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OK. Fasten your seatbelts. Those treacherous holiday weeks are upon us. I don't know about you, but I am never more susceptible than around now, to the feeling that I'm falling short of meeting the standard of happy family life. I have this dream of the perfect Christmas I want to provide for my family, and sometimes it seems as if I'll just about kill us all, trying to make it happen. In fact, the dream of a perfect Christmas (and the nightmare that trying to provide it can bring upon us, from sheer stress) is the subject of the most recently posted excerpt from my book, At Home in the World. Since my divorce nine years ago, my children have alternated spending Christmas with their father and me. This year, they'll be with him, which means I've chosen to sit out the holiday (though we'll celebrate at New Year's). Time was, that would have been a deeply depressing prospect. But I've actually learned how to be all right about being on my own for Christmas (and many other times). I'm planning to spend the ten days surrounding the 25th working really hard on a new book. And because I love my work, and working makes me happy, that will be my gift. However....knowing I wasn't going to put on the big Christmas production, this year, we made a pretty big deal out of Thanksgiving. We had twenty five people for dinner here--and eight pies, not that I was counting. All three of my kids were home, including my son Charlie, who has been off at school in New York for a semester. It is a wonderful thing to see one's child growing and taking in new experiences, with so much joy. And a sobering one too, when you realize that the things your children need most,and the things that give them greatest joy, are no longer likely to come from you. More and more these days, I am letting mine go, which brings a combination of sorrow, at saying goodbye to a set of experiences I have loved, and excitement at the possibilities and freedom ahead.
As I move away, myself, from the stage of life I inhabited so long--caring for young children--I thought I'd share with you some of the columns I used to write, back in my days as a monthly contributor to Parenting Magazine. This week's story is called Getting Out the Door. In the weeks to come, I'll be posting more of my Parenting work for you. And I hope my stories, about my children, will inspire you with a few of your own. Speaking of Christmas, I want to remind you that thanks to the efforts of our tireless web-mistress Myrna, you can now order books, tapes, reprints of columns and the unbeatable Where Love Goes Soundtrack CD -- all without getting up from your computer, with delivery guaranteed by Christmas. I hope you'll want to stock up on some of these things, since all proceeds of the mailorder business here go to paying Myrna. And of course, if you're a regular visitor here, and you can't find a thing to buy from the Joyce Maynard Catalogue, I would never discourage you from sending a simple contribution to Myrna (Myrna Uhlig, P.O. Box 636, Clatskanie, OR 97016), for all her efforts keeping us going here. I'm heading to New York City for a few days, to talk with some editors there, teach a writing class at my son Charlie's school, deliver my talk at The Players' Club, and visit with friends. I want to take in the Jackson Pollock show at the Museum of Modern Art, and walk along Fifth Avenue looking in store windows. Sometime over the course of those days, you may be sure I'll make my way over to Wolman Rink in Central Park with my figure skates. I have always loved to skate. For a few years there, my skating times would always begin with at least a half-hour's worth of gathering up equipment, fixing cocoa for the thermoses, zipping children into snowsuits, lacing skates. No sooner would the last child be laced up, than the first would need to go to the bathroom. (That cocoa, you know...) Sometimes I never did make it onto the ice myself. These days, when I head out onto the ice, there is nothing keeping me from realizing my skating dreams but the limitations of my own body. In my head, at least, these do not exist. Out on Wolman Rink, next week, I will be flying. And what do you dream of, this holiday season?
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