Merry Christmas!

This funny Santa is part of the current tableau on top of my desk, a changing collection of memories and new things I want to look at and live with; it is, for me, a place of stillness and meditation. This drawing shows just one side -- a pot of pencils, pens and brushes and a pheasant feather my mother sent me years ago; a carved sandlewood box holding incense; a little brass dish for the incense burner and some dried seed pods, stones, and pine cones; a wooden box and chain carved for me by G. in the 1970s from a single piece of wood; this year's Christmas card from our friends in Iceland; a blue fan from Y. in Beijing; a Persian miniature on ivory that was my father-in-law's.

The Santa only comes out at Christmastime, and he is almost an antique. He's actually a candy dish that comes apart at the belt, and made of heavy flocked paper with an artificial "tree" and a fluffy white beard; his head is attached by a spiral spring so it bobs around when he's jostled. He's silly and I've always liked him, ever since he arrived in my grandmother's house one Christmas when I was a little girl. She took him out every year until she died, along with a trunkful of other decorations, and somehow I acquired him afterwards. After almost two decades at our house, Christmas wouldn't be the same without him.

After rehearsing and singing at yesterday's two services, and getting to bed at about 2:00 am, this has been a slow, quiet day, and that's been just fine. A few friends are coming over for dinner, so I'm heading to the kitchen soon to start a dish of scalloped potatoes, but I didn't want the day to go by without wishing every one of you a very happy day if you're celebrating it, and telling you that Christmas wouldn't be the same without you, either.

My world has enlarged so much since those simple days of childhood in a small rural town, when the arrival of a mail order package was the most exciting event of a whole month. Looking out this morning at kids heading to the park with sleds or ice skates, or even littler ones being pulled along by their parents, I couldn't help but remember how carefree and uncomplicated life seemed then, and as sometimes happens, I had a choked moment of acknowledging, "I will never, ever feel like that again." In fact, I realize how fortunate any child is who has a majority of moments that actually are carefree, happy, and healthy. But for those of us who have stepped (or been pushed) out of the garden; out of the fantasy that someday everything will seem simple and happy again, this season can of course be an emotional and psychological minefield. I do enjoy seeing the old ornaments and keeping a few traditions, but I find nostalgia doesn't really help my state of mind as I'm forced to adapt to the fragmentation of families and societies, the loss of people dear to me, and the gradual effects of getting older. It's better to be here now, in the present moment, grateful for the technology that allows me to be in touch with people today in places as distant as Palmyra and Beijing, and to feel connected to all of you.

If Christmas means anything anymore, surely it's that: remembering and acknowledging that we're all part of the same family, and that it's still better to give than to receive. I'm willing to trade the naivete of childhood for the ability to see those truths and act on them, with all the pains and joys that come with living with open eyes and an open heart.

Comments

[Dave]

I realize how fortunate any child is who has a majority of moments that actually are carefree, happy, and healthy.
Yeah. Hoping we can keep things that way for my niece for at least a few more years.

Merry Christmas, Beth, and my best to J.

[dale]

Sometimes I wonder if having a very happy childhood is such a good thing, after all: I have very little sense of loss, or of going forward into a lesser life, whereas many people I know who had happier childhoods do feel that way. But I don't know if my sample's large enough to be significant :-)

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you & Jon, & may the new year be full of blessings!

[zuleme]

That is a wonderful drawing. Your style would be so perfect for children's books. I just love it, and the cheerful Santa too.

[magnolia]

Your drawing is beautiful! A piece of your life shared.

Even a day late, reading your thoughts, let me know I am not alone in my perceptions of life as I age. Well said, with courage and hope, but able to acknowledge how it once was.

I enjoy my visits and often your posts strike a cord and I am off to study it out, write about it, or think deeply. It is good to know you in this new land we travel.

Blessings.

[Rachel Barenblat]

If Christmas means anything anymore, surely it's that: remembering and acknowledging that we're all part of the same family, and that it's still better to give than to receive.

Amen and amen!

[Clive Hicks-Jenkins]

I'm with you on these mid-winter thoughts on the passing of time and the gradual relinquishing of the things we once took for granted. Childhood nostalgia is a bitter-sweet thing, as indeed is any nostalgia where we wander back to a moment frozen in amber. Anything that does not move is either lifeless, or dead. Whatever the future holds, moving feels better than not. But it's good when the ageing process is tempered with acquired wisdom, and frankly I'm happy with the trade-off. Losing the things of youth is an inevitable process. While there is much to regret in that, I don't miss the crippling shyness, the trepidation about an unknown future, the sexual confusion and the agonies of the heart.

Peter sprang a surprise on me for Christmas day. A recently issued boxed-set of a children's TV series I appeared in when I was a teenager. I'd never watched myself on-screen when I was a young actor. Couldn't bear it then and can't bear it now. But the moment was un-put-offable, and so on Christmas night we sat down and watched the fifteen or sixteen year old me being an Edwardian toff in coat-tails and straw boater. Now there's a good starting point for excavating the memories of an almost forgotten past. Peter kept saying "Do you remember saying those lines... do you recall doing that stunt... do you know where that was filmed... is any of this familiar?" And the answer in all cases was "No. I remember none of this. It's as though I'm watching something I've never seen before." How can that be?

Enjoy the rest of the holiday Beth, and a Happy New Year to you and your dear ones.

[Kim]

I've been busy, and I'm behind...just reading this tonight for the first time. So glad to know you all of the time, but especially during these frantic holidays. Your posts always slow me down and make me think.

Love the picture. I hope your holidays have been lovely, Beth.