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Indigo Vales

Tag Archives: Christmas

My petal face is showing

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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blossom and grow, Choose, Christmas, edelweiss, family, friends, writing

Well, I could choose to ignore the fact that Christmas is coming and let the cards write themselves, let the gifts magically appear fully wrapped in my sleigh so all I have to do is show up… or I could choose to ignore the fact that Christmas is coming at all. Or, I could make way. Clear the decks. Prepare a space–a quiet space–and open the book of Christmas past. Time to open my address book and look on the names.

So many people that have moved once, twice, thrice. I know their children’s names, but not her grandchildren’s names. It’s a basic book, so I have to squeeze in birthdates, anniversaries, the day they died. So many spaces are blank, but I am slowly filling in the memories.  So many changes, people who’ve moved on with no forwarding address, and that’s okay. It’s like walking into a silent church, I can smell the incense, I see faces and remember my heart big in my chest at seeing you and you and you. I light a votive today as I write cards for friends and family whose paths have diverged. You are remembered with love and I always carry a light for you.

I have a rex begonia growing on my bedroom windowsill. It’s my first. I had to re-arrange the sill because the prayer plant will need her own apartment soon, she’s taking over the place. Rex begonia saw fit to rise up through the soil and create a space for a bloom, and she opened today, five tender pink petals.  Pink like the address book I’ve been carrying around all these years. My desk is clear. My right pinky is smeared in green ink from writing everything I needed to say, finally. Begonia tells me if she can bloom here then, hell, I can do anything.

Writing through seasonal change

15 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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amwriting, change, Christmas, hope, joy, neighbor, peace, season, Solstice

If I were in New York on my drive in to work and on my way home I’d see lots of cars with christmas trees tied to the roof, headed for a warm house soon to be seated in a bowl of cool water the cat will surely drink from.  Folks will add evergreen nutrients and water their needley tree so its boughs will stay risen and green as they add tinsel, orbs of glass, or baby’s first ornament from sixteen years ago.

I haven’t seen many cars go by with trees on their roofs here in Virginia. Maybe that’s because they’re all on the interstate while my business usually keeps me on the “back roads,” or maybe it’s because folks lean towards artificial trees, who knows. Either way, there will be evening road trips where we pile into cars and head for neighborhoods where streetlights still look like gaslights decked in climbing pine needles, festive ribbons, homes adorned with candles and others filled with inflatable icons, christmas music blaring, preparations begun in September.

All I know is that I watched him take the fairy lights down. The backyard is his purview and he’s in charge or almost in charge of everything in it. There will be no christmas tree in his house this year because they are leaving, headed for the lands of three-foot-snow. The fairy lights will be gone. His yard will be empty. His puppy will dig holes far away and learn the joys of snowplowing headfirst at five in the morning.  All life is tucked into boxes marked this room and that room and his kayak will be stuffed last into the moving truck.  A new neighbor will come, and I doubt they will finish the mural his wife began on the property wall.  I will miss the tiny blue fairy lights that lined his fence, that gave me comfort all those nights I paced and watched the trees sway or thrash depending on the mood of the wind.

I think about the saying “still waters run deep” as I spritz my windows in preparation of sticking holiday clings to them.  That will be the extent of my decorating. No lights, no noise. Just a quiet acknowledgement that I still believe in peace and joy and love. Every card I sign carries hope and goodwill, and I wish it all for my neighbor as he moves into his winter wonderland.

Venite, Venite!

25 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

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Christmas, socks, thoughts, tradition

Hazy memory.  Who  knows if it was while we were dating or if it was after we married? Either way, it was before my son was born (before my son had me.)

I guess we just worked too many nights, or maybe we’re just not the most Christmasy people, never have been, but we put up the tree because it’s tradition.  The season just didn’t feel right without a tree in the living room for a few…weeks.  That year the tree went up but we never decorated it; just too damned tired or not really gung-ho for it? Who knows.

What I do recall is that we noticed at the last minute that there were no decorations on the plastic tree in the living room that would soon have presents beneath. (One gift, I recall, was a purple neon license plate holder for my Ford Bronco, which I loved, but had to cut the wires because the po-lice said it was ill-e-gal to have any other color on my truck besides what’s factory. Yes sir. Snip snip. No more pretty purple lights to adorn my darling Bronco, but it sure was the thought that counted.)  We each took a clean sock from our drawer and tossed it onto the tree, and THAT was how we decorated for Christmas one year: no lights, no ornaments, just socks on a tree.

Every year since, the final decoration is one clean sock from each of us, carelessly, but joyfully, flung at the tree. It’s not Christmas without this tradition. Tonight I tossed the socks while the guys were out doing last minute errands, the house dark and quiet and it all felt right.

May everyone find darkness tonight, and quiet, or the warmth of a simple tradition;  a nearly full moon. May everyone find a simple peace tonight and let that place occupy your hearts all year.  Sappy? Maybe. But I don’t care.

O Come, Light!

 

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