Monday, December 18, 2006

Christmases Past, Present and Future…

12/18/2006

This morning I checked out Meredith’s blog at http://www.metalmeredith.com.  She has written about Christmas and the uncontainable excitement of a three-year old.  Vivienne is actually three years, five months and one day and is very, very excited about the upcoming event.  I love to be around children on Christmas Day, especially the younger ones who “get it,” far beyond those of us who have joined the ranks of “I am too old to believe,” that Santa is the spirit of Christmas giving.

All of us recognize the significance of Christmas, even non-Christians.  It is the birthday of Jesus.  Santa, on the other hand, represents the Christian ethic of giving and sharing.  That is what the whole of Christianity is based on, thus, Christmas has become a day of giving.  Enough pontification, and on to the good stuff…

Christmas in my boyhood home was a joyous time of family and friends and good food and lots and lots of cookies, and even fruitcake.  It was the time of year we had soft drinks (Coke or Root Beer for you younger folks) in the house, and if we were really lucky, Potato Chips.

Late Christmas Eve night my brothers, sisters and I would go to bed leaving the undecorated downstairs of our home for our small, almost warm bedrooms on the second floor of our modest home, and attempt to get to sleep.  Early Christmas morning, after a restless night filled with dreams of what was to come, we would awake before the sun and make enough noise to arouse everyone in the house.  It was still dark.  Dad was always the first to go down stairs, and after what seemed an eternity, he would give the “Okay” and the rest of us would make our way down into a Winter Wonderland.  A beautifully decorated tree full lights that bubbled, and loaded with ornaments of many shapes and colors that glittered as they lay beneath “Tinsel” (you might call them icicles) that reflected the light and sparkled as they moved.  There was the mellifluous scent of fruit and candy and nuts and cookies throughout the house mixing with that of sweet pine.  It was Christmas, a time of wide grins and huge smiles. 

The tree was set upon a “Christmas Garden” that was about four feet by six feet.  It sported a Lionel train, with a steam engine and about six or eight freight cars.  The engine puffed bluish smoke as it traveled around the oval track that surrounded a village of little houses and buildings sprinkled with “Ivory Snow” flakes and situated on roadways made of salt or fine sand.  Tiny trees made of some kind of moss added a little realism to the village, and each sat upon a little light that gave them a homey, lived-in effect.  I used to stare at it almost in a trance as the train went round and round. 

We did not get a lot of presents, certainly not the quantity of what I have seen the grandchildren receive.  There might be three of four gifts for each of us; one big one, maybe a bike or wagon, and some smaller, more practical stuff like pajamas or a shirt, or perhaps a sweater.  The joy of Christmas, as we realized later in life, is not what we got, but who we got to enjoy it with. 

Those were great Christmases.  Mom and Dad have been gone for nine years now.  My brothers and sisters celebrate the Holidays in other cities with families of their own.  We now get to celebrate Christmas with kids and grandkids.  Our lives are so much more complicated, we believe, but not really.  We make them that way…that is a choice we make.  Meredith speaks of Christmases Past.  Her memory of them she says is vague.  The vagueness is because they were pretty much the same from one year to the next.  They ran together as she got older because of the sameness from year to year.  It is what we call “tradition.” The way we celebrated Christmas changed very little, if at all, from one year to the next, and it was okay.  We had good times.

I look at Christmas differently now, even though I have reached the age where an artificial “looks real” tree seems appropriate and is, at this moment and as I write this, being decorated by The Nancy, I love it all the more.  Just a little over a week from this day, I will don the Santa cap and wear it wherever I go for about twenty-four hours.  Though I appreciate receiving gifts, the best one is to be able to give them.  My Christmas will consist of giving away hugs and smiles.  I get to wish people happy times and tell them I love them, and best of all, I get Christmas Hugs – the best ones of the year.

As I approach the beginning of my sixty-fourth year on planet earth, I have come to realize many things.  One of these is that Christmas gives the opportunity for introspection and transformation.  It is about giving and not receiving.  It is about sharing and loving.  It is about Jesus and Santa.  And, most of all, it is about kids.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Season's Greetings

12/14/2006

For My Democrat and Politically Correct Friends, please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.  Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. I extend these greetings and wishes without regard to race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms.

These greetings and wishes are subject to clarification or withdrawal. They are freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting.  They imply no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for himself or others, are void where prohibited by law, and are revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

*For My Republican and Conservative Friends, May your Christmas be full of Joy, Christmas music, and Love, and may your New Year be full of God’s Blessings.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! *

While I would love to take full credit for having composed this piece, alas!, I can not, but I sincerely hope you all have a great Holiday Season this year.

And that is all I have to say about that…

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

My Special Friend

12/12/2006

Someone I would gladly lay down my life for is hurting in a big way.  I hate that.  There is nothing I can do but give my total support and unconditional love.  If I could take away the hurt and pain, I would do it in a New York minute.  I would take on the cause and takeover the problem and call it my own.  In a way, it is mine, because we are all connected just by merely being: you hurt, I hurt.  It’s the way it works.  Some deny it, some ignore it…I can’t.

I have never understood depression.  I don’t comprehend “bipolar,” or even what it really is.  Stress is something I don’t really get.  I have always figured those who are stressed must be a hell of a lot smarter than I.  I think I may not be smart enough to be stressed or depressed (at least for very long).  I have my moments, but it passes quickly.  My friend who is hurting is really down.  It shows up in the mask and in the voice and in the words.

Almost everyone I know knows how much I really enjoy an occasional beer or two or three.  I love it and I have some almost every night, but I do not now or have I ever had a desire to lose my identity in it, nor have I ever drank just for the purpose of getting to an alcohol high.  Perhaps that is the “control freak” in me.  I don’t want to lose the essence of me, ever!

My friend risks it all just for a short-lived high, a short ride on the dark side.  I don’t understand it, and while there is love it is very hard to be compassionate.  But, I do not condemn.  I cannot, if I don’t understand.  Perhaps the Greek philosopher Euripides knew something when he wrote, “Don’t attempt to heal others when you yourself are full of wounds.” Perhaps my friend needs to look within.  I suppose I may need do the same.  Aesop said, “Beware that you do lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.” Anytime any of us wishes to step out of reality into the abyss of a temporary high we are merely “grasping at the shadow.” Shadows have no substance and no future. 

I was listening to the soundtrack of the musical “Jekyll and Hyde” a little earlier this evening, and I began to think of my friend and what the friend might be reaching for and searching for when I heard this song:

A New Life –
What I wouldn’t give
To have a new life!
One thing I have learned
As I go through life:
Nothing is for free
Along the way!

A new start –
That’s the thing I need,
To give me a new heart –
Half a chance in life
To find a new part,
Just a simple role
That I can play.

A new hope –
Something to convince me
To renew hope!
A new day,
Bright enough
To help me find my way!

A new chance –
One that maybe has
A touch of romance
Where can it be,
The chance for me?

A new dream –
I have one I know
That very few dream!
I would like to see
That overdue dream –
Even though
It may never come true!
A new love –
Though there is no
Such thing as true love –
Even so
Although I never knew love,
Still I feel that
One dream is my due!

A new world -
This one thing I want
To ask of you, world -
Once! - Before it’s time
Say adieu, world!
One sweet chance to
Prove the cyniucs wrong!

A new life -
More and more, I’m sure,
As I go through life,
Just to play the game -
And to pursue life -
Just to share it’s pleasures,
And belong! -
That’s what I’ve been here for,
All along!
Each day’s
A brand new life!

The words may not fully fit the situation, but my friend will get it.  There is a cryptic message in the post.  You may not see, but it will be seen and understood.  My words may not express fully how I feel or what I want to convey.  This much remains a fact, my special friend, I love you more then the air I breathe.  I want nothing more for all the Christmases left in my life then for you to be happy and content with what the God of all things has given you.  It is the present I wish most to have.  You are more than you realize, and so much more than you are.  Look within.

All that is all I have to say about that…

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Dancing to the Music

12/05/2006

Picture this:  You are alone in a room.  There is music playing on your stereo.  You have chosen to play a CD by “Secret Garden.” The music is instrumental and is ethereally melodic and soothing.  You come to complete rest as the music reverberates in your head.  You are at peace.  Nothing can spoil the moment.  Emotion builds; your eyes moisten from the joy that is building in your heart.  You can feel a sensation in your chest and your whole body feels lightened.  You close your eyes and feel the music with your soul.  You begin to dance moving slowly to music’s rhythm and flowing notes, and you are blissful as you move around the room – just you, by your lonesome—with nothing more than your thoughts to keep you company and the music to soothe your passions.

Now the question:  Am I the only one who does this sort of thing?  I sincerely hope not. Do you?  Would you?  Try it if you are laden with a heavy heart or some of life’s issue are tugging at you. 

I got to dance for a group of people once.  It hasn’t been that long ago, and it was so very rewarding.  There was music playing and just me in front of a group expressing an experience through dance.  It lasted for several minutes and left me weak-kneed, emotionally spent and very, very joyful.  I had never done anything like it before and may never get to again, but I think of it often and still very much feel the emotion when I do. 

Maybe I’m a bit wacky, but beautiful music has always elicited emotion in me.  I have gotten teary on many occasions just listening to CDs such as the “Secret Garden” series and other “New Age” stuff.  But I am also the guy that gets teary looking at The Nancy and things like military cemeteries, little children and especially my grandbabies, the sun rising over Sleepy Creek mountain or setting over Cacapon mountain.  A clear, starry night or a winter’s evening can get me rocking.  I have sat and felt the emotion well up in my body as I gazed out from mountain ridges onto valleys below.  Almost anything that reminds me of my dad can produce glassy eyes.  I am not sure when it started or how long it will last, and I hope it never ceases.  Big boys do cry.

So, go turn on the music.  Try your hand at dancing, alone or with someone you love, or before a group.  The only thing you need do is to feel the music, “be” one with it and allow it to consume you.  Maybe you could let me know if I am alone with this, or if I am just one of the regular people?

And that is all I have to say about that…