I just finished up a twenty minute play session with the cat. He was chasing around a strand of sparkly silver wire gussied up with some sort of aluminum or mylar stars I found in an old bag of Christmas stuff. It was springy and zippy and fun for him to chase for awhile. I suppose that, elementally, that's how we all are. We like to chase around those sparkly things and then, after while, when the stars fall off and litter the floor and become boring, we set them down and go off to find new things to become fascinated with. Hence the thrill of the holidays.
Yesterday I went up into the crawlspace behind the wall of my old bedroom to seek out old Christmas stuff to take to the family in Boise. Most of the things up there were hidden away after our last long holiday season here in '06. I did my best to make that Christmas grand, but my heart was not into it. Sure, a tree was found and cut, presents were bought and wrapped, a major dinner was prepped and served, but I couldn't find a way to be genuinely happy. I was still too caught up in our old romance, I was living in the little house with a tree and decorations purchased during our high times, and I was slogging through sentimental country that had no place for me to rest and relax in. The drama was high enough for me to leave the day after Christmas for a weeklong drive down south to see my mom. We all needed it, you, me and my family.
So yesterday I dragged out all that old stuff and guess what? The toxicity in that tinsel and garland and glass had worn down to nothing, was finally safe enough to handle. Not only were my old glass Santas found during those 05/07 seasons intact and ready to be hung, but I also came across all my family's old holiday jewels. In both boxes and bags I found creches and old ornaments and all manner of books and records and cards gathered over the years. I came across old school art done up by the kids, old religious figures sent along by the grandmas, old emotions long buried and ready to be exhumed. I found that by setting up my own Christmas tree and by burying the ax I could come into this Christmas season happy and be ready to celebrate it once again with my children and the Estranged One, if not as partners at least as old friends.
I opened up what I thought to be the resting place of old Christmas ghosts but instead found a treasure trove of wornout happiness, of bittersweet memories, of a lot of misplaced joy. It was great to see wisps of old familiar phantoms swirling about those cardboard boxes, but it was also grand to see that the holidays are now mine once again, that my children, even with their childhood's whirled and twirled by strange and caring adults, are once again ready to believe in Santa and Jesus and their loving parents.
I did set aside, all the same, a big bag of ornaments and lights and such that gave such meaning to my first year all alone in this house. You had a key to the house by that time, and the tree that gave me such pleasure, that Colorado Blue Spruce, the one that's growing in my front yard, was set up and glowing with white lights in the living room. That was the year that birding became our biggest shared venture, the year that we talked about and emailed our latest finds and sightings on an almost daily basis. It was the year of the birdbath, the drama of the feeders and first year of that damn poster that went from house to house. It was also the year that that bag full of birding goodies you bought for my birthday found it's way into our holiday story, but more it was the little paper mache bird with the spring loaded feet that found it's way onto my tree and into my heart that became, for awhile, for two years at least, my favorite ornament. Funny how it was stuck away, hidden in the attic, purposely, accidentally, who knows, who cares. It needed the time to be away, sort of like our old memories. It needed time to rest, to find a proper place in this Christmas mythology of mine.
It's almost time, too, to get out the Christmas movies, Scrooge and The Snowman and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I think of our mutual love for those films, how you took just pleasure in watching them here with me, because, like in the case of The Snowman, no one would watch it with you there in your home. When I get ready to put that movie on I will think of that night, the 30th of December when that movie's music and imagery changed irrevocably for me, and then I will think back to the first time I saw it, there in the Ballard apartment, on Christmas Eve, with a freshly washed tree pulled down off of a fence from a recently closed tree lot. I still remember curling up on the old futon couch with The Estranged One. Our oldest was in bed, our second one was close but not ready to be born. We decorated the tree in a hurry as Christmas day was fast approaching, but we popped on the movie, new to us, just to see what it was all about, to take a break from being Santa. We were wisked away to a magical place with that movie and it's soundtrack. And what's funny up until I met you I never knew of anyone who didn't like it. Not that you didn't like it, no, you loved it, it was The Detective who didn't care for it and would never watch it with you and that was one more thing he did that drove you into my arms and into a mutally derived Christmas story.
No matter. I loved that film then and still do now and know that I can once again watch it without a heavy heart. Did watch it last year, though, with Stick of Wood and her daughter when they were snowed in with me. It lacked the power, I noticed, to slay me. I believe it's because I have gained back some power since that legendary night on the couch back in '05.
The ghosts of Christmas Past and Present both are alive and well in this house this season. I will be taking my act on the road to Boise later on this month and will work up new stories, new tales of the holidays, find new places to laugh and be mystical and find sweet and joyful sentiment. I will carry those old ghosts of mine along with me like savory hitchhikers, like long forgotten friends, like talismans, and know that without them my life would not be quite so rich. And yet, in order to show those old ghosts that they do not have the power to bring me to my knees anymore I will place that old ornament, that old paper mache bird that you gave me so long ago, on my tree and show the world that the love you once gifted me is still one of the finest gifts I was ever given.
It carries me and yet, I walk along now on my own two feet.
To old ghosts and sparkly things, Melissa, and their proper place in our lives.
Love, your WHMB, Wally
Yesterday I went up into the crawlspace behind the wall of my old bedroom to seek out old Christmas stuff to take to the family in Boise. Most of the things up there were hidden away after our last long holiday season here in '06. I did my best to make that Christmas grand, but my heart was not into it. Sure, a tree was found and cut, presents were bought and wrapped, a major dinner was prepped and served, but I couldn't find a way to be genuinely happy. I was still too caught up in our old romance, I was living in the little house with a tree and decorations purchased during our high times, and I was slogging through sentimental country that had no place for me to rest and relax in. The drama was high enough for me to leave the day after Christmas for a weeklong drive down south to see my mom. We all needed it, you, me and my family.
So yesterday I dragged out all that old stuff and guess what? The toxicity in that tinsel and garland and glass had worn down to nothing, was finally safe enough to handle. Not only were my old glass Santas found during those 05/07 seasons intact and ready to be hung, but I also came across all my family's old holiday jewels. In both boxes and bags I found creches and old ornaments and all manner of books and records and cards gathered over the years. I came across old school art done up by the kids, old religious figures sent along by the grandmas, old emotions long buried and ready to be exhumed. I found that by setting up my own Christmas tree and by burying the ax I could come into this Christmas season happy and be ready to celebrate it once again with my children and the Estranged One, if not as partners at least as old friends.
I opened up what I thought to be the resting place of old Christmas ghosts but instead found a treasure trove of wornout happiness, of bittersweet memories, of a lot of misplaced joy. It was great to see wisps of old familiar phantoms swirling about those cardboard boxes, but it was also grand to see that the holidays are now mine once again, that my children, even with their childhood's whirled and twirled by strange and caring adults, are once again ready to believe in Santa and Jesus and their loving parents.
I did set aside, all the same, a big bag of ornaments and lights and such that gave such meaning to my first year all alone in this house. You had a key to the house by that time, and the tree that gave me such pleasure, that Colorado Blue Spruce, the one that's growing in my front yard, was set up and glowing with white lights in the living room. That was the year that birding became our biggest shared venture, the year that we talked about and emailed our latest finds and sightings on an almost daily basis. It was the year of the birdbath, the drama of the feeders and first year of that damn poster that went from house to house. It was also the year that that bag full of birding goodies you bought for my birthday found it's way into our holiday story, but more it was the little paper mache bird with the spring loaded feet that found it's way onto my tree and into my heart that became, for awhile, for two years at least, my favorite ornament. Funny how it was stuck away, hidden in the attic, purposely, accidentally, who knows, who cares. It needed the time to be away, sort of like our old memories. It needed time to rest, to find a proper place in this Christmas mythology of mine.
It's almost time, too, to get out the Christmas movies, Scrooge and The Snowman and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I think of our mutual love for those films, how you took just pleasure in watching them here with me, because, like in the case of The Snowman, no one would watch it with you there in your home. When I get ready to put that movie on I will think of that night, the 30th of December when that movie's music and imagery changed irrevocably for me, and then I will think back to the first time I saw it, there in the Ballard apartment, on Christmas Eve, with a freshly washed tree pulled down off of a fence from a recently closed tree lot. I still remember curling up on the old futon couch with The Estranged One. Our oldest was in bed, our second one was close but not ready to be born. We decorated the tree in a hurry as Christmas day was fast approaching, but we popped on the movie, new to us, just to see what it was all about, to take a break from being Santa. We were wisked away to a magical place with that movie and it's soundtrack. And what's funny up until I met you I never knew of anyone who didn't like it. Not that you didn't like it, no, you loved it, it was The Detective who didn't care for it and would never watch it with you and that was one more thing he did that drove you into my arms and into a mutally derived Christmas story.
No matter. I loved that film then and still do now and know that I can once again watch it without a heavy heart. Did watch it last year, though, with Stick of Wood and her daughter when they were snowed in with me. It lacked the power, I noticed, to slay me. I believe it's because I have gained back some power since that legendary night on the couch back in '05.
The ghosts of Christmas Past and Present both are alive and well in this house this season. I will be taking my act on the road to Boise later on this month and will work up new stories, new tales of the holidays, find new places to laugh and be mystical and find sweet and joyful sentiment. I will carry those old ghosts of mine along with me like savory hitchhikers, like long forgotten friends, like talismans, and know that without them my life would not be quite so rich. And yet, in order to show those old ghosts that they do not have the power to bring me to my knees anymore I will place that old ornament, that old paper mache bird that you gave me so long ago, on my tree and show the world that the love you once gifted me is still one of the finest gifts I was ever given.
It carries me and yet, I walk along now on my own two feet.
To old ghosts and sparkly things, Melissa, and their proper place in our lives.
Love, your WHMB, Wally
No comments:
Post a Comment