Choices

Back from snowy and sunny Colorado and its 15 inches of fresh snow, back on a delayed and anxiety-provoking night flight (especially for those near me hoping not to miss their connecting flight to Amsterdam) to mild and gray St. Paul and its 7 inches of fresh snow. I feel like I've eaten a whole tin of fudge and cookies and missed out on a lot of quality sleep while I was away. Oh that's right, I did; I have. But I had a full and good Christmas and hope you all had a fine holiday and a little time to play in the snow, if it came your way, too.

This Christmas for me was all about family. Remember that Granta cover about fifteen years ago (Granta, issue #37)? Okay, never mind, that's not exactly what I mean to point out. I mean to point out that a lot of what goes on in families involves a good amount of choosing. Word choices, for instance. Saying the right thing. Saying the wrong thing. Or choosing to say something altogether different from what you really feel. For the sake of Christmas, for the sake of family. Or choosing not to say at all, instead reaching for the tin of walnut fudge and green spritzer cookies. On the days after Christmas I always wonder how many of us just burst out with all the other words we have kept to ourselves during the holiday build-up. I think, how many people are feeling it is finally time to--"Say what you want. This old year is almost over."

Before Christmas I e-mailed a wise friend to ask for her advice on discernment, that is, on discerning what my next steps might be. You know, I'm 46, have been at it a long time in my profession, my kids are growing up, my birth family has grown apart. I'm looking for new ways to deal with a lot of choices I have to/want to make in the coming months. I'm tempted, beginning next week, to follow the path--"Do what you want. The new year has just begun."

Back to Christmas. The holiday choices I most fancied were:

1. My kids' Christmas lists. They were humble: books (Ark Angel and Pendragon, Book 8) and University of Michigan shorts for the boy; a gift certificate to Gopher Grocery and a new computer power adapter for the daughter. So simple, especially compared to the scrolls of wish lists from the others in the family whose presents ring round the Christmas trees like suburban sprawl.

2. My favorite gifts to others included a winter white afghan--knit to order for my wheelchair-bound mother-in-law; a fun cocktail ring for my stylish auntie; the three-volume Allan Eckert set for my husband, and this pretty letterpress stationery for the young women in our group.

3. My favorite gifts from others: new wool socks (lightweight and heavy) for those long portages from my hubby; a Netflix subscription from my daughter; a light blue French beret from my son; a handmade recipe book filled with my mother-in-law's favorite recipes; a sleek leather satchel from my stylish auntie.

4. My favorites of all the foods we chose to make: my mother-in-law's old-fashioned butterscotch pie, my niece's homemade Yorkshire pudding, my husband's tried-and-true standby, Christmas morning buttermilk biscuits.

4. Finally, the book I brought along to Colorado with me was one damn good choice. I browsed most of the titles on my shelves, looking for just the right book to read in the airport, on the plane, over to the side of the family room while the rellies played with their Wiis and their X-Box 360s and their digital cameras and all the other gadgets of the moment. I brought A Romantic Education by Patricia Hampl.

I can't believe I have never read this book. If you love St. Paul, and if you love family history, and especially if you love great writing, this book is an elegant and loving tribute. As I come to these choices that lay ahead so prominently for me, Hampl's words remind me I am not alone. Choices, words, family, free will, obligations, loyalty, love, passion.

A few years after the publication of A Romantic Education, Hampl's first book, I attended the Bemidji Writers' Workshop. I wrote poems under the guidance of Michael Dennis Browne, fiction under Jon Hassler, and memoir, a budding genre at the time, under Hampl. I was encouraged by the positive responses from all those but Hampl. She kept telling me: You're holding back. You're not getting at the truth. You're not getting at anything, really. You are too ambivalent. You have to take hold.

She's right. I am learning to take hold and make choices but they are sometimes too complicated. But people do it all the time. I'll end with this passage from Hampl, a scene of her as a young woman, with her Czech immigrant grandmother, at the small house on West Seventh Street. This book is filled with these telling scenes. I can't wait to finish up work here and crawl into my own bed to read more tonight.

When my older brother went to the university, [my grandmother] asked me what he was studying there. The university was a new aspect of life, introduced by my brother and me.

"Science," I said.

"What is science?" she asked. We were in the back yard behind our house, where she had come to live, in a small attached apartment, a few years after my grandfather died. I turned away from her, and broke off a piece of chive from the window box and chewed on the peppery stalk. That ugly shame, the fury, was on me.

"Science," I said angrily. "Science, you know, science." Brutal, cutthroat voice.

"Who do you think you are," she said, turning back to her apartment, "somebody smart?"

Later I felt guilty. Actually, I felt guilty instantly, almost before I felt anything else. I went to her little neat apartment and asked if I could have dinner with her. I knew what to say. "You're a much better cook than mother," I said.

She put her cheek out for me to kiss. Her skin was perfect. I have never seen skin like it, flawless, more refined and beautiful than a girl's because the color, steady and delicate, was not as alert and harsh. "I wish I had a complexion like yours," I said truthfully. She liked that. Food and beauty, those were her subjects. Sometimes I didn't mind the lovely old subjects of women. I wasn't always fighting her.