I was not kidding, a couple of blogs ago, when I detailed my New Year's Eve tradition as being generally alone and bitter.  I am home with the boys tonight, getting ready to feed them doggie benadryl so that they don't have a psychotic break when the fireworks start.

I am also pondering the merits of resolutions tonight- on the night when we most often try to set absurd goals for ourselves.  I resolve.. no more pretense.  No more pretending.  I also resolve to not be myself anymore.  I know that everyone likes to think that they want to be more themselves, to be a better version of themselves.  I just want to be someone else.

To all, a Happy New Year.

To me... a different one.

A Conversation- A Crisis

This morning I asked the Gypsy King, from whom I have inherited oh so many traits, just how much he had to do with naming me.  I don't know why it only struck me today- but I have never bothered asking him what role he had to do with illustrious, ancient, entitling of the Little Witch.

We Gypsies Roam, We Wander
And We Occasionally Drink While Roaming
and Wandering.

He is, after all, my father- he supplied a significant amount of chromosomes to my unique DNA concoction, spent the 9 months of my gestation dealing with my mother, my elder brother, and a 105 pound Irish Setter and, of course, he was present at my birth (I assume).  He has been here for the previous 29 years.  He is my King, my Hero, the Bob.

His response to my quandary of "Daddy, was Kathrine at the top of your list for names for me?" was "No."

"Oh.  Well.. what was?"

"Amber."

"Oh.  Were there any other  names?"

"I don't remember, that was almost thirty years ago!" (This brings me to a wee digression- HOLY BANANAS I AM ALMOST THIRTY YEARS OLD.  And what do I have to show for it?  Scars, Debt, and Destruction. I have nearly thirty years of self-debasement under my belt, two higher degrees, and double jointed shoulders.  Those... I got from my mother.)

Cringing both internally and externally I asked... "Um, was Kathrine even on your list?"

"No." (Oh the things you learn when you ask perfectly unreasonable questions).

Well hell.  The man who inadvertently bequeathed me wanderlust, a distinctly European set of features, and a desperate desire to KNOW and GO amongst other things... alas, his most profound role in my  naming was to argue with my mother on a technicality of the spelling (a second digression- the King lost the argument- it's hard to trump a woman who has  recently delivered a watermelon-sized child through a grape-width wee canal- which has ultimately led to the eternal misspelling of my name).  And it wasn't even on his list of choices!  What's in a name? An Identity?  A Distinction?  A connection to the namers?  And if so... how could I have received so much from the King who apparently was reluctant to name me my name?!?!

Needless to say I had a minuscule existential crisis based on this one conversation.

But in the end the end it's just that.  It is what it is.  A name is a name.  A person is a person is a person- regardless of the name and perhaps because of it.  I have grown into it, we all grow into our own, I think.  I am a Kathrine, a Kate, a [insert any of the embarrassing nicknames my family has called me over the years].  I am middle-name-less and decidedly more interesting because of it.  My father is the Bob, the King of the Gypsies, Robert Albert.  My mother is Momma, the Witch who Makes Things Live, Maureen.

We are who we are, existential crisis or no.  Naming or not.

Until Next time, Friends...

Kathrine, TheBobsDottir

I have called myself so very many things- the Winter Witch, the Yule Witch, the Green Witch.

Tonight I am the daughter.  Tonight I am a girl at home with her parents on Christmas, enjoying a tree steeped in tradition, a hot coffee and a dog with a bell on his collar.

Tonight I am the White Witch who Only Loves, who only feels gracefulness and gratefulness.

Happy Yuletide, all my Loves.

Pre-Christmas Shenanigans- a Photo Blog

How the Bob Stole Christmas...

I kid you not- this is exactly what a Seyfried Family
pre-Christmas trip to Atlanta looks like.  Cards
everywhere... in fact... this is what
most Seyfried Family Gatherings look like... 

And when it comes to cards... we are some serious women.

If it weren't for the age, size, and gender differences...
my papa and his eldest sister could be twins. 

Look carefully and you will see the tankard of wine next to me. 

Winter Solstice

Today- the Winter Solstice.

I planned on expounding about the nature of darkness in nature- but instead, in the spirit of the shortest day of sunlight during this year, I will keep it short, sweet, and to the point. 

Happy Yule (in it's original language- 'God Jule')- take time today to revel in stillness and silence.  Take time to be with your family, your cosmic, natural, adopted whole family- either in spirit or in person.  And appreciate that from this point forward, all things will be light. 

Happy Yule, Happy Happy Yule.  Happy Solstice. 

Quote-

'You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again.  Only no sky can blind you now.'

-- Mark Z. Danielewski-- House of Leaves

December Obsessions

On this most absurd of days, I give you December's Obsessions- those things keeping me warm and satisfied in a season of cold.

Firstly- absurd calendar dates- 12.12.12.  12.21.12.  I mean... come on.  How silly can we get before vaulting into the range of completely insane?  Not that as a group humans have not reached the completely insane point.  But these arbitrary moments in time are wreaking so much havoc on our wee brains... it has actually become comedic.  The only thing I will give December 21, 2012 is the Winter Solstice this year.

But moving on...

Mysticism.  How much I adore mysticism.  This is a year-round obsession for me.  In December, however, mysticism coalesces into something tangible- the best 'linkable' example of this is Patti Smith's insanely hypnotic rendition of 'We Three Kings.'  Consider this lyric:

myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume

breathes of life of gathering gloom

sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying

sealed in the stone-cold tomb

It reeks of Orientalism, profound belief, distress, and protection.  It provides an unusual combination of cultural and spiritual.  It is Mystical. 

http://www.kayak.com.  For all of my traveling dreams and schemes. 

Kings.  Kings.  Kings.  I am very much obsessed with Kings right now.  This is the season of Kings- even for the Witches- for this time of year marks the changing of the guard between the Holly King (who has ruled during the increasingly dark days) and the Oak King (who will usher us into Spring and Summer).  The Weather Kings, King Pigeon, Kings Kings Kings.  

I cannot explain this dear feeling I have for such legends and nonesuch during this time of year.  Kings become so much more important during the turning of the seasons.  Especially during Yuletide when Kings should come to represent justice, grace, and otherworldly transitions. 

Also- Looking like a Girl.  A real girl.  Something has gotten into me- and I am becoming slightly antsy to wear things other than jeans and techwick t-shirts.  The the point that I sported this dress to see the Nutcracker this past Sunday with Mom.  Yes- J. Crew should get it's own obsessions blog.  

Books!  Which isn't exactly fair... I read all the time.  Every day.  But I tend to read seasonally- darker, denser books during winter; nonfiction in the spring and fall; for the summer- anything goes but especially delicious foreign novels.  It's a bit odd, I grant you that.. but I never claimed to be anything but.  My dear Aunt Patricia (my father's eldest sister) and I constantly exchange book ideas and give each other 'to-read' ideas.  I blame her for the pile, thirty-deep, of books sitting on my floor waiting to be read.  I also thank her for her excellent taste in literature which I have come to rely on for bang-up books. 

Finally, for now, the stray cat living in my neighborhood.  He breaks my heart everyday, with his wounded, scarred face and charming disposition.  I am indeed in danger of adopting him.  I have already decided on a name... 

And until next time, my cheery dearies!

Blue Blue Christmas

"I'll have a blue blue Christmas..." or so the song goes.

I cannot count the number of people who seem blue this Christmas season.  I am including myself in this number even though for me it is Yule Season.  There is something strange about the December Holidays that simultaneously delights and saddens.  Something melancholic- something bittersweet and alive with feeling.

We yearn, we want, we love, we grieve, we give, we live- and it all culminates in this one stretch of the winter months.  And from all of these emotions spring the bittersweet of the season; from all of these emotions spring feelings so tangible and heartbreaking- and heart-healing- that we cannot help but be taken aback and quiet, mesmerized by them.

The dark, winter months are always a time for mesmerization.  They encourage the internal witness to actually witness what happens internally, intuitively.  This internalization, this intent focus, causes the blueness- of that I am sure.

I am also sure that the melancholic blue is as natural as the sunrise and sunset.  It is as natural as the midnight blue of deep, dark evening.

Embrace it, but embrace the holidays as well.

Don't forget the good stuff, Loves.

Somewhere in the World of Siblings...

I will be the first one to admit that my brother and I have not had the smoothest of relationships over the years.

We have fought, rumbled, gnashed our teeth at each other... Oi.  Not the smoothest of relationships at all.  In fact, there was a time when, if you looked up 'dysfunctional sibling relationship' you would find a photo of my brother and I.  Pick a photo of our childhood- you'll see it.  The evil gleam, the look of terror...

We lived to destroy each other.

But lately things have been changing.  I recently witnessed a beautiful metamorphosis in my brother.  This guy, this boy, who has always been the only person who could make me angry enough to yell; this guy who brotherly made my life a living hell for the first significant portion of it; this BROTHER of mine... well...

He is growing up.  I look at my brother now and feel such love for the man he is becoming- it astounds even me.  He loves someone (my new Sis, Tracey) so profoundly that he is learning responsibility and selflessness.  SELFLESSNESS.

It is beautiful.  And it makes me so proud.

To witness personal growth is something unusual and (for me) cherished.  Robert grows and grows and grows each day; becoming more a man, more a brother, and more a son.  He may even run the risk of becoming one of my (most illustrious) partners in crime.  I adore this brother of mine, this blood that we share.

Until next time, my Dears!