Report from the Front - Jan. 1 2006

I'm reporting from my fox-hole on the counterresolutionary front -- a fairly well-organized office in the upper floor of the current Kindle home. (When I say well-organized, it means that you can actually see small patches of the surface of the desk, and can set down a drink without risking permanent damage to vital documents.)

So far, my compatriots, the counter-resolution is proceeding well.

I opened my day with a pre-dawn hike up to Fort Worden, where I greeted the first sunrise of 2006 with my third eye wide open -- thus shattering my first anti-resolution to refrain from all exercise during this year.

I also read -- for pleasure (Ha! Take that, you nasty resolution!) -- if you're interested, the book was Colleen McCullough's "The Grass Crown".

After lingering until 1:30 am last night with the Kindle (have I told you about the Kindle? -- I will soon -- it's been rolling around in my head that Kindle deserves an entry or two) over a bottle of passable champaigne, I drug my sorry ass out of bed at 6:57 (after hitting the snooze button 10 times or so) and wandered around the house in a daze until we loaded up in the van and drove to the Fort. There we linked up with another person who wanted to join our sunrise-welcome to the New Year, and hiked up the hill in real rain -- not Port Townsend drizzle -- not Seattle spittle -- real drippy rain that pattered on my oil-skin hat.

The weather was so Northwestern that I couldn't really tell where the sky ended and the Puget Sound started, and the only indication that the sun might be rising was a tiny pink strip to the east over Whidbey Island. We went up to the meadow above the bunkers -- the same place where the scene from "Officer and a Gentleman" was filmed, when Richard Gere is doing endless, agonized situps at the feet of Lou Gossett, and finally screams "I got nowhere else to go!" and bursts into tears.

It's a lovely spot, for all of that.

I didn't care that we couldn't "see" the sun with our physical eyes. We were there to view the first dawn of 2006 with our third eyes. Which we did, all standing slightly apart in that big field, each doing our own wacky version of personal salutation to the sun. I don't think anyone had a watch -- but about a minute after the 8 am whistle blew at the mill, an eagle passed through that pink strip over on Whidbey, and I felt satisfied that I had witnessed the sunrise.

Which, I guess, is a form of spiritual practice. So there's four of five resolutions broken in the first 19 hours of 2006. Not bad.

But I will strive for perfection. I will continue in my quest to utterly annihilate every resolution I have made for 2006, and to continue breaking them until I am certain that they are completely subjugated to my will.

Oh, for those of you who are regular readers, and have been waiting with bated breath to find out what my sixth favorite thing about Aslan is (see November 25 entry) -- now it can be told (as Kumatriel and I are long finished with the series) -- Carol's sixth favorite thing about Aslan is:

6. After the world is completely destroyed, and everyone goes to "heaven" or whatever it is, there is a soldier who worshipped Aslan's nemesis, the God "Tash" there. Tash is the black-hat, the bad guy, the evil dude -- but this soldier grew up believing that Tash was God, because that's what he was told. He was an honorable and brave soldier, a fellow with principles, but the Aslan-aligned characters are surprised to find him in Aslan's paradise. Aslan explains that, if anyone did anything bad and evil, even in the name Aslan, this was actually credited to Tash, and if anyone did anything good and right, even in the name of Tash, this was racked up to Aslan's account.

As a kid, this just made a whole lot more sense to me than the horrible crap I'd seen done in the name of God being likely to get you into heaven, or unbaptised babies from Rhodesia going to Hell because they never got to go to Sunday school and learn about the "right" way to do things.

Of course, I'm a bit more sophisticated now, and am not sure I can even get down with this "good and evil" thing. Still, at the time, it seemed like a much better plan.

Happy New Year.