Upside Down Kris

  Farewell to 2023 Farewell to  2023, to the old, to holding on to hurt in my head or in my body.  Let it slide off my skin and shoulders, slink down me in the shower and  swirl down the drain. Will what I shake off whirl in the opposite direction down the drain  as I transition into 2024, choosing another way in my move to the islands? Will I get caught into the whirlpool of the new? Will it be overwhelming? So many questions! What I do know is that I can't cling to the country I left or anything in the past. Italy was good to me: it guided me through all my wayward windings to maturity. It was there through my misunderstandings, confusion, learning and finally my flight leaving the cocoon   I had built from fear of feeling. Thank you for being the country that taught  me so much. Gosh, almost all I learned about musicality  and music in general I developed  within you.  I also learned that I could make it: that I could be thrown into a  new place not knowing the  language and  a 

Christmas Making How blustery, this day of Christmas making! The wind sends shivers through the green limbs outside the windows, but the ivory glow from the first strings of lights serves to warm up the inside of the house. The sun shoots through the running wind and makes the patterns on the Christmas card  blush.T hen, it  speckles the sheets on the bed where I am writing. Before creating the card, I had made sure that our two Santa stand-ins were keeping their watch on a shelf by the door and in the middle of my desk. (It's too early to be caught in the act of merriment.) The one on my desk looks on as I dedicate a sentence to him, and seems satisfied with it.  I had decided that the santa in the snow globe by the door should have a place of honor watching over us from the highest shelf. The globe does its best to sputter "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" when I wind it, but memories glitter inside the dome as flurries. I remember the excitement of shaking it for the fir

City Personification Just like people, Florida changes according t o her whim and circumstance. I suppose every state has its personality, and it would be correct to claim that cities, too, have their own traits.  Let's take the last city we stayed in for a while. Wynantskill, New York, is a slow moving city in the winter with a few splotches of real red and brown blotted by gray clouds. The air is clean and fresh, and the ground sprouts fascinating trees and thin creeks opening to truth and treasures. Just like the trees form a commune known as a forest, the people, too, form a community. St. Augustine, Florida, on the other hand, has wild and brazen look-at-me lights in the winter–excitement whirring through the historic streets. The water lapping its shores could be calm or stressed, much like the man-made lake outside my mom's house. Some days the lake is without a care in the world–a sheen sheet of contentedness. Other days it has been agitated by the ducks–ripples of worr

  Letter to Santa Dear Santa, First of all, I'd like to thank you for your magic everywhere...the lights highlighting houses and the happy faces of the parade last night. You really went all out this year on Amelia Island with the Christmas drone show: I am used to fireworks but I guess you're up to speed with the newest technology. What cheer and precision! I'm very impressed, Santa! I even heard you through the bells from the Salvation Army ringer who was dancing the salsa on the New York streets some weeks ago. I feel you in the general "good mood" that Christmas evokes, the hope that runs through the holidays–that warm feeling that tingles on my skin and makes me clap like a child. Really, thank you. I don't know if I've ever told you that before in any of my letters. If not, it's well overdue. Now, getting to the heart of my letter: what would I like for Christmas? Not things–they are so overrated! No, what I need is a hand in smoothing and soothi