Holiday Survival Notes: 2025 Edition. (Patreon)

And just like that 

Your heart came back. 

But not due to any sort of miracle. 

It just appeared there, in the piles of chipped blue dishes in the sink, in the compost pile filled with burned crusts and raw rotting aspirational vegetal purchases you thought you’d cook, in the discarded husk of the person you left behind in the driveway;

it skulked, beating patiently, near the tall plastic box on the mantle, where the ashes of the dead friend clump together in their liminal taunting. They’re neither here nor there, those pesky remains. 

Always with you; never with you.

You see it in the new wrinkles on your friend’s face as you drive by, little dry riverbeds running down to the chapped pink of her upper lip; you swore they weren’t there literally a week ago. 

It was in the negative spaces that you realized that this heart’s life, this fragile heart’s life, bullet-riddled as it is, was better by light-years - by heavy, thousand-page scores - than any other heart’s life.

Because you’re going to miss all of this, someday, even if it exhausts and torments you. 

Even if you hate it, sometimes.

Because someday there will be no chipped blue dish, no pile of Cheerios on the car floor, no extra kid sleeping on the living room sofa, no lack of time to fight for the truth, no newly wrinkled face to look at, no broken binding of a dictionary to fret about fixing (or not fixing?), no compost to keep from the animals, no lumps to feel for in your breast, no friends or family to feel or fumble or find or flee, no spiky mystery small pig-toy (with wings?) in the sheets to make you yolp and grit your teeth in bewilderment. 

No dead batteries, no dead babies, no dead ends to amble down on a wet autumn day with the dog, no complicated traffic patterns or dead friends to grieve. 

Nothing to grieve. 

There will be nothing, someday.

Nothing more. 

Just an ending.

It will just be you, at the end, wondering if you could have enjoyed one more pumpkin slice, one more shower with the radio on, one more squeeze of an avocado at the produce section, one more breathless ponder at the end of the day, wondering if you got it right, one more hang with the sleeping cat, one more stranger in traffic to forgive, one more trip to the hardware store for a hammer, one more trace of fingers on the hairline from the lover, one more breaking dawn, darkening night sky, flip the lights on in the kitchen and the hallway.

The dawn is shining open behind the bare trees as I write this. Liz wrote me a heartfelt email, reminding me who I am, and what’s to come, so my morning coffee tastes especially comforting today.

Ash, sitting on the bed yesterday morning.

He said 

“Mom. You seem….bummed out.”

I said 

“I sort of am. That’s really good noticing. Are you saying this because I’m acting so serious right now?” 

He said 

“Yes”

He said 

“What’s bumming you out?”

I said 

“Honestly? You know. I’m so proud of you for even asking. That means you’re growing up. I mean. So many things, sweetie. It’s getting dark and cold. There’s eighteen people in the house and they all bring their own stories into the joint about what’s real.”

He thought.

Then he said 

“Mom, I think life should go to an asylum.”

“Um. What now?”

He smiled. He said

“I think life should go to an asylum. Because it’s CRAZY.”

…….

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate. Welcome to the new (300 of you or so) patrons! Say hi. We see you.

Everyone else, comment too. I’m reading. I head back into the recording studio for this coming week so I’m straight from the holiday frying pan into the fire. I’ll try to post but I’m mostly workin’ on the makin’.

I love you all madly. Stay sane. 

Thank you for supporting my life and my art and my child and my whole family. I’m grateful. We’re grateful. Your support is helping to keep us all afloat. It means to world to me that my community is supporting my ability to do this as a paid job, as always.

The upcoming shows, last of the year!!!

Dec 4th - Cambridge MA - at Brattle Theatre, WE NEED YOUR ART - live author talk with Amie McNee (all ages, $15): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/amie-mcnee-at-the-brattle-theatre-tickets-1963603539044?aff=oddtdtcreator

Dec 19th - Norwood MA - at The Magic Room, Holiday Party….with surprise special guests (18+, $35):

https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/magicroom-7/holiday-music-party-with-amanda-palmer-and-friends