It started last summer with the drafting table.

My 89-year-old neighbor was sorting through items in his garage and rediscovered an antique drafting table he once used for his photography and design work. It had a cast iron pedestal base (painted saffron yellow) and a large mahogany-stained top, which he custom-built.

“I have another one in the house,” Joe said in his cheerful Southern accent, his eyes sparkling behind a pair of round black glasses. “Would you like it?”

And so it was that the drafting table with the yellow base found its way into my attic studio/home office.

The sun came out today, which reminded me how dark it’s been lately. 

We expect that in winter, don’t we? Cold and dark and gloomy. “We’re having a real winter for the first time in several years and I’m kind of mad about it,” I said to a friend on the phone last weekend.

It’s not that I don’t like the snow. We’ve skied and cross-country skied and hiked more this year than the last few years combined. It's more about another week of not seeing the sun, not seeing temperatures above 30. Another personal loss and wave of grief. Another devastating news cycle.

It’s hard. Or at least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.

“Be in practice, not in pursuit.”

I read this in a newsletter from The Design Lab last week. Owner Nicole Yang wrote, “I think growing as a person often has much more to do with the ‘little’ unseen ways that we change rather than the big obvious ones.”

Things like:

• Becoming a better listener and communicator.

• Slowly moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

• Developing mental toughness and resilience.

• Learning how to ask better questions, in teaching and in learning.

Six weeks until Christmas, and Santa dropped out, our emcee was stepping down, and the Night-of Coordinator couldn't commit. Oh, and the Christmas tree is dying.

Our neighborhood has a longstanding tradition (104 years, to be exact): On Christmas Eve, neighbors gather at the end of the street under a big spruce tree strung with colored lights. 

Song sheets are handed out as the crowd begins singing “Deck the Halls,” then “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and so on.