Dylan Stafford

It is 5:30am and I’ve already been awake for half an hour. I sat in the living room wrapped in two blankets, one for my legs and one over my head. I stared into the quiet and the darkness and watched the digital minutes on the cable box silently change. When I was awake enough I headed through the house to start the coffee and turn on the laptop.

Now I’m on the back porch and I hear the coffee bubbling from the kitchen. I left the blankets in the living room and it is chilly out here. I need a fleece but I can’t find one so I am wearing a ski jacket, sitting in the dark and typing.

It is Monday morning after Christmas vacation. I am in that “between” space. Between 2009 and 2010. Between vacation and work. Between night and day. I’m half new year’s resolutions and half general nervousness. I’m 50/50 ready to go and I don’t want to go all at the same time.

My job will be busy this month because I have a deadline to meet in early February. There is something important happening every Saturday this month at my job at UCLA so I am planning to work Tuesday – Saturday and take Mondays off. Marisa is OK with it. She only asked me if I thought it was really necessary. While I sat on the couch this morning I was trying to make sure it was really necessary, that I’m not just trying to hide. 

Our son Jackson got a lot of Christmas gifts this year. The amount of gifts caught me off guard. We had to buy two big plastic bins and fill them with all his toys to get them back home to California. We flew Southwest so “bags fly free”, but I think they may re-visit that policy after seeing us. I think Jack has every toy he needs to open his own daycare now.

Last week I was on the internet at my sister-in-law Bonnie’s home looking up a movie time and I clicked on a link to “What would Jesus buy?”. The link took me to a website where you can watch the entire movie and I did. The movie follows a performance actor, Reverend Billy, and his “Stop Shopping Choir” as they tour the country in a bus and stage commando church services in malls and Wal-Marts and finally Disneyland. They wear red robes and sing Christmas songs with the lyrics changed, encouraging people to slow down.

They know they aren’t going to get people to stop shopping. That is not their goal. They want people to be more conscious about it. To slow down and experience.

That is what I want for 2010. I want to slow down and experience.

I stuck my foot in my mouth about the gifts. We were at the kitchen table at Bonnie’s and Marisa asked me, “What do you think we should do with all Jack’s gifts?” What she meant was “How do you think we should ship them back to California? UPS or on the airplane?”

“I think we should give half of them to charity.” I said instantly. “We can probably find a Toys for Tots or something and donate them. Remember we have a small house.”

I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. It was honestly what I thought was the best solution. I thought this was way too many toys for one little toddler and we weren’t going to have any place to put them when we got home anyway. Marisa didn’t see it that way. Later that night when we were alone she said, “Dylan, people spent their hard-earned money for those gifts. It would be rude to give them away.” 

“Don’t you think about it being too much? About factory workers in China or Bangladesh cranking out all these plastic gizmos?” I asked.

“No.” was Marisa’s reply.

I apologized to Bonnie the next day.

“Bonnie, I just want to say I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be unappreciative about all the gifts Jack got when I said we should give them to charity last night. I just got overwhelmed by the amount of gifts Jack received and I honestly don’t know where we are going to put them all.”

“Oh that is what Gary was talking about this morning.” Bonnie replied. Gary is my brother-in-law, Bonnie’s husband. “I was reading my book on the couch when you guys were talking about that and I guess I didn’t hear the conversation.”

“Oh.” I said, feeling slightly silly. Nothing I like better than apologizing to someone who doesn’t know what I am talking about.

My wife’s family is imminently practical. Marisa is one of five kids. Because they are from New Jersey they speak a lot more directly than how I was raised in Texas. Bonnie hadn’t heard the original conversation, but even when Gary mentioned it to her she didn’t have any problem.

It’s 7:00 am now. The pink sky is peaking over the little hill in Culver City that I can see outside my window here on the porch. I’ve polished off the half pot of coffee as I have written. Marisa came through and went for a walk in the park. Jackson is still sleeping.

I’m better now than I was when I woke earlier. I’m up to sixty percent new year’s resolutions and only forty percent “I don’t want to go”. That is enough to start the day.