid August night, I woke up in Justin and Bridget's guest bedroom with thoughts racing through my head. Jess was sound asleep. Having finally gotten rid of our tenant who hadn't paid the rent in five months, we were staying with J&B while we took care of cleaning out the old house up on the other side of Baltimore. There was a laundry list of repairs to be made before we could put the house back on the market, and the receipts were piling up. My mother, who'd been diagnosed with liver cancer earlier in the year, was waiting for us with the rest of the family at a reunion in Delaware. The long day of house work and the beer that night didn't tire my brain, so I wrote a letter to my mom. It was a rambling, epic, string-of-consciousness type of letter. I said something about having been lucky to have been born to a fortunate line of individuals at a fortunate time in history; how good parenting prepared me for taking chances; how just plain good luck has brought me so much joy; how it is awesome to think that even though we're 3000 miles away, we can fly across the sky in a metal tube at 600 miles an hour and talk to each other from practically anywhere. That letter of thankfulness to them and to the universe helped me get back to sleep that night, and when we were in New York for Thanksgiving I saw it on mom and dad's fridge, posted like a kindergarten crayon drawing. Good parenting indeed.
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| Thumbs up, Mr. President! |
Besides long emails, the news about my mom's health prompted some big changes for me this year. Jess often brags about my superhuman powers of productivity and her superhuman ability to keep up with “the whirlwind that is James Frank.” When Mom was diagnosed in February, the little whirlwind turned into a category 5 hurricane. Faced with the reality that time is truly our most limited resource, I jumped headlong into a million big and small projects that I've been “meaning to do” or was newly inspired to take on. Without going into too much detail, I made a couple of websites: www.ThisLittlePaperclip.org (which really needs a team of volunteers to flesh-out into more than just a concept) and www.JamesEntertains.com (which has become a very fun sideline); and we now have a flock of chickens, an indoor greenhouse, no less than three homemade devices for dehydrating fruits and jerky, three cases of homemade plum wine, and a “kegerator” that dispenses four bottomless kegs of delicious home brew at a time. In the midst of all of the necessary work with sharp objects for some of these projects, I nearly lost my thumb- a reminder from the powers-that-be to be more careful and slow down a little. Again, by good luck and modern medicine, it is happily sewed back on and good as new (but it did force me to take a little break). I had to give Jess a chance to catch her breath...
James definitely knows how to wear out even the heartiest soul, but his energy is usually infectious rather than exhausting. I too made a few life changes after hearing Mom's news. It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes a reminder of our own mortality to get us to make important life changes that put us on a path to happiness. Ten years ago I lost my Dad to cancer, and the thing he said then that sticks with me most is “I wasted so much time.” James' Mom has also said she just wants more time. We all want more time- but not to work or make money or go shopping. We want time with our loved ones, time to play and explore and experience all that this world has to offer. I was inspired by Mom, and by that memory of my Dad, to quit the job that was draining the life, energy and spirit out of me. I went home to Virginia for a week to see my sisters and celebrate my best friend Bridgett's 30th birthday. I started blogging about my “Everyday Adventures” keeping up with James and experiencing new things here in California. We started doing trivia night and poker night. I looked up a choir to join so I can start singing again. I finished building a garden for our little community. I started living again. Now I have a nice part-time job in Berkeley that gets me the socialization I was craving and gives me two days a week to help me keep up with Hurricane James and explore the things I love to do.
We're lucky and excited to be heading home to both of our families this Christmas. We were reminded this year to appreciate our time with them. We've started to build relationships and put down roots in this place, and we're still connected to the people and places that were home before now. We enjoyed hosting a lot of folks this year in California- we hope you can take some time out to travel West in the coming year and join us as we keep exploring and enjoying everything life has to offer.
Be well,
Jess and James
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