Fancypants Fountain with Scum in It

I feel like I have a handle on the holidays. Things are getting done, I guess. Gifts are getting bought, or at least, they're arriving from mail-order catalogues and websites. They are definitely getting wrapped, because hoo boy, do I love me some fancy paper from the Container Store.

At the same time, I'm marking new milestones, redefining old relationships, figuring out the new boundaries, and coming to terms with the fact that some things just take more time than we want them too. Some of it is hard work. Some of it is easy, really fun and feels completely right. Tonight I was feeling stuck in the middle between who I was and who I'm becoming and with the true meaning of the holidays and how I'm spending them differently *this* year for the first time *in* years and WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

I was getting all caught up in this thought bog at the Fancypants Stepford Mall because a basketball game I was supposed to be covering was cancelled due to a snowstorm that hasn't materialized yet, which I don't really get, but hey! Why work when one can shop? Also, Joel and I spent more time this last weekend hunting for the elusive "right menorah" than we did picking out the "perfect Christmas tree" and I had a discount thingy for Crate and Barrel.

Then I got distracted by children who were fascinated by something in the fountain that's on the ground floor, three levels below the food court. There was some sort of foamy, fountain scum floating around. When you look at it up close, it really, really looked like a soaked kaiser roll. The thought of some disgruntled mall employee chucking round rolls into the ornate fountain by Tiffany's made me smile, but it was definitely scum. The kids were SO. EXCITED. about the scum. (I felt bad for their parents.)

I stood there for a moment, looking at the Fancypants Fountain with Scum in It, feeling stuck, wanting to find a perfect, pain-free place to carry the best of my past while running headlong into my future,and wondering if it's even possible or worth it, because damn, my future is looking pretty great and I'm tired of crying.... when PLOP! a quarter dropped into the fountain right in front of me, tossed by someone making a wish on level somewhere above me... It was a tiny thing, really, a small reminder that some things can fall into place because we really hope they will.

Best of all, I have a Christmas tree AND a menorah in my house now. I love that.