“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

Greetings Dear Ones!

Most of you who put up Christmas trees probably have them down already and all your holiday decorations safely stowed away in neatly labeled boxes until next year. Hopefully, you found some nearby sheep or goats with whom to share any live trees. That is a wonderful mid-winter treat for them. Around here, farmers advertise that they take tree donations to feed to their flocks. Just make sure they are devoid of tinsel. (The trees that is, not the farmers.)

Here at the Land of Lost Plots, I’m in no rush. It’s still Christmas. (Sometimes Yuletide decorations last straight through to March in Nancyland. Only the Christmas cookies never linger…)

“But it IS still Christmas!” insists Prudence, who is a stickler for such things. “There are TWELVE days of Christmas. Christmas isn’t officially over until the feast of the Epiphany on January 6th.”

“The Epiphany…”says little Prim, the sharpest sheep in the flock, “Whose idea was that?” She wants her tree now.

I’m still playing Christmas Carols on the harp—mostly because they are easy melodies and that’s pretty much all I can manage with two hands at this point. I play them all year. My ears are so full of the lyrics, they have been leaking into my speech. “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentle men,” I say to the oxen as I turn out the lights at the barn. “And don’t be TOO merry!!” I add, “I’m sick of cleaning poop out of that water tub.” I turn and trudge up the hill to a house nestled in the sliver between glittering frost and glittering stars.

The weather has been nutty. A few weeks ago, we got about six to ten inches of white concrete poured over the property. It fell as a very pretty “snush” (snow + slush) and then hardened. Since then, we’ve had more snow, high winds, heavy rain, thunder, thaw and a flash freeze followed by rain and fog. One day, the temperature fluctuated more than forty degrees in twenty four hours. Winter is in menopause! I am grateful for the addition of cleats to my mucks, although yesterday they grabbed so hard, I walked right out of my boots. I was carrying a bale of hay in front of me and being followed by nine sheep so I didn’t notice immediately. Funny how ice “burns” the feet.

Back inside the warm house, my harp playing is full of so many “typos” that visiting real musicians who overhear me can’t help saying “What was that chord you just played? That crunchy one…”

“I have no idea,” I say impatiently. My chords range anywhere from pleasantly chewy to “crunchy” to the painful ear-stabbing equivalent of walking on ice with no boots.

“Seriously, Mum, it was so bad it’s actually amazing. Try to find it again. Show me which strings you hit…”

“Oh, shut up!” I say with cheerful aplomb.

My favorite, of course, is “Away in a Manger.” I think about mangers all year round. I shop for them all the time on online venues for used farm equipment. I made the ones I have out of old wooden pallets. I keep wondering if my critters will waste less hay if I put it in a big outdoor manger with a small roof over it. Or is it best to continue spreading hay on the ground in new locations every day? Such thoughts occupy my mind more than I would like to admit. I look at hay as if it is shredded ten dollar bills, which it basically is.

Mangers, as we know, are ancient things. The ones I have are pretty dirty and would make a lousy bed. Basically, they are wooden plates that have never been washed, only licked clean. I cannot imagine putting a newborn baby in one. I decided to ask the sheep about this on Christmas Eve, when Tradition says all the animals can talk.

“Oh, that’s just another one of your stories,” they say, chattering like mad. “You know we can talk any time! All you have to do is be ready to sit in a corner and listen. Humans are such relentless creators of Stories; you sometimes forget which ones are actually true.”

“Ain’t THAT the truth!” I say, plopping down on the nearest hay bale.

“Any chance you have any spare cookies in your pockets?” asks Prim.

“No,” I admit, hastily brushing the crumbs off my cheeks.

“One of the reasons you don’t hear us animals talking much is because we are such good listeners. We listen, like we talk, with our entire bodies,” says Wally.

“We’re very quiet and when we know we are not actually being Heard, that can make us feel afraid. It means chances are good that we are being Misunderstood. And that’s usually when Bad Things happen,” says Prim.

“What is Fear, anyway, but just a form of extreme listening?” says Blossom in the somewhat enlarged tones of the congenitally Bossy. She has taken over as lead ewe since Willow’s demise last April.

It feels deeply Good and sacred to sit amongst the sheep, just Listening. The shy ones relax. I’m not there to trim their feet, or shear them, or give them worming medicine. Alas, I’m not there to feed them treats either… I’m just there to BE.

“Tell me about this manger business,” I say. “What would you think if one night you found a baby in one?”

“Why would anyone put a baby in a manger?” asks Prim. “Why not a Christmas tree?”

“Well, that’s not really how The Story goes,” I say. “In fact, I’m not even sure what the heck a Christmas tree has to do with babies or mangers at all.”

“Except that they are delicious,” says Willoughby, smacking his lips.

“Are babies something good to eat?” asks Otie, one of the yearling steers, leaning over his gate to eavesdrop.

The sheep ignore him. Cattle are not on their rather short list of priorities.

“Hey, Otie,” I say. “I’ve always meant to ask you. Would you say you ‘moo’ or ‘low’? In some of the carols it says ‘the cattle are lowing.’ They never say ‘the cattle are moo-ing…’ Which is it?”

“I definitely go Low,” says Otie swelling his chest and trying to look extra macho. “Gus, on the other hand, er…hoof, Gus goes High. His are squeaky moos.”

“You know how it is--when they go Low… we go Bah!” says Chip interrupting with disdain. “The Humbug is implied.”

“You aren’t the only ones saying Bah-Humbug,” I say. “One of my tailoring customers came in grumbling that his wife had lost her mind. He said ‘”we have chopped down a living tree and put it in the house. Now she wants to put a FAKE tree out on the deck! So we have a fake tree outside and a real tree inside. I’m tellin’ you. She’s NUTS!”’

“It sounds like he was not into the holiday spirit,” observes Molly.

“No,” says Prim, “but at least they can eat that yummy tree in the house.”

“Don’t be silly,” says Wally, “Humans don’t eat trees! They just eat cookies.”

I gaze around my humble living crèche—this manger scene I visit daily. I know the angels are here. I can hear them in the wind, I can see them coated in snow or wool or fur. We have a shepherd (er, shepherdess) (ME). We have a drummer person (also me). We have at least three bearded wise guys playing fiddle up in the house. The scene looks a lot like a Euro-centric Christmas card, especially when I wear my bathrobe to the barn.

We’re just missing a baby.

“Hey, isn’t the New Year supposed to be a baby?” asks Prim. “Isn’t it usually portrayed as some naked thing in a diaper with a top hat on?”

“Hats? Are hats something we can eat?” wonders Otie.

“Yes,” I admit slowly, not to hats being fodder, but to New Years being babies.

“Funny that a New Year arrives like a tiny baby,” says Blossom, “and yet everyone acts like it’s a full-grown soccer coach, here to prep them for the World Cup. They all jump off the couch, renounce booze, and rush to the gym and do push-ups until they are ready to toss all their Christmas cookies. They make all sorts of reasons to punish themselves. Babies are sweet and soft and vulnerable. They don’t make you do plank drills!”

“They do, when that “baby” is twenty-two and you still haven’t lost your post-partum flab,” I say dryly.

“Besides, we NEED punishments,” interjects Prudence testily. “These are my two favorite seasons—New Year’s and Lent. I say, unleash the grievances! Let the atonement Begin!”

“That sounds awful,” say the sheep.

“When we have babies, we just lie down and let them climb on our backs to help them stay warm. We sniff them until we know them in the dark. We nuzzle, nourish, and nurture them. We protect them from bad things and bawl loudly if anything happens to them. We don’t try to improve ourselves; we try to improve them.”

“Maybe that’s what I should do with my own baby New Year,” I say thoughtfully. “Maybe I will just hold it, carefully in my heart and see what it wants to be. Maybe I’ll just follow the joys and try to witness the development of things in their natural course.

“Rubbish!” says Prudence, beginning to panic. “You need to write a book, expand your business, pay off your debts, clean up the mess in your car, and you definitely need to do some sit-ups!”

“What if you just followed the seasons the way one follows a toddler, instead of rushing ahead with an impossible agenda that will just leave you weeping and searching for more cookies?” says Wally kindly.

“How many seasons are there to follow?” asks Prim.

“Hundreds: There’s the upcoming tax season, and ant season, and mouse season. These are the Nibbling Seasons that nibble away things we have stored. Then there are the planting seasons, the weeding out seasons, the harvesting seasons. There’s prom season, bikini season, back-to-school season. Some seasons aren’t even seasons; for example, it’s open season for zippers all year long.” I explain. “There are ever so many seasons on a farm, in a life, or a tailoring shop.”

“What season is it now?” wonders Gus.

“It’s Baby New Year season,” announces Prim. “Time for tenderness and Baby steps. It’s the Holding Time—hold on to your Dreams, your faith, your courage. Have Gentle snuggles with your feelings and fears. Hold the seed catalogue but do not plant anything. Just wait. Rest. Enjoy long night naps. They will be getting shorter day by day.”

Her words soothe me. She’s right.

As the little New Year gets under way, I’m trying to be a better listener. I can hear the animals. Usually, I can hear the stories clothes tell too. Though, I admit, I got confused yesterday when I was confronted with a blue shirt smeared with some sort of white paste. “What happened here?” I asked the gentleman who was wearing it beneath a sports jacket he wanted altered.

“This?” he asked, pointing to his stomach. “Oh, I made homemade ravioli for my ex-wife on Christmas Eve.”

“That was TEN days ago,” Prudence reminds me with a roll of her eyes.

We do our best not to judge him.

“I want to have more compassion,” I tell her after he leaves. “I want to hold a bigger Grace Space for the people who confuse or frustrate me. I want to love more, judge less. I especially want to gossip less.”

“But how will we know whom and what to forgive, if we don’t know all the details of their crimes?” asks Prudence, with no innocence what-so-ever.

“We’ll manage,” I promise.

The past two years have been tougher than I ever could have imagined. We now know how strong we are, what we can endure. Let’s see how soft we can be, how merciful and tender, how curious and open. Let’s embrace our powerful, Fool-ish Innocence and take baby steps in New directions and follow after Joy.

Let’s see how we can keep each other Mending. Thank you for your Good Work, Dear Ones! May 2023 bring you heaps and heaps of every Good Thing!

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy