My Christmas Letter

I always think that I'll get my act together and write a letter that I send out to all of my friends, that summarizes my year, etc. And I never actually get to it. So this year, I figured I'd blog it, and hopefully many of the folks I'd want to send it to will end up reading it. It's been a hectic year of change and upheaval. One year ago today, Ruth and I were having dinner at my parent's house in NY. That October, we'd just moved into our house in Shelburne Falls, thinking we'd be there for a while. A couple of months later, in February, Ruth decided to move back to CA permanently, and I followed in September. Now I live in a group house with several other people, in a neighborhood in Oakland called Fruitvale. Living in the city has its tradeoffs. On one hand, there is the lack of quiet, lots of crowds of people, and traffic. Things just take a little longer. It takes longer to get from point A to point B. Longer to park the car. Longer to wait in line for things. One has to worry about whether one's house is locked, whether or not valuables are visible in one's car, and be just more aware of things. But on the other side, there are tons of things to do, a virtually never-ending supply of good, cheap, ethnic restaurants, independant and foriegn movies come here first, there is a fabulous, and really diverse meditation community which I think could pretty much only exist here, and there is a general richness in the cultural landscape that I am surprised that I went without for so long. I love it that pretty much every day (unless I stay at home) I see people around me who look a lot like me. I even see plenty of people who fit somewhere in the "african-american/queer/alternative/educated" relatively narrow cultural slice that I occupy. Seeing myself reflected back to me everyday has a value that I don't know that I anticipated. And besides all that happened to me in 2008, much happened in the country, and the world. We elected the first non-white president in history. We are suffering an economic collapse that may, eventually, rival that of the Great Depression. We have a lot of tough times ahead, and I know that I have my own set of interesting challenges ahead of me as well. I hope this note finds you all in good spirits, and may peace and joy find its way to you in the coming year.