Until recently, I’ve never been one for making resolutions, but I like a fresh start as much as the next person, and I’ve found that, as Emerson says, the world makes a path for the man who knows where he is going. So here are my goals for 2010.

Move out of Peterborough

Anyone who knows me well knows I’ve been in this city for too long; I would probably be happier some place where I neither cared nor had seen so much.   We’ve had good times, for sure: from the PCVS Integrated Arts Program, Cavan Blazers, Emergency 3, the Theatre Guild and The Tempest to the MoHo, the PAU, and the PFF, I’ve had nearly twenty years or arts-related triumphs and tribulations.  I’m looking for a fresh slate, something less comfortable and familiar, more challenging.

Keep Learning

Part and parcel of the desire for challenge is the desire to expand and develop my abilities; there are so many things I want to learn, including conversational French, banjo, Bhangra dance, and CSS.  I want to hone my Photoshop, video editing, ukulele, singing and acting skills.  I’m even thinking about going back to improv (pretty much the only facet of theatre I disliked).

Say ‘No’

No, I won’t work for free on a project I have nothing personally invested in; no, I won’t waste time flipping channels and watching programs I’m not interested in; no, I won’t allow other people’s issues to harsh my mellow; no, I won’t allow other priorities to coopt my projects; no, I won’t waste time with toxic people; no, I won’t volunteer for a major role in anything except my own life; no, I wont’ be content with what other people think I should be happy with.

Embrace Change

We’re living in a time of large, sweeping changes to things we think of as institutions, and it can be really overwhelming and intimidating.  I want to remember that whatever happens, I am best prepared if I ride change instead of fighting it.  We’re standing in the middle of brand new opportunities, things we’ve never seen before, and the potential for anyone with a creative mind to have great success.

Surround myself with people whom I admire

I’m actually pretty good at this already, but it bears repeating; the people in my life whom I love and admire are generally the people who most support my own goals and inspire me to reach further than I think I’m able.

Love Money

I know, we artists are supposed to be like, all about the art, man, and it’s wrong to love money, because money is the root of all evil.  But I get the impression a lot of that is bunk; I don’t have to love money more than I love, say, my ethics, but a little love for money could really change my life in positive ways.

Be Prepared

It was the slogan in Brownies, and it’s my slogan now; be ready, be on your toes, expect the best.  I know all that think-positive stuff sounds like silliness (I’ve got an article brewing about that, too), but I’ve missed opportunities that might have lead to incredible things because I wasn’t ready to move at the moment.  To be balanced and prepared is to be ready for opportunity, whenever it comes.

Have Regrets/Fail/Be less safe

I know that one of my favourite petite Frenchwoman sang non, je ne regrette rein, but for me, I think regret is inevitable and failure is a symptom of trying.  Neither of these are bad things, and if I put a lot of energy into trying to make sure I never fail and have no regrets, building a bubble of safety around my life, that’s energy I could be using to actually pursue my goals.  And I’m not talking about stupid stuff, like driving drunk or having loads of unprotected sex with strangers; I’m talking about taking artistic and personal risks, and finding ways to pursue my dreams even when I’m not entirely comfortable.

I’ll probably come up with more, but right now I’ve got to dash and catch a train; Happy New Year to you all!

So that was mid-October, and now I know one Christmas song all the way through, so I thought I’d share it with you.  I recorded it last night at about 2am, just as I was getting ready for bed after finishing up last-minute Ecksmassiness, and it took me about seven takes to get the lyrics right.

Anyway, enjoy, and I hope your morning has been as lovely as mine!

I had a number of very bad, stressful Christmases a few years ago; school, money, relationships, friends,  family issues, everything kind-of just piled on while I was in university, and I couldn’t seem to work my way out from under it to recapture the loveliness, the excitement, the sparkle that I used to always be able to access despite the inevitable garbage.  I was certainly snarky at Christmas’ expense during those years; I felt like it was a season that ought to be awesome, but whose loveliness was ruined by passive-aggressive guilt, personal tragedy, greed and people-related misery.  I’d consider moving to another country to avoid it all, or getting drunk around mid-December and staying well-and-truly blitzed until January 5 or so.  These options seemed pretty reasonable.

Slowly I’ve worked my way back to liking the season, though it took a long time.  I’m almost prepared to be the kind of person who says ‘I love Christmas!’
Perhaps without the exclamation point.
But the way I did it was by taking it back, and creating my own traditions that became somewhat inviolable; ‘tradition’ is a word that gives other people pause.  It’s harder when you’re a single person with no kids of your own, but even so, tradition is a buffer between me and the desires of other people.

Many years ago, a friend started calling it ‘Ecksmas’ – something I latched onto quickly as the appropriate name for my holiday, the kind of secular greenery-gifts-food-friends-family holiday that many people of my generation celebrate.  ‘Ecksmas’ is great – everyone knows what you’re talking about, and which traditions you’re probably into.  It implies nothing about your beliefs or your religion, though it usually speaks to the tradition you descend from. It gives a lot of information in one tidy little word.  And for me, Ecksmas is tremendously personal.

It embraces friends of many faiths, as well as those without particular faith -  we’re not celebrating the birth of a prophet in the middle east two thousand years ago; we’re celebrating the smell of pine and baking, the crisp cold air outside and the warmth and cosiness inside.  We’re celebrating getting together, and traditions which bring people in fellowship together in the physical world. We’re celebrating the birth of children, marriages, new ventures, and successes though they may have come at any time over the past year.  We’re comforting each other over losses and griefs, acknowledging the absences in the circle.  We’re celebrating a definition of family that has nothing to do with shared blood.

My own personal Ecksmas season starts at the time of year when the sun begins to set around 6pm.   The early dark and bright city lights always feels festive to me; more so if there’s snow, but I don’t need it to get into the spirit.  I listen to Christmas music – usually the old stuff, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra.  Sam’s annual and much-anticipated Christmas CD arrives, and I cringe through some tracks (memorably the duet by Ozzy Osbourne and Jessica Simpson) and find new favourites.

I used to feel a huge weight of self-induced guilt over receiving Christmas cards and never sending any myself, so a few years ago I decided I was going to get over my endless procrastination and actually start sending them.  I’ve surprised myself by making this an annual Ecksmas tradition, and one which I really enjoy.   Last year I finally knuckled down and made myself a database with everyone’s mailing address, and printed labels with a holiday theme, which is sort-of nerdy, cheesy and Martha-y, all at once.  On the one hand, my Ecksmas cards probably impair my ability to appear cool in the eyes of my acquaintances, but on the other, I think people like getting them, and no one really thinks I’m all that cool anyway.

I do a lot of baking, which helps warm up the house and makes it smell wonderful.  It’’s hard to resist my Ginger Cookies or Snickerdoodles or Apple Pie fresh from the oven.  I know that advertising has given us all the impression that baking is hard, but I’m still always surprised (and gratified!) at the level of praise and glee that the prospect of home-baked goods inspires in people.  Seriously, go try one of those recipes (or some of the others I’ve posted, all of which are Shaw-kitchen tested), and then take the results to a gathering – unless you’re at the annual Cretans and Jerkfaces Christmas Party, people get very excited.  Also, it is good for the soul to bake things from scratch with your own hands.  No matter how busy I get, I always set aside at least a few hours here and there to set aside my other concerns and meditate over a warm oven.  And my Ecksmas week tradition of making croissants (from scratch! It’s easy!) to eat while we open presents is entering its third year; I hope not to burn them this year.

My sisters and mom and I traditionally cut our own live trees, a tradition that most people forgo in favour of a fake tree, which looks to me like another piece of junk you have to store all year in order to use it for a couple of weeks.  I love tramping through a field and arguing over the perfect tree, taking turns sawing it and then squabbling over whether or not it’s too tall as we haul it back to the car.  This year we tried a new place, Mackenzie’s Tree Farm near Indian River, and it was terrific – not a great tree selection, but we got a hayride, hot chocolate and doughnuts around a fire, we saw lots of friends there, and we came back with a tree that, as per tradition, has been declared the best tree we’ve ever had.  It may be ridiculously tall and possibly prone to leaning to one side in a way that seems a little dangerous, but we’re all very happy with it.

Of course there are always lots of parties and gatherings and live music at this time of year, but the two events I really look forward to are the weekend at my Aunt and Uncle’s place in Collingwood, and Sam’s Life Day Party.  Collingwood is a ski town, and last year we did a little downhill skiing for the first time as well as enjoying the outdoor hottub and fabulous food and hospitality at the Flynn’s with others from the Dowdall clan.  Sam’s Life Day party is always a blast – we put the Star Wars Christmas Special from 1979 on in the background and eat drink and get merry at the expense of Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and the ghost of George Lucas’ dignity.  It’s always a good time.

It’s easy to get drowned in the obligations and expense that December seems to bring, but I try my best to carve out spaces for myself amongst the noise and bother, places where I can find hope and peace and joy amongst the people I love.  I’ve been pretty good at it the last couple of years, sailing (though sometimes on stormy seas, I’ll admit) through an Ecksmas of my own shaping, that sits a bit apart from the things other people would like me to do.  I know that there are a hundred obligations, traditions that have outlived their time, guilts and stresses that intensify and relationships that strain to the breaking point.  I still deal with a lot of that.  Sometimes, you have to put your foot down and perhaps even hurt a few feelings, bruise a few egos, in order to maintain a space for yourself in the midst of it all; I know I’ve had to.  The work is ongoing, probably life-long, to keep Ecksmas a time that I enjoy, mostly, instead of a time I dread and despair over.  But I promise you all, from someone who has often spent the entire month of December with teeth clenched in grim determination to survive the season without committing a felony, that it’s possible.  Probably.  I’m not talking stress-free blissful perfect happiness; that’s a silly, advertising-induced pipe dream.  Just a dialing-down, an added sweetness, a sense of perspective on what could be instead of what is.  Loving the best of the season, and trying to neutralize the worst.

So a very Merry Ecksmas from me and my family (and our cats!) to all of you; I hope that you find joy, and love, and happiness in moments around this season.

I have issues with the concept of charity; I wonder (especially with large, international charities) where the money goes, how much gets socked away into ‘administrative costs’, how much good is actually done, and whether or not charitable aid actually ends up creating dependents instead of assisting people and nations to stand on their own feet.  And having worked for various charities and non-profits, both in paid and volunteer positions, I have questions about how ethically some of them are run – how they treat their employees, how they set goals and measure results, how responsible and smart and efficient they are.  I see a lot of burnout, and a lot of brilliant people martyring themselves to no discernible positive effect in the community, a lot of waste.  Or wearing themselves thin until they’re no longer able to work in that field, with a huge net loss of intelligence, connections and human power.

But more troubling for me is this trend towards passive charity; the buying of something to demonstrate your beliefs, in substitution for actually acting on them.

Recently, Merlin Mann linked to a book called ‘Conspicuous Compassion,’ about the phenomenon of publicly displaying our charity (you can get a .pdf of the first chapter here; I recommend that you read it).  Though it goes to some places I disagree with, overall it was with relief that I saw this discomfort expressed by someone else.

I do agree that these public displays of charitable empathy exist in lieu of actual charitable acts.  People whom I see with white ribbons and pink standing mixers and red phones are rarely people I see taking any concrete actions around spousal abuse, cancer, or AIDS.  These are not the people you see volunteering at shelters or hospitals, though you may find them at parties and marathons.  And while I understand that these events, objects or products can in some ways raise awareness, open discussion and make an issue mainstream, when the next issue, product, or ribbon comes along, the spotlight moves with it.  I wonder how much of the real work gets done, when charities spend so much of their limited time and resources organizing gala events.

I see that some good may come of a few dollars, from a purchase you were going to make anyway, going towards research.  Or at least I see the argument.  But with many cause-branded products, the donation is not automatic; you have to register your purchase separately.  And the door is wide open for fraudulent schemes if you, as consumer, aren’t doing your homework on the companies and charities you’re supporting.  And hey, do you really need a new cellphone or standing mixer?  Your $200+ would be better donated directly to the charities doing the most research, the most active good.

But I’m going to tell you, as someone who runs a non-profit and sits on the Boards of charitable organizations, lots of local (and international) groups need your time as much as your money.  We need people to spend a couple of hours doing a fairly boring task.  We need a weekly commitment to make an hour’s worth of phone calls.  We’re asking you to help technicians load gear in and out of a venue.  We need you to drop in and stuff envelopes, or monitor a gallery, or sell tickets, or update our website.  We’re not asking for the kind of time your mothers put in to volunteer work; nobody has that anymore.  But a few hours out of your month or year make a big difference; a much bigger difference than your ribbon, your t-shirt, your standing mixer, your pink jewelry.  And it could make a discernible difference right there in your community.

Do you think AIDS is terrible?  Me too.  Do you think it’s wrong that some people abuse their spouses?  Me too.  Do you think it would be great if your community had a thriving, inclusive, arts community with lots of great resources?  Me too.

But honestly?  I don’t care what you think.  I care what you do.

So what are you doing?