The day after Christmas: filled with boxes and bundles, loading up the car, waving goodbye, saying hello, eating (some more). And then, when it’s almost too late, a walk to the Severn River.
From the warmth and chaos of a family holiday to the pure piercing beauty of a midwinter sunset.
12/24/11
Our
old house has seen better days. The siding is dented, the walkway is
cracked, the yard is muddy and tracked with Copper’s paw prints. Inside
is one of the fullest and most aromatic trees we’ve ever chopped down.
Cards line the mantel, the fridge is so full it takes ten minutes to
find the cream cheese. Which is to say we are as ready as we will ever
be. The family is gathering. I need to make one more trip to the grocery
store.
This morning I thought about a scene from one of my
favorite Christmas movies, one I hope we’ll have time to watch in the
next few days. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart has just
learned he faces bank fraud and prison, and as he comes home beside
himself with worry, he grabs the knob of the bannister in his old house — and it comes off in his hand. He is exasperated at this; it seems to represent his failures and shortcomings.
By
the end of the movie, after he’s been visited by an angel, after his
family and friends have rallied around him in an unprecedented way,
after he’s had a chance to see what the world would have been like
without him — he grabs the bannister knob again. And once again, it
comes off in his hand. But this time, he kisses it. The house is still
cold and drafty and in need of repair. But it has been sanctified by
friendship and love and solidarity.
Christmas doesn’t take away
our problems. But it counters them with joy. It reminds us to appreciate
the humble, familiar things that surround us every day, and to draw
strength from the people we love. And surely there is a bit of the
miraculous in that.
Photo: Flow TV
I still have wrapping to do, cooking and baking, too. Yesterday’s rainy walk was a calm oasis amidst the holiday to-dos.
At one point I found myself walking along a fencerow. To my right, a golf course. To my left, a tangle of trees and brush. It was only halfway down the path that I realized there was a fence on my left, as well.
So this was a double fencerow, the land between fences, uncultivated, unclaimed. Except … it has been put to the best of uses. It leads from the eddies and ripples of Little Difficult Run to the sleek office parks of Blake Lane and Waples Mill Road, and from there (I now know from experience) to lakes and dams and ridges.
It’s a trail, a passageway. It takes us from one place, one reality, to another. And it looks very inviting here, I think — in a Thomas Hardyesque way!
The thing about hiking in the rain — in any
weather, really — is that the weather becomes part of the walk. In this case,
the splatter and the damp made their way into the setting. There was mud, of
course, and lots of it. In a couple of low-lying spots someone had thoughtfully
laid long two-by-fours as makeshift bridges through the muck.
This was my accompaniment on today’s stroll. A quiet world, just the sound of rain hitting earth.
The cards are arriving, my favorite part of holiday decor. They’re displayed on the mantel and also in a contraption that holds the ones that don’t stand up as well on their own, the photo greeting cards.
The cards are all colors, shapes and sizes. Some say “Merry Christmas,” others say “Happy Holidays.” Some are religious, others are not. Dogs on cards are big this year, with birds on cards a close second. Somehow, despite the wide variety, they always work together beautifully; there is harmony in the disarray.
As the world evolves, becomes more digital, fewer snail mail missives make their way to the house. But there is still a critical mass — and I treasure the cards I receive even more.
I’m just off the phone with a dear friend whose card will be late this year, she says. We chatted about why we refuse to go totally electronic in our communication (she still sends magazine and newspaper clippings!), about how much it means to receive a note that someone has taken the time to write, stamp and send. I’ll admit I’m a dinosaur — and I have the mantel to prove it.
Only hours from the shortest day, I leave the house in lessening darkness. A few houses are still lit from last night, a subtle defiance. Above it all a crescent moon, purer than the others, though just reflection.
Of course we need the light, will take it any way we get it, are drawn to flames, fires, a faraway porch bulb in the rain.
I catch myself dreaming of summer, of days long enough to waste an hour. Now every minute is precious as we tick down inexorably to the end.
If all goes according to plan, two weeks from today I land in Africa — first in Ethiopia, where I board a connecting flight, and then in Cotonou, Benin. It’s a trip I’ve wanted to take for three years, since Suzanne learned she’d be joining the Peace Corps.
I’ve tried to imagine it, but I get only as far as stepping out of the airport into a steamy, tropical afternoon. The sights and smells and sounds — I’ve heard about them, but they’re abstractions. So I’ve turned to … a book, of course.
In The Shadow of the Sun, the late journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski writes that three things struck him on his first arrival in Africa: the heat, the odor and the people. Here’s what he says about the aroma:
It is the smell of a sweating body and drying fish, of spoiling meat and roasting cassava, of fresh flowers and putrid algae — in short, of everything that is at once pleasant and irritating, that attracts and repels, seduces and disgusts. This odor will reach us from nearby palm groves, will escape from the hot soil, will wait above stagnant city sewers. It will not leave us; it is integral to the tropics.
And here’s how he describes the people:
How they fit this landscape, this light, these smells. How they are at one with them. How man and environment are bound in an indissoluble, complementary, and harmonious whole. … [They] move about naturally, freely, at a tempo determined by climate and tradition, somewhat languid, unhurried, knowing one can never achieve everything in life anyway, and besides, if one did, what would be left over for others?
I will have 19 days to meet the people, see the sights, sample the pace. To get a taste — just a taste — of a continent.
(Photo: Katie Esselburn)
Today we celebrate two indeterminate birthdays. Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770, which leads most scholars to believe he was born on December 16 of that year. Happy 244th birthday, Beethoven!
Also on this date, Copper the dog came to live at our house. It was 2006 and things were pretty busy. Arguably too busy to add a dog to the confusion. But add we did, and once the dust settled (that would be the dust left by Copper as he ran away from us), we were left with a lot of joy. Not knowing his exact birth date, we’ve always celebrated it today. Happy 9th birthday, Copper!
Can’t think of much else Copper and Beethoven have in common. Unless it’s their Christmas attire.
When I work at home I can see the morning happen, can see night peel off around the edges.
No dramatic sunrise today, just steadily less dark. A lighter shade of gray and the tall oaks emerging from it, first the trunks, then the large limbs and finally a crowd of branches at the top.
Only now can I see the houses, three from this vantage point — gray, tan and brick. Only now do I notice the dark fringe around the horizon, the woods on the far side of the road.
But I keep my eyes trained on the sky, on the vast ceiling above us that finally gives way to day.
Today — 12/13/14 — is the last sequential date most of us now living will ever see. The next one won’t occur until the year 2101.
I learned this from the Washington Post. Had I not read the Style Section I would probably have passed through the day oblivious to it’s being the last sequential day in almost a century. But reading the article, I realize how many other numerically remarkable days I’ve missed — 11/11/11, for instance, or 11/12/13. The 21st century has had a bounty of them!
I did note the numerical significance of 10/10/10 (in this blog, as a matter of fact). But that, too, was a matter of happenstance.
All I know is that 12/13/14 is less than two weeks till Christmas. And that’s all the numerical significance I need for now.