Nothing new...and yet? Everything.

This morning at about one o'clock in the morning, I finished reading Rob Lowe's memoir "Stories I Only Tell My Friends". It's a book I bought for my mom for Christmas after I saw her thumbing through it at a bookstore this summer. I wasn't sure if she was just curious or really interested so I thought I'd surprise her. So this week I picked up the book to take a look at it myself and instantly I was hooked.

Hooked. I couldn't put it down. I finished it in less than two days. I was fascinated by his stories, the way he told them, the life he's had and all that I didn't know about his career, and even that which I did know. Basically I knew him as Sam Seaborn, and now as a character on my beloved Parks and Recreation. But it was so interesting to read about his experience, his path, his choices. And to hear him own them all and cherish them all.

As I turned the last page in the book early this morning I immediately wanted to put my fingers on the keyboard. I love when that happens. When I see a movie or watch an episode of television or read something that makes me want to write. To tell great stories too. And that's exactly what this book did. Inspire me.

As most of you know, my journey as a writer has not been short. And it has not been easy. I've been at it for a long time. And it's taken me so many places and taught me so much. And yet, there are times, when I find myself wanting to stop. Wanting to not so much quit writing as quit the pursuit of professional writing. I realize I am probably not alone in this. But I like to think I'm different because well, I don't quit. I can't. To me, there is not a Plan B. There is no other option.

A few weeks ago after a writers' group meeting I found myself surrounded by four fabulous friends and I burst into tears. We'd been talking about jobs and money and how to keep going, how to get that break, any break, that we all so desperately chase. And these were not people I had ever really cried in front of before (sans Angela, of course). I hadn't meant to cry. I hadn't meant to let it all out. But I did and I felt stupid and yet, comforted immediately. My friends smiled and hugged me and told me that it was all going to work out. And then they called me the next day and told me all the same things again (in fact, two friends called at the same time!).

And since that day a few weeks ago I've been trying to figure things out in my head. Trying to make a plan. Trying to decide what's next. But really? There's nothing new in the works for 2012. I have no grand scheme. I have no other options. This is it. I want to be in the show. I want to do this. So this is what I need to be doing. I will head home to Los Angeles in January and I will polish my portfolio and I will do this. Because this is all there is. And yet? While there's really nothing new, there's so much possibility. So very much. So much I can't even imagine it all. And that's freakin' awesome.

So thanks, Rob Lowe, for sharing your stories. Thanks for reminding me that it's all up to me to pursue my dreams. No one else will do this for me. No one else will push me like I will push me. And so, off I go...

Love at Christmastime

As I sit here typing I'm looking down at my right hand where there's a sparkly new diamond ring. Yes, on my right hand. The ring is gorgeous and fits me perfectly and yes, it's new to me. But technically it was new in 1941. It was a gift given to my Grandma MacDonald on her sixteenth birthday by her father. He died shortly after that. For as long as I can remember, the gold ring with the two diamonds set on a diagonal sat on her hand. And now it's on mine.

My mother gave Angela and I both one of Grandma's diamond rings. And to me, it means so much more than the weight of the precious metals and stones. To me it means she's with me. Her life and her stories and her smile are right here, close to my heart.

It's been a long year, missing Grandma. We celebrated our last Christmas with her on December 26, 2010. She was so sick for so long and then when she passed away in March it was a blessing for her but misery for those of us she left behind. I believe in Heaven, and I know she's up there with her husband and her son and her sister and her brother and her parents and all those who have gone before but it's still so hard.

Two days ago we, the grandkids and our parents, sorted through her Christmas ornaments. And I only teared up once (which is more than I can say happened during the writing of this blog). It was a joyous night being reminded of all the good times, all the laughs, all the happiness. And Grandma was right there with us. In the twinkle of the bulbs and the smile I'd see on my mom's or my aunt's face when they'd recount a story of Christmas long before most of us were around.

Losing someone is never easy. Remembering them never is either. But I am so thankful for those who remember her with me. For the ways in which she is with me every single day and will continue to be.

She loved Christmas. She loved holidays and everyone being together. And we loved her. So this Christmas has been the perfect celebration of all of that (she types, wiping tears off the keyboard).

Merry Christmas everyone. It's a celebration of love. One that goes on all year and all our lives.

Holding it together

The advent devotion I wrote for today that appears in the Hollywood United Methodist devotional booklet:  

Hebrews 1:1-4

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Sometimes I feel like everything’s held together by that frosting you use on gingerbread houses. Yes, from the outside, it looks like cement. It holds on the red hots and the gumdrops and the M & Ms while keeping your cookie walls standing upright but add a little too much water or not enough powdered sugar and the whole bowl is lost and nothing will stay where it should. And sometimes I feel like life is that way.

Add a little (or a lot) of stress, a job change or loss, a strained friendship or broken relationship, money worries or even a feeling of separation from God and voila! the walls of the gingerbread house that is our life start to crumble and sag. But that’s where this reminder, this passage from Hebrews comes into play. “He holds everything together by what he says – powerful words!” (Hebrews, The Message)

God’s powerful words: he knows what to say to hold everything, including our lives, together. He created us, he created Jesus, he is the reason we celebrate Christmas and Easter and everything else in between. His words are why we are what we are and do what we do. We live to worship him and he will hold us together.

There’s this great book by Max Lucado, Cosmic Christmas, that I read over and over each year about this time. It’s a telling of the Christmas story from the angels’ point of view. But not just the Christmas story – the Christmas war. The fight that took place between good and evil that led, ultimately, to Jesus Christ’s birth. That story, that imagery of a war taking place, gives me hope. God’s words give me hope. Hope that life is worth living and love is worth taking a chance on. Hope that this advent season, as we all prepare for the remembrance of this little baby that God sent as a physical reminder of his love, we will remember not just the stories but the words. And how they are with us all year long, forever and ever, holding us together.

Dear Lord, please help us to hear your words this Christmas season and to be comforted and enriched by them. Amen.

Mom's devotion (guest blogger!)

This is the devotion my mom, Chris Knapp, wrote for the Down Home Devotional put out by Howell First United Methodist Church this advent season:

"The real meaning of Christmas through the eyes of a child"

Christmas was a busy time at our home, gifts to make, presents to wrap, cookies to bake, getting ready for the large group of relatives and friends who would share our holiday.

Christmas Eve was what I remember most, we would go to church, the lit candles, the beautiful Christmas tree, and the organ music. My Grandfather sang in the choir, you better behave, listen, and sit very still or Grandpa would have a talk with you, this was very hard with the excitement of the day. Standing outside in the snow and cold to watch the live Nativity after our service.

We would end our service with Silent Night, my Dad's favorite song. He would say this song is the meaning of Christmas. Silent Night is my favorite Christmas song, reminds me of the days when our life was full of family, love and giving. When I hear or sing this song it reminds me of my Dad and always brings a few tears to my eyes. Think about the verses written below, this is our true meaning of Christmas. He came to save all who believe in him.

Bible Verse Luke 18:15-17

Sing all 4 verses of silent night.

Dear God, I ask that all our church family have peace, love and happiness as you share the true meaning of Christmas this year.

Chris Knapp

Los Angeles in December

Last night I hosted my writers' group's (FOS) last meeting of the year. I'll be heading to Michigan on Saturday (CHRISTMAS! YAY!) and we won't meet again as a whole group until the middle of January. So we decided (spurred by Angela's great idea, yes, she's a part of FOS, a very important part!) to have a little Christmas party potluck-style. And it turned out to be a fabulous evening.

The weather's cool enough to require heat here in L.A. this year (I've spent Decembers here when it's been in the 40s and when it's been in the 80s) which I love (though my checkbook does not) because it means I can light candles (and run the furnace - boo). I love candles. Especially peppermint ones. So last night I lit the candles and we had a wonderful evening. We ate (soup and rolls and chips and guacamole and cookies, too many cookies). We talked about life, about what's going on with our writing, about just everyday stuff. And that's what I love - FOS has become more than just a writers' group for me, they're my friends. I love that we can spend four hours on a Wednesday night talking and laughing and sharing stories, then jump right into a table read of a zombie script.

To me Christmas is all about spending time with the ones I love. The ones I hold most dear. I get to do that in Michigan each year. But now I get to do that in L.A. too. I get to spend time with writer friends, church friends, and all my other friends and to me, that's just freakin' cool.

So while I won't be doing much writing in the next few weeks, I will be doing a lot of living. A lot of listening and a lot of thinking. I'll be spending time relaxing and entertaining and just enjoying the heck out of life. Because, really, what could be better?

So "Merry Christmas" from Los Angeles. (It's only 57 degrees and threatening rain here today so don't hate us too much.) And Michigan? Bring on the snow!!!

O Christmas Tree

Yesterday I performed a spoken word piece at a fundraiser at Hollywood United Methodist Church. I was one of six performers (five other writers and a musician) asked to tell stories of Christmases past. Here's mine:

(And if you'd like to see the You Tube video of the first four performances, including mine which starts around minute 31, click here.)

My birthday is in the middle of October but every year as a child (and frankly, into adulthood as well), growing up in Michigan I would wish for one thing on my birthday: snow.

It didn’t matter if it had been 65 degrees and sunny for the entire fall or that a hayride and bonfire was planned for my birthday party. I wanted snow. You know why? Because it signified to me that Christmas was near. (We won’t talk about the occasional May snowstorms that most sane people in Michigan cursed.)

Christmas.

The golden season. The time of year when no matter what goes wrong or what is happening in the world, all seems perfect. Perfectly jolly and happy and merry.

Christmas.

And nothing symbolizes the Christmas season to me more than the Christmas tree. The green (or white or pink or blue or whatever) fir that adorns living rooms and shopping malls and sweatshirts (the one I wore in middle school that lit up? that tree on that sweatshirt tells you a lot about my fascination with the tannenbaum and a little something about how many friends I had in middle school). And for me, it’s always been the tree that holds a very special place in my heart. Whether it’s the tree of boys (more on that later) or the first tree I bought or the trees I wear continually on my ears all season long.

My obsession with the Christmas tree probably began long before I can remember; at least that’s what we’ll say for the sake of this story. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, my father would drag the tree out of its box in the basement and he’d set to assembling it. Now mind you, as I got older, I was a big help but as a youngster, I think I was probably hurting more than helping. He’d assemble the tree, swear at the lights that never ever worked, go to the local hardware, buy some more, and try again. This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas and one of things I miss most living 2000 miles away from my family.

Once the tree was up, the ornaments would be unpacked. And in my house, it’s not just a handful of pretty bulbs and some candy canes. There are no less than five television boxes (these are from back when televisions were the size of a Prius) that are full of hundreds of tiny boxes holding the treasures that adorn the tree. And each has a special meaning or memory. To this day I can close my eyes and picture my parents’ tree and my favorite ornaments and tell you if they’re in the right place or not (this is a bone of contention in my family and as my mother proudly told me on the phone a few weeks ago, she didn’t move one single ornament this year because she heard me lamenting in her head about this, most likely ‘sarcastic me’).

My tree fixation continued on throughout my childhood as I was cast in a church pageant one year as ---wait for it ---yep, A TREE! Now, I like to think this is because I love what the Christmas tree stands for and the important role trees played in the story of Christmas (they did, I swear, that part was just edited out of the Bible to save on printing costs) but more than likely it was because I was (and still am) a horrible actor who, gun to my head, couldn’t remember and recite my name and birthday on command.

So here I was, a tree. My parents made me this great sandwich board that I am sure is still in their garage somewhere and glued cut up pieces of garland to it. And I killed as one of the three trees that year. I’m sure I did… Yes, yes. Very sure.

Anyway, when I moved away from home for college I realized that it was time to start my own traditions. My second year at school I lived in a house with three other girls and three guys. Yep, that meant the girls had control of the house because we outnumbered the guys. So that year we got the employees in the physical plant to bring us a fake tree that wasn’t being used in the cafeteria and we set to decorating it. But we were poor, very poor, college students who had no decorations, no lights, nothing (little aside: one of the guys in the house was so poor he kept his car running by keeping it plugged in all winter. He literally ran an extension cord through a window in the living room out to a heater on his engine block and no, we never thought about silly things like the college’s electricity bill.) And because we were so poor, we did what any sensible young college girls wanting to celebrate the season of Jesus’ birth would do.

We made a tree of boys.

Yep. We spent hours combing through magazines and cutting out pictures. We printed photos off the Internet in the computer lab. And we made hangers out of paperclips. And let me tell you, our house was a very popular one that year. We’d come home from classes to find new pictures added every day. Some from other residents of the house, some from students who’d heard the tale of our tree and found their way over, the door always unlocked, and taken it upon themselves to add to our masterpiece. And before you think we were scary stalkers, the boys were all celebrities and it was all in good fun. (At least that’s what we told the guys in the house when they objected. And if I remember correctly, they eventually got in on the fun too.)

When I started grad school, I moved into an apartment with my sister, Angela, and a friend. Our first Christmas there was a bit more traditional. We put up an old tree my parents’ delivered to us and bought some lights. Then we set to crafting. We found ornament templates online and colored them then laminated them. We took the rings of Mason jar lids and wound ribbon around them. We used glitter glue to write our names on cheap stockings and we spent hours studying around the tree. We didn’t need anything more.

But then when I moved to Arizona, Christmas lost some of its luster. It’s hard to get excited about the winter holiday season when it’s a 110 degrees outside. For the two years I lived in Arizona, there was no tree in my apartment. And for the first year here in Los Angeles, there wasn’t either. But then, I made a decision. I wanted my own Christmas tree. I wanted to start the season well before the day I’d make my way back to Michigan late in December each year. So Angela and I went to Walmart (I am sure Clark Griswold’s family wishes he’d known about Walmart back then) and found the perfect Christmas tree. And now we spend about an hour decorating and then several weeks sitting by it each night throughout the Christmas season.

So my obsession with Christmas trees is a long-standing one, and I’m okay with that. I have these awesome memories of staring at the lights night after night with family and friends (and if I don’t wear my glasses, the tree becomes this impressionist mosaic that’s really cool). I have these awesome memories of fighting over dead lights and broken icicles (you know, the glass kind, that break if you even sneeze in their direction; they adorn every inch of my parents tree and shards of glass cover the house for six months after the tree comes down and most of them are snapped in half). And I have these awesome memories of each and every tree that I have seen and worn and lovingly placed packages under.

I wore the tree pin on my shoe to the performance and my friend Pauley insisted on taking a picture of it!

And while I still have the tree pin I wore back in the ‘80s and I still wear the Christmas tree earrings my grandma gave me back in the ‘90s and I still have the first Christmas tree ornament I ever received (a mouse sleeping in a matchbox that was gifted to me at age two months by another two month old), the tree that I hold dearest and think most fondly of?

That tree of boys.

I mean really, if you can’t have George Clooney under your tree Christmas morning, the next best thing is to have him smiling at you from among the branches.

The storytellers: Chad Darnell, Jay Sowell, David Dean Bottrell, me, April Moore, and George Bellias

World AIDS Day

Angela and I with two of the Compassion Bears collected by Hollywood UMC during the Christmas season.

Today is World AIDS Day. According to the event's website, "World AIDS Day is held on 1 December each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988."

And while I do not personally know anyone who has died of AIDS, I know plenty of people who are HIV positive, some friends, some I've met at my work with 5p21 - the AIDS hospital in downtown Los Angeles. And I've met many kids at the children's AIDS hospital as well. Each year our church delivers teddy bears, aka Compassion Bears, that have been taken home and loved and prayed over and sometimes dressed up, to the children's hospital in December. We collect money and toys to take as well. Some of my best holiday memories of Los Angeles involve going to the hospital with a huge carload of presents and feeling like Santa Claus, carrying them up the three flights of stairs to the office where they'll be kept until they're delivered. No, we don't personally give the toys to the kids but that doesn't matter, it's still an awesome experience knowing that these children will get something extra special this year whether their families can afford something or not. 

I've been a member of the AIDS committee at my church since the first month I moved to Los Angeles. I was drafted, so to speak, after volunteering to make sandwiches one day. It's a small committee and I love everyone who serves on it. We have a great time making lunches once a month and passing out sticker ribbons a few times a year, the bears every advent season, and collecting the toys. Truly, I am so blessed by the opportunity I've had to help and to give and to learn. Before I moved to California I didn't know anyone who was HIV positive. I didn't know that it's okay to kiss and hug people with AIDS or to share meals with them or to do just about anything I'd do with any of my other friends. I was sheltered and uneducated but that quickly changed. There's stigma attached to all disease, I'm aware of that - whether it's cancer or AIDS or diabetes or migraines. But by reaching out, by praying, by loving, we can make a difference.