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.
