It
has started to snow.
It
isn't much and it still isn't the right time for it to stick around, but it's
snow and a step in the right direction.
It's
dark too. Not pitch black night time dark, but the fuzzy dark that happens as
the sun makes its final exit and the day comes to an end.
And
it's cold. Not really cold temperature-wise, but damp cold: the kind that gets
into your joints that you don't really understand until you get older.
Ronin
and I are out walking.
This
is our time.
I
try to mix up the routes we take just to keep it interesting. I think I am
doing it for him, but the truth is he doesn't care. We could walk the same path
every day and he would be fine with that. He makes new discoveries every day
and everywhere. All that matters is that I honor the commitment and take him
out.
As
it gets darker outside, we become more aware of the lights on in each of the
houses we pass. We are not voyeurs, but, on these dimly-lit streets, the lights
from the houses just naturally draw your attention.
It's
hard not to notice as the occupants move from room to room and turn on lights.
It's hard not to notice who's having dinner and who's watching TV. And, at this
time of year, it's hard not to notice who have already put up their holiday
lights.
As
the blue-gray of dusk becomes the charcoal gray of twilight becomes the black
of night, we cross streets and round corners. At every pole, sign or hydrant,
Ronin stops to read and/or sign the guest book while I search my pockets for
anything I can find with which to wipe my running nose.
We
pass more houses and more of them have a tree, or a wreath, or one of those
inflatable lawn sculptures. Each reminds me that I need to find our decorations
and get started on our house. Each is like the open door on an Advent calendar
reminding us that Christmas is coming ever closer.
Each
window is also a reminder of every Christmas past: the trips to the Atwater
Market to pick out the tree, untangling the gordian knot of lights and
promising myself that I would take more care putting this year's lights away so
as not to have the same problem next year, sitting in the living room late at
night bathed in the warmth of the decorated tree and Mahalia Jackson's version
of “Silent Night” on the hi-fi. Each is a reminder of gifts given and received
and the growing list of family and friends who have “gone on ahead.”
As
Ronin and I walk on through the darkening evening, I become aware that I am
looking at these decorated houses through the soft-focused lens of memory. It
doesn't snow much around here, but at each house I see with a yard tree, I am
imagining it poking up through a snowbank, its limbs staggering under a thick
frosting of snow. As our six feet move silently along the pavement, I am
hearing the sound of them crunch in snow—the same sound you hear when you chew
a mouthful of cereal.
There
is a real danger of being kidnapped by memories of Christmas Past: it robs you
of your Christmas present and the ability to appreciate the here and the now.
Just as Hollywood stars of a certain age look better in soft focus, too much
time spent looking in the rear view mirror can give you a false sense of how
things really were. I know that and yet the nostalgic warmth that emanates from
these houses seems really tangible to me tonight.
We
walk past a house with a screened in porch and right at the corner there are a
pair of figures from a large molded Nativity scene, but instead of being
arranged in the traditional semi-circle around the manger, the figures of Mary
and Joseph are right up against the screen looking out toward the street. In
this context, without the figures of the Wise Men and the Baby Jesus, the
figures look like the expectant children who used to crowd around the Morgan's
Department Store window watching the animated holiday window display. They
literally have their noses pressed up against the screen in anticipation.
I
am struck by this image because it seems to capture my own arrested perspective
on Christmas.
Without a doubt, this was my most favorite time of the year and now....
I guess I tend to approach each Christmas with the same ambivalence that I have for my own birthday. There is a hope that is mixed with disappointment; there is fear and anger, there is depression. (I'm not sure that I am not confusing Christmas with New Year's.)
Christmas is a benchmark, a milestone and a goal. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” “I'll Be Home for Christmas”: the notion of comparison and contrast is built right in. “Look what Santa brung me!” “You have to put up the lights, everyone else has theirs up already.”
I
suffer by comparison.
I
had goals and expectations and each year they seem to be further away, like
Santa's sleigh at the end of his hard day's night.
I
walk past these windows and see glimpses of the Christmas of my past and I can
still feel the scratchiness of the new clothes, smell the aromas of the holiday
baking and hear the frantic competition of oneupsmanship in the telling of the
horribly corny riddles from the Christmas crackers. It calls to me like the
memory of the ocean's roar trapped in a sea shell.
Ronin
and I pass more windows with different degrees of lights and decoration. Many
of the major movements in art history are represented in the houses we pass:
realism, impressionism, expressionism each are expressed in light and texture,
line and color. There are even some nihilists who don't bother decorating.
I
write about Christmas because it has the same sort of all and nothing meaning
represented by our neighborhood's decorators. It informs where I am by
reminding me where I came from and also that another lap around life's
racecourse is coming to an end. It's a time to be warmed by the familiarity of
“A Charlie Brown Christmas,” mourn losses, and be reminded of victories.
That
is Christmas's present to us all.
It's
getting darker and I have forgotten to bring my gloves.
We
turn the last corner and enter the final stretch of our walk.
Ronin
stops, stiffens and, from somewhere deep in his massive chest, a growl begins
to form.
He's
staring at something but, try as I might, I can't make it out. There's only one
street light on this part of the walk and everything beyond its beams is out of
focus to my stigmatic eyes.
I
hear them before I see them, a trio of deer wander lazily into the light from
between a pair of houses.
Ronin
barks.
They
stop, turn in our direction and then, in a twinkling, they are gone in a flash.
They clear the split rail fence that encloses the golf course on our left as it
it didn't even occur to them.
The
dog stares after them as they disappear into the darkness.
I
tighten the lead and pick up the pace. Time to go home and get warm.
Originally published by http://notanotherslideshow.blogspot.com/
