January 4, 2005
Happy New Year, dear friends!
So much to celebrate. And so much to grieve, too. I picked up the NY Times this morning and read about the tsunami and felt so sad for all the families and friends in Asia who are in physical and emotional pain. Then I went to a more comfortable place: anger. "Why is it that the %#$&%*#&@ US is only spending $350 million there? And the Bush administration is spending $40 million on their inauguration! How selfish and stupid!"
Then I thought, "Would I give the money earmarked for my wedding to help the victims in Indonesia?" Maybe some of it, but not so I noticed it terribly. I am selfish too. I keep thinking we are all living by these fragile threads. Precious threads.
My nephew William is extremely large for a one month old. The outfit I got him for Christmas didn't fit so Katryna exchanged it for a size 3-6 month. Tom and I went over to Katryna's and Dave's yesterday for New Year's Lunch. William's eyes are turning dark. They may be green, but my bet is they will
be dark brown like his sister's. Amelia poked the middles out of the paint color samples I brought over to show Katryna. We are going to make a collage. We are lucky to have such rich lives.
I am writing a new young adult book called Effelia. It's about a 12 year old girl named Sage who used to be the smallest kid in her class and now she's 5'10" and her feet are the size of boomerangs (well, that's what her Perfect sister Lisa tells her...) Sandy and the boys threaten to beat her up almost every day unless she does their homework for them. Sage doesn't mind doing the homework — she has a photographic memory and it doesn't take her long. But she doesn't like feeling so scared all the time. She watches a documentary called "When We Were Kings" about Muhammad Ali and develops her first Crush. She eats, drinks and sleeps Muhammad Ali, eventually taking up boxing to the chagrin of her parents. She has an invisible friend named Effelia who somehow seems to put things into perspective for Sage when she starts to spin out.
So of course, you know what this means. This means I, hater of almost all sports but particularly macho ones, PARTICULARLY aggressive ones, PARTICULARLY ones in which one person actually hits another person, I, kneejerk liberal that I am, am in the midst of learning to box. Not kick boxing mind you ("Not a real sport," sniffs my coach, Djata Bumpers, trained by none other than the great Smokin Joe Frazier) but the Real Deal. I am going to be a boxer, folks. Tom says it's ok as long as nobody breaks my face.
Hey, it's all the name of research. I do it for my art. (Say that last sentence with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent).
Extra! Extra! I had so much fun doing house concerts last November and December (thanks to Nakkid Tim and Meredith Tarr) that I am doing one more, on January 22 at Jeff Wasilko's in Wakefield (That's northwest of Boston.) See here for details. During the house concerts, I do new
songs and read from my novels during the first set. During intermission, Jeff will pass a hat into which you will put requests from all the Nields songs ever written and during set #2 I will attempt to sing them all. E-mail yhc@smoe.org for reservations.
Also, the weekly workshops at my house (Writing it up in the Garden) start this week! To join, email me at nfnields@mac.com or nfnields@aol.com.
Happy year. Big year. Light year. Precious year.
Love, Nerissa
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