Tapestry :: We are so quickly creeping right through January, but I’d like to take a moment and reflect on 2014. I know I’m a little tardy for this kind of reflection, but it’s okay. I’m tardy for all kinds of things – my Christmas tree is still up! Shall we talk about the highlights or maybe the lowlights or maybe the meaningful?

At yoga the other week – the very first class of 2015 –  we did an interesting thing. Yoga is always, always and always about being present. To use some yoga lingo, it’s about connecting to the now, paying attention to your breath, the moment, and letting yourself just be.

And so, I was a bit shocked while laying on my yoga mat at the beginning of class to hear the instructor ask us to reflect on the past year and try and remember some of the good, fun, joyful moments.  And then she made an interesting analogy: The Tapestry Of Our Lives.  She described life as a tapestry that is made up of all our life experiences and sometimes things or relationships happen and maybe they don’t make sense at the time or they hurt a lot or seem like the wrong color thread for our tapestry, but as life happens and the tapestry continues to be woven – the colors work themselves out and things make sense.  And even that hot pink streak fits or the dark brown section has its place.

I liked the analogy.

Here’s a list of things that happened this year. Things that should be remembered and things that added all kinds of colors to my tapestry.

Saying goodbye to grandma

Outdoor dinner parties

Rockclimbing in Mexico

Brother moved to Seattle

Therapy

I painted the ceiling in my room and found an awesome door to hang on the wall in my living room.

Flipping off that favorite dock of mine on Lake Washington with Mitch and our noodles

All 4 siblings visiting Seattle

Watching my mom put her mom into the ground in Iowa

Camping on Lopez Island with Grasela and the girls

Two visits to Austin

Philip

The list could go on and on really, so much happens in a year – (ya know, I was a pineapple for Halloween and spent time in New York and Montana and all sorts of  fun people visited me in Seattle and I wore a jumpsuit). But, the above is what surfaced most quickly when I thought through both the good and meaningful moments from the past year.

It’s a good list.

The Swedish Cultural Center :: I really really thought about naming this post “The Jumpsuit”, and then, I don’t know Swedish Cultural Center somehow won.

Anyways…

I wore a jumpsuit to a New Year’s Eve party at the Swedish Cultural Center. It was the second time the jumpsuit had been worn. The first time I wore it was for my work Christmas party. I had bought the jumpsuit months beforehand, but hadn’t had the guts to wear it. However, I needed(errr wanted) something sassy for the work Christmas party and well, already purchased and sitting sad and neglected in my closet was the jumpsuit. It took all my guts to put that thing on and march into a party of 150 of my closest colleagues, but I did it – and it was glorious.

By and large, atleast in my experience, New Year’s Eve is a holiday that gets hyped up a bit too much only to result in a lackluster reality(except for one time in high school when I planned a huge all nighter for the entire church youth group and another time a few years ago when 4 of my best friends and I danced our brains out at a Bollywood New Year’s Shabang). But, those two times were definitely exceptions.

Anyways, despite my knowledge that New Year’s Eve is maybe better spent lying in a bubble bath(which is how I spent it last year) there is still a weird pressure every year to do something cool – or atleast TO DO SOMETHING. So, when a friend suggested a party at The Swedish Cultural Center where her friend was playing in the main attraction – an ABBA cover band – I said yes. I mean, what could be cooler than a party at the Swedish Cultural Center?

Well friends, despite any doubts that you may have about the quality of fun available at such a place as the Swedish Cultural Center, you should know that as my New Year’s luck would have it – the Swedish Cultural Center DELIVERED.

We danced the entire time to ABBA. Danced and danced. And even sang. There were people old and young. We made friends. Someone, amdist the dancing crowd, gave me the best compliment(and this is really an exact quote), “Oh my god, I love your jumpsuit! It is SO good.” We ate Swedish Pancakes with whipped cream and lingon berries.  Bog drove me home and amidst the usually annoying 1AM New Year’s traffic(that she wasn’t at all phased by) we talked and talked about the things that are important to our little souls. We got home safely. And I woke up on January 1, 2015 with only a little more than a mild headache from my two gin and tonics. I used to think with some practice perhaps my alcohol tolerance would improve, but I think it will forever be comparable to that of a goldfish.

Happy 2015 People.