This simple pine bouquet (and owl accoutrements) has been going strong for this entire holiday season, and shows no signs of letting up. Originally I toyed with the idea of adding some flowers to it, but in the end it called for simplicity, and the bare-bones structure of its branches and varied evergreen forms. Bringing the outdoors inside is a bit trickier at this time of the year, and there are far fewer options, which makes me cherish this one a little bit more.
Once this runs its full course, I’ll switch out the greenery for something similar – I like the way the Eastern pine looks, as well as the clouds of juniper, so maybe I’ll edit even further. Spare and sparse works best in the winter.
Too many New Year’s resolutions are made and broken too quickly. I find it best to keep things simple and accomplished with reasonable effort. And who says that resolutions are just for the start of a new calendar year? Every day should be an opportunity for a new resolution. A year is made much more manageable that way. It’s one of the basic tenets of mindfulness – to live in each moment at hand, doing the little daily rituals of life and being fully aware and invested in each of them. It leaves much less time and space for worry and dread.
Take, for instance, these pictures. They were captured on a night that we lost our power. I was alone while Andy was out getting groceries, and the house was completely dark. I lit a few candles, cozied up in a blanket by the hearth, and made the most of the silence and solitude. We always seem to lose our power at inopportune moments (like the recent Vice Presidential debate when we missed the whole fly imbroglio) and since then I’ve come to expect them. It’s easier to roll with the punches and follow the flow of the river than go against it.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton
Crisply the bright snow whispered,
Crunching beneath our feet;
Behind us as we walked along the parkway,
Our shadows danced, Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.
Across the lake the skaters
Flew to and fro,
With sharp turns weaving
A frail invisible net.
In ecstasy the earth Drank the silver sunlight;
In ecstasy the skaters
Drank the wine of speed;
In ecstasy we laughed
Drinking the wine of love.
Had not the music of our joy
Sounded its highest note?
But no,
For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,
“Oh look!”
There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,
Fearless and gay as our love,
A bluejay cocked his crest!
Oh who can tell the range of joy
Or set the bounds of beauty?
There are always going to be those moments and those people who try to trip you up.
Like this banana peel left so coincidentally right beside my car door.
Had I not been aware, I might have slipped on it like some silly cartoon, and there are more than a few of you who would have loved to witness that. (You know who you are – hell, I’m one of you. I’ve watched a YouTube video of models wobbling and ultimately falling on the runway more times than I’d like to admit.) It’s human nature, and a rather ugly side of it. I’m just as susceptible as the next person – though I’d like to think I’d never leave a banana peel in such a possibly-precarious position. No, it’s more than like – I most definitely would never leave a banana peel – or any piece of garbage – out in a parking lot or other public place. Littering is gross, and denotes a certain moral failing.
So what did I do? I stepped gingerly around it. We can make all that choice. In pre-COVID times I might have taken a tissue and picked it up so no one else might befall a cartoon fate, but in this day and age I don’t touch anything on the ground.
Dodging banana peels is a metaphor for much of life lately, and so we continue on the journey…
Two days before Christmas usually gets me to feeling slightly claustrophobic and cramped – rushed and flushed and mushed – and so I offer this light and airy post to inject some space and expanse into the relatively-unbooked season. There’s no reason to feel it that much this year, without gatherings and social obligations, so maybe this is just residual echoes of memories where such stress would typically reside. I’m grateful for its absence, as well as for the realization that every year can be this easy should we so deem it. Very few social obligations are legitimate obligations – no such obligation actually exists. There are preferences or choices or suggestions. We don’t have to do any of it. And I wish I’d realized that sooner.
For now, and for this little Wednesday morning post, I give you this prickly bit of greenery from a recent trip to Faddegon’s Nursery, where I shall find such verdant peace in the ensuing winter months. Take a moment and take a few deep breaths. Remember the reason for the season. Find the space in the midst of all the holiday mayhem.
Andy said he heard the cardinals yesterday as he cleared some ice from our front step. There must be a pair that has made a home in the row of Steeplechase thuja that lines the street. I’ve seen a smaller female fluttering about the side yard, in the bushes near the garage where the lilac blooms in late spring. That space is covered with a couple feet of snow, but the lilacs have risen above it, as has the climbing hydrangea, whose papery, unfurling bark is now a focal point of architectural grace and prettiness.
In this wondrous way, winter reminds of summer – the contrast so vital and vibrant, not unlike the way these faux cardinals show off the chartreuse glory of the lemon cypress shrub in which they so whimsically nestle. Welcome, winter. Let’s be friends this season – we need that more than ever.
“The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.†― J.M. Barrie
“Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness.” – Mary Oliver
We make our winter wishes today, writing them out for the season of slumber then burning and releasing them into the universe in the hope of manifestation. This year, perhaps more than any other, they are fraught with serious concerns, weightier issues than the frivolous world to which I hope we one day return. This winter solstice rings in mightily, and I’m hoping we get to add some merry to it before the calendar year is up and a new one – so richly and deservedly welcomed – begins.
For most of my life, I have dreaded and despised the winter. It’s still my least favorite season by far, but I’ve learned to lean into its enchantment and wonder – the way it holds snowy counsel and cozy wisdom if you only know how to listen. It will not shout or demand notice like spring and summer can do. It will not jolt you into awareness like the crisp crack of fall. Winter merely whispers, even in its harshest snowstorms and most biting winds, taking advantage of its darkness and tricking you with its whiteness.
True, it has its icy maelstroms, and come January there’s always a couple days of a tumultuous thaw that messes with the emotions as much as it heaves any open earth beneath it. For the most part, however, winter is for silent slumber, a time when the gardens and the land recline in repose, waiting and resting for it all to begin again in the spring. By rights, we should all be slowing down and honoring the stillness.
“That’s what Hanukkah is about: trying to survive the darkness on the far-fetched hope there’s still some life and light left in the universe. It’s more than just a religious story. The days have been growing shorter, imperceptibly but inescapably darker…. Heading into the night of the winter solstice, every spiritual tradition has some kind of festival of light. We’re all just whistling in the dark, hoping against hope that someone up there will see these little Hanukkah candles and get the hint.” ~ Lawrence Kushner
Candles and light, wood and glass, ice and snow – this is what we shall have, and this is what shall be beautiful. Paring down the peripheral clutter and removing the extraneous debris from our home and our lives is the goal for the season. Before then, however, the happy muss and fuss of Christmas and New Year’s Eve – and I have some sparkle and super-extra excess in store for those nights.
In between, there will be contemplation and mindfulness.
“Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ~ Edith Sitwell
Maybe it was the snowstorm that left us cozy and holed up at home all day.
Maybe it was the lack of social anxiety and stress that go with countless crowded gatherings.
Whatever the case, I felt the full warmth of the holiday season this week, and it was the first time I’ve felt that in a while. Let’s take our traditional Monday look back at a week that had its share of festivities in this strange year.
In this wretched year of our Lord 2020, we thought we had to cancel the Holiday Stroll, as evidenced by this perhaps-premature post. But as with all things that have been afflicted with the nonsense of 2020, not all is as it initially seemed. To that end, I have a very special surprise post scheduled for tomorrow, when this site presents a holiday revelation that even gave me a jolt when I realized what had already happened. I don’t get many moments of astonishment these days, and this was a very welcome one.
It dawned on me somewhere between FaceBook memories recalling holiday parties of the past and an afternoon meditation in which I lowered myself into the lotus position and noticed the layer of dust on the hardwood floor behind me: we hadn’t had a party in a year and a half, and as such I had not dusted or cleaned some parts of our home in all that time. The dusty matte finish of what had once shone glossy and glistening in the light of day, or the lamp rays of evening, had lent a dullness to the whole house.
It had happened so gradually, and our lives had carried on without any entertaining, that we hadn’t thought to stay on top of things like dusting or mopping. On this day I looked around and saw the dirt and grime of time. Starting with the highest shelving units, then dusting as I went down each step of the Korean tansu, I cleaned up all the months of dust in the living room and the family room and the bedroom. The elongated arm of a Swiffer grabbed cobwebs in corners, along curtain rods, surrounding light fixtures, pulling them down and removing those filaments that drew the peripheral gaze, even when you weren’t quite sure what you were seeing. It was the removal of distraction – the clearing of haze.
On the hardwood floors I used the special cleaning concoction I’d formulated from years of scrubbing the Boston hardwoods after parties – a few splashes of Pine Sol, a few spritzes of Pledge or Endust, and a couple cups of warm water. (It’s just so much nicer when the water is warm.) On hands and knees, I wiped up the layers of dust and dirt that had been accumulating all these months. Instantly, the rooms lightened, the way a street does when the film crew wets it down before filming.
We don’t realize the power of reflection.
It was a simple act of cleaning, forgotten in our isolated way of life, and immediately it lifted my spirits. Typical for a Virgo who enjoys a clean slate. It also restored a bit of luster to the holiday season, when the sparkle has been slightly lacking of late. In the bathroom, I put together a little bouquet and lit a new candle.
It’s been a sunnier holiday season than some years, but there have been overcast moments and gray days as well. Those gray days have formed their own little comfort zone. There is beauty in the cloudy and the overcast. It takes a little pulling back, a slowing down, to notice such subtle prettiness. It’s different in the summer, usually, when the world is more boldly colorful, when there is a saturation of life and vibrancy in everything, even the overcast mornings.
Maybe such generalizations are moot. My need to organize and name and decipher meaning in every moment trips me up more often than not, especially in this year of insanity. The lessons learned in that were and are immensely difficult. Worthwhile as well, like so many challenges. On Tuesday mornings, they can feel especially tough.
So I pause, doing my best to embrace the gray areas, to be ok with the unresolved and iffy, to remember that nothing in our messy world is perfect. Within that pause is grace. And grace is beauty.
Tay Tay unexpectedly saved this past summer with the best album of the year, until this past week, when she released ‘evermore’ which is actually even better than ‘folklore’ – and this puts her into the vaunted position as closest successor to the throne currently still, albeit barely, occupied by Madonna. Taylor Swift has earned her place in the pop culture pantheon, weathering time and controversy with an ever-evolving musical talent. And it’s pretty cool to be this inspired at my ripe old age, so I’ll take this album to bed with me and process the lyrical merit, because there is quite a bit that resonates with me. For now, let’s focus on the past week before we have that musical breakdown…
Tomorrow my annual Holiday Card gets posted here, so it seems a fitting moment for a couple of links that will show off a number of previous efforts. While I’ve been doing holiday cards since 1995 (don’t do the math), I’ve only been posting them online since 2004. Besides, much of what happened before 2004 is best left unexcavated.
As for what’s in store for this year’s effort, I’ve done my best to go against the awful grain that is 2020 and present something rather sweet and hopefully slightly comical too. There’s enough heaviness in the world right now. Come back in a few hours for this year’s totally-safe-for-work extravaganza…
“Money’s scarce Times are hard Here’s your fucking Xmas card.” ~ Phyllis Diller
Keeping things as pared down as possible, the only outside decorating we will be doing for the holidays is the display of lights on this Japanese umbrella pine. It may also be the last year I’m able to reach the top of it to decorate properly, at least without a ladder. I like how that will change and switch up our decorating plans. After this year, a change will be welcome. And for now, this is perfectly lovely – simple yet striking enough to make an impact in our little front yard. A reminder that Christmas need not be extravagant or excessive.
