Seven hours in and I've already broken every rule.

It's a beautiful sunny morning. A new day. A new year and a new decade even. I brought my music and my coffee down to the water to greet the Pacific properly, alone and with my hands, icy cold plunging outstretched into the sea as if I could put my weight on the surface and do a handstand. My coffee sits on my favourite flat picnic rock and Ben Howard shouts folk laments into my skull, his accent pervading his words so sweetly I get briefly distracted and miss the fact that I'm no longer alone exactly.

I startle and pitch forward onto my knees from where I had been crouching on my feet. I cry out and sit back.

Going to greet the sea with a kiss, are we? Bit extreme in this weather. 

Ben is home. Though his words sound like something Lochlan would say. They've rubbed off on each other to the point where they are burnished, blinding in the light. I get up and run to him, jumping into his arms and now he can be soaked with saltwater too. But at least he's home at last.

Happy New Year, Bumblebee. Or maybe I should change your nickname to wolfbait? 

(Oh. He's been bored and reading.)

Happy New Year! Why didn't you tell me you were on the way?

Surprising you is more fun. 

Happy New Year, Benny.

It will be, Bridget. We promise. We might be wolves but you're one of us and we look after each other.

It was a visual-

I know what it was but I also know how things are-

I hear a sound and turn to see Lochlan coming down the beach and when the sun hits his hair I forget about Ben, though I haven't seen him in days. Loch is smiling when he gets to us, hugging Ben first, hard, before turning to me.

Why didn't you wake me?

You looked peaceful. 

At least you didn't come down alone. But why are you soaked?

To his credit Ben didn't even rat me out, God bless him.

The plan.

It's going to be different, 2020. There's going to be more laughter and fewer tears. We're going to become adventurers again. We're going to get more and give up less (take that either way, if you will). We're going to be fierce and unforgiving, pillaging everything we see, taking our due, noting our worth, stroking the fires of our bravery and might so that others will fear our names.

It's going to be incredible.

I have half a mind to stand out on the point in the snow, face defiantly raised toward the light, feathers woven into my hair, Ben's brass knuckle rings firmly shoved onto each and every finger as I punch a hole in the winter sky to find the sun.

I have the other half of my mind which falters behind like a simple child, pleading with me to wait while it catches up. I turn, sneer on my lip, shaking my head. No. Haste, my child. Keep up or you'll be eaten by the wolves, lost forever.

She listens, mercifully. I don't want to watch that ever again. Her scars are all over, bites, claws, marks from where they have almost caught her as she stumbles through the dark, grabbing branches, losing footing, losing ground and then making it up again with my help. Maybe I will devour her and then I can get where I need to be.

Wouldn't it be nice.

But they have asked to keep her.

And so she stays.

And if you look out toward the point you'll see her already there, dirt streaked on her cheeks, mixed with the snow that melts on her face, mixed with tears too, feathers and leaves tangled in her hair, torn pockets on her dress from where she keeps her treasures, blood soaked through the fabric for her treasures are wolf/human hybrid hearts and it's rare if you catch her standing still.

Frozen, too.

The snow is incoming. It's already all around us, dusted solid white across the mountaintops, fading to a powdered-sugar sprinkle to the treelines below, and stretching all across the country, names on a map obscured by flakes as big as pennies, heavy with the almost-rain we've been having up until now, a reprieve that we'll soon wish for when everything is made so much more difficult by snow. When we'll have to find warmer boots and matching gloves, when hat-hair becomes a thing, and icy beards thaw, dripping down onto crisp dry shirts. When the furnace runs near constantly and the cats appear after dark as if by magic, looking to curl up against warm sleeping bodies.

Though, as PJ points out almost every single morning? The days are getting longer, even if only by minutes at a time. I'll take that but I will fight the snow with every resource I have. Which would be, at this moment my sheer hatred of the stuff, a Jeep and lots and lots of fire.

Lochlan laughs. Just let it go. We'll manage just fine. 

Where does it absolutely never snow? That's still Canada? 

Oh, uh, still in the country? Maybe Victoria? 

Alright can we move?

You don't want to live there. 

I know, I just hate this shit. 

It'll be gone in a week or two. 

Right. Wake me when it's done. 

Bridget, you used to love it. 

That was the old Bridget. The new one isn't nearly so flexible. 

Honestly the old one wasn't so much either. We'll get through it like we always do and you will see. 

I look at him for a long moment, studying his face. He's right. I know he's right and I trust him and I'm never sure why every molehill is a mountain in my mind and every molehill just another hill to climb for him and he's tired and we're getting old and maybe old dogs don't new tricks and maybe this is the way it is, snow and all.

Lochlan, I love you. 

He looks surprised. I know you do. I wish you'd focus on that more though, and less on everything else.

That will be my resolution for the New Year. 

I have to wait until then? 

I just want to be together! I just want to be DISTRACTED.

As the Devil's advocate my role is to work for him to point out everything that could go wrong with the previous post, in case you found it (as I did) pretentious, lofty, tone-deaf or whatever range of beautiful, introspective compliments I read on my mails when I deign to venture into them, as I did today blindly, stupidly in an attempt to distract myself.

Firstly, I am lactose intolent, and so all of this camembert needs to go.

Secondly this house is full of recovering alcoholics and close-to-becoming alcoholics and so all this champagne? It needs to go.

Thirdly I have no earthly idea what anyone actually got for Christmas because of the private exchanges, I'm tired of the dim lighting, dead batteries from lanterns and melted, dried wax on everything from candles (not to mention the massive fire hazard) and sometimes a girl just wants to have a big ol' blistering bubblebath by herself. 

Fourthly, guess who just informed us he needs to be on a plane by midafternoon to put out a fire somewhere else?

That would be Ben, who still sometimes can't figure out what 'family' means.

 But it's okay, for my advocacy on his behalf, the Devil has gracious agreed to take Ben's place until he returns.

Rituals of Yule, in chiaroscuroic, if not tenebristic, form.

(People keep asking for a window into our lives, so here's a glimpse, if at all.)

The traditions surrounding holidays for the Collective have evolved breathtakingly over the years to the point where if anyone moves to alter or ignore certain customs they are met with swift and gentle reminders that we're doing things differently now. If something absolutely is not working for someone they either separate off and don't indulge or they appeal for a rule change or tradition-tweak at the still-regular family meetings, held just about once a week in order to keep chore lists, budgetary considerations and raw feelings acknowledged, affirmed. It's the way we've become. Living together as an intentional family we remain unconventional and yet put extraordinary effort into forcing convention.

Some of my favourites I will detail for you, first and foremost being the one where everyone is home, present and accounted for. Without that there would be no rituals, no special moments, no warmth in a room.

Everyone calls in holiday vacations, ends travel plans a little early, pushing the next ones back a little later, making sure to be here so that we are all together. All meals are held here at the big house, and so August, Matt and Sam, Schuyler, Daniel, Christian, Andrew and Batman, New Jake and anyone else who is here or home join us around the clock to partake at the big table, actually three tables now or outside on the heated patio for the biggest, most formal meals. It's covered, there is glass above the pergola, and the heaters are moved as needed.

We don't use lights unless they are of the fairy, Christmas or carnival sort. Candles and lanterns rule the roost, inside and out, right through until the New Year. Anyone reading a book takes an LED lantern and otherwise it's just more beautiful without the bright lights and blinding glares.

We actually stop doing chores and those that can't be held off on are doubled-down to finish much faster. Everyone pitches in, no one worries about the master lists, preferences or unfairness of it all.

Meals turn decadent. I think some of us have been living on champagne and chocolate. Everything is cooked by all of us working together, and we pull out the oldest dearest recipes and make enough for all. Four turkeys. We made ten tortieres and three pies. Five cakes and dozens of cinnamon rolls and cookies.

In comparison, gift-opening was done separately over many days, a private engagement as the gifter sought out the giftee, a newer tradition I love, as we take the time to explain what the other soul means to us, what the gift means for them, what we hope for the new year moving forward. This way there is time to smooth over a rough year or shine an already-bright one, there is time for gratitude and time to discuss relationships instead of rushing through discarded mountains of wrapping paper and forgetting what gifts you've been given.

We have plum pudding and Christmas tea every evening before retiring to the theatre to watch movies, series and specials en mass. We had caroling on the beach by candlelight and champagne well-attended bubblebaths and long naps in front of the fire. We've talked late into the night on the front porch, drinking mulled wine, watching the woods.

I have rolled miles of pastry dough and baked close to a dozen wheels of camembert. I've opened so many bottles of champagne and fielded so many kisses from the Devil I lost count over the past week and Lochlan and I are finally thoroughly slept and sated, salted and sealed. We still have New Years to navigate, the beginning of yet another decade of our lives together and somehow I think this one will be better than the last.

As long as we keep finding our own traditions, keep finding ways to love and keep finding what truly makes us happy, it most definitely will, Peanut.

Onward and upward, Dóiteán

Ag obair air cheana féin, Neamhchiontach. 

(He said he was already working on it, if you're curious.)

Now I don't have to ask to borrow theirs anymore, and I'm really happy about that.

It's always nice to look out the window
And see those very first few flakes of snow
And later on we can go outside
And create the impression of an angel that fell from the sky
When February rolls around I'll roll my eyes
Turn a cold shoulder to these even colder skies
And by the fire my heart it heaves a sigh
For the green grass waiting on the other side

By Christmas Day after dinner we were scattered around the livingroom, full and slow from way too much dinner, listening as Sam read to us from the book of Luke, and I tried to keep my eyes open, nodding my chin down against my chest to the point where Lochlan gently reached over and took my wineglass and then I just surrendered to the sleep, letting my face come down and rest against Matt's shirt who I was using as a leaning post until then. Matt, to his credit, can sit for hours if someone is napping against him. Pretty sure we've all done it at this point, even Ben and Caleb, though Caleb refuses to admit he nodded off for a moment there. Sam sure appreciates having to share his comfort object, but at the same time he beams from morning to night these days, making up for the absolutely zero hours of sunlight as of late. Hell, at this point I no longer smell pine and cinnamon at Christmas, just petrichor, twenty-eight hours a day.

I got a kiss on my cupid's bow yesterday with a reminder that the days are getting longer, Lochlan smiling into my eyes. God I love him. But wow, was that ever the last thing I wanted to hear.

Just what I need. I roll my eyes and he pretends to be taken aback.

I'm surprised Santa brought you anything at all with that attitude. 

(Now is the part were we won't talk about how I had to be convinced to come back inside on Christmas Eve for I was sitting at the bottom of the pool in the pouring rain trying to conjure the ghosts of Christmas past and the Bridget of Christmas future all at once.)

Santa was incredibly good to me this year, and Lochlan is right, I don't deserve any of it. They have opted to bring me into the 2020s kicking and screaming, unwilling to pry my own fingers from around the abacus, washboard and kettle for the woodstove that I consider my operating tools for life or whatever it is that we entrenched Luddites take inspiration from.

I got an iPad*, a massive professional one, with a keyboard case and an apple pencil because he is determined. SO determined.

And I love it, secretly, but outwardly I went around for at least a day pointing out it didn't fit in my apron pocket and oy, what if the goats chew on it or it gets damp in the barn, hand across my forehead for effect. Finally last night when he caught me in bed with Apple (Well, I had to name the iPad something, right?) instead of August (or hell, pick a name) he laughed until he cried. What are you doing?

Learning Procreate. 

Ah, you don't know how happy this makes me, he said.

Weirdly I do. 

*( I was also given two incredible beautiful bespoke rings from Lochlan which far outweigh the iPad in my eyes, from both Pyrrha and Peg and Awl but I know damn well you don't want to hear about that. This man knows me so hard he's burnished my soul in a way I'll never be able to describe. They are incredible. I couldn't decide between them, Peanut, so I just got both.)

Merry Christmas!

We're pulling the plug on the outside world in 3..2..

See you soon! Be safe and have a wonderful holiday.

A Palpatine is when you touch someone all over.

I got a fun early gift from Benjamin and I can't stop using it. It's a virtual bluetooth projection keyboard that you can put on anything and type. I wondered if it would even work. So far I've used it on Ben's back, which was confusing as fuck trying to find the letters superimposed over his tattoos, I tried it in the empty big bathtub (weird) and I also tried it in the backyard in the grass which wasn't nearly dry enough and did not work at all.

He said it's not exactly a gift, just a thing one of the execs gave him and he figured I would love it. I don't, I actually hate technology and have already had a moment where I wondered if for 2020 I should go completely analog and write my journal on hammered tree bark with a quill that I could then roll up, seal with wax and a lock of my hair and deliver it via carrier pigeon subscription.

Who's in?

I wasn't kidding when I said technology is hard. I like humans. I like tactile things. I liked Blackberries but I think that was it, everything else seems so exceedingly complicated and completely overwhelming. A few times last night I even asked Lochlan but what happens if they're holding the lightsaver the wrong way and hit the button and it goes RIGHT THROUGH THEIR LEG? in horror but he hasn't answered me because he is too busy being embarrassed or maybe now he understands the definition of Too Young For You because right now he could be having this conversation with someone who got to see the first Star Wars in their preteens instead of barely out of grade two and maybe then he would be happy. I'm going to go type virtual love letters to him on his fucking forehead until he lightens up a little, I think.

Maybe I'll even post one of them.

Dear Fuckhead, it will read. You're probably wondering why I'm contacting you-

I crack myself up. Still no spirit. Heading out looking now. Sidetrip to post office included. Wish me luck.

In my defence I only fell asleep when everything onscreen was exploding.

We survived the not-bad traffic and terrifically-behaved audience to go see the new Star Wars, and loved every second of it. I won't post any details but definitely a great way to spend a Sunday morning, there at the church of popcorn and celluloid, and don't worry, we went to Jesus beach at eight this morning in the freezing cold long before wrapping up even more to brave the morning theatre. It's always freezing at the movies and holy car commercials, Batman, stop it already. So many ads now, it makes it hard.

What a great event though and now the Internet is embiggened again since no one has to worry about spoilers.

Geez. Now I just have to run the gauntlet of groceries, garbage, post office (one more time, with feeling) and Henry's work shifts and then I'm safe. I would like to sleep in but nope, none of that on this horizon line of mine.

Pacific Northstressed.

I'm just here trying to turn Christmas around. I can't find the spirit this year. I was ready early. I looked everywhere. I've been on walks through neighborhoods full of lights and driven down festive tree-lined streets. I've see Santa, more than once. Maybe he's replacing Skateboard Jesus, whom I haven't seen at all. I bought some cheap wine and fruitcake but that didn't do it either, just as the champagne and French hand-milled and decorated cookies Caleb flew in didn't. Surprise on that.

It's on, what, Wednesday? So don't mind me over here beginning to panic. It's been raining heavily, nonstop even, and I feel like I'm slipping. Maybe it's not even me, maybe reality is eroding and around the edges you can see the black where they painted in your happy life. Maybe they fucked up the painting and it's not so happy, and no amount of holiday movies, cinnamon rolls or wrapping presents for the ones you love so dearly, so desperately can fix it even though presently, nothing is wrong that isn't always wrong-

You're just tired, Bee. 

And that.

Stop doing so much. 

Admittedly it's been a marathon of a week and here it is Saturday with another few days of marathons to go. Henry pulled a surprise three days off over Christmas at least, but before that happens there are three shifts left, a few more groceries to pick up, some errands that will not wait, and the boys want to see Star Wars, so we're going to maybe attempt to fit that in. I sat for a moment and tried to remember anything about Star Wars. I swear I've seen at least nine or fifteen of the movies, though apparently unless you read all the books and watch all the tv shows you're not a fan which is fine, I don't know what's going on anyway. I don't know why things have to be so complicated for me yet hell, even Duncan, who watched at least the first five movies blind drunk as a teenager can rattle off all of this information and I can't even remember the character names.

(Snopes? He's the big creature you go to and ask if something you read on the internet is true or false, right?)

I think something might be wrong with my brain.

But name virtually any song written after 1942 and I can probably sing it for you.

I need to fix this. I'm heading out now. I have a map and a marker and I'm going to do a grid search until I find this fucker. If I see Santa I will ask him where the spirit went, though in all honesty it's probably somewhere sheltering from ALL THIS FUCKING RAIN. 

(Soundtrack? Bledig. Perfect for this day.)