A Walker in the Suburbs

It’s the return of an old friend. An acquaintance you might be a bit embarrassed knowing. But it’s back — and it’s beautiful.

I speak of tinsel.

It’s not what the stylish trees are wearing this holiday season. It’s messy and flimsy. It lodges itself in every corner of the living room. But it’s Suzanne’s favorite holiday accessory, and now that she’s back … it’s back, too.

So I’m sitting here looking at the stuff, the way it reflects the light; the sheer, stringy wonder of it; how it amplifies the glitter of the holiday, its shiny appeal.

Without it, the tree still retains some connection to the soil that gave it birth. With it, the tree has stepped over the line. It is officially artifice. It is officially wonder.

It is officially Christmas.

The tree is up, a big fir that fills the house with fragrance — and overflows the corner it’s been assigned.

I sit down to write my post but first must move the rocking chair to the other side of the room, in front of the hutch. There now … that’s better.

To fit the tree we must reconfigure. The console moves into the hall and becomes a convenient flat surface to decorate — but also to pile the stuff that needs to be taken upstairs.

The rocking chair, parked where it is now,  reminds me of a Christmas 22 years ago, when Claire was a toddler and had begun waking up at 5 in the morning for some strange reason (an excess of exuberance?). We would sit in another (long since dispatched to the basement) chair in front of that same hutch and read the holiday books — Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Night Before Christmas.

If I close my eyes I can almost feel Claire’s squirmy little body in my arms. I would have been drop-dead tired, of course. But even then I knew those moments were precious.

Reconfiguration: It’s what we need. It’s what holidays help us do.

It finally felt like winter when I took my lunchtime walk yesterday. A brisk wind made the 40-something-degree air bite more deeply into the bones. But I warmed up quickly and was once again ready to walk past the Botanical Gardens without going in.

I’m so glad I didn’t!

This year’s holiday show was as magical as the others I’ve seen. The theme was  Pollination Station and the scenes were full of bees, bats and butterflies and the fruits and flowers they pollinate — all made of tree bark, willow shoots, grapevine tendrils, acorn caps and pine cone scales. An H gauge train chugged through the scene crossing ravines on rough-hewn trestles.

You could bend down and peek through little porthole windows into the winter homes of bugs, complete with twig-fashioned rocking chairs and mossy coverlets.

It was, in the best sense of the word, transporting. Full of wonder and whimsy.


(Photo: DConHeels.com)

Yesterday passed in a blur of family and friends, of early rising, early church, roasting and baking, stirring and stuffing. For many, today is a holiday, a day off work or school, time to ease back into ordinary life, to put aside the apron — or the bunny ears.

Claire and Celia assure me that no animals were harmed in the taking of this photo — unless you count excessive treat consumption as harm.

We have often wondered if Copper feels embarrassed by some of the costumes imposed upon him through the years. The only one we were sure about was when we dressed him in a hot dog costume one Halloween. That was … until yesterday. These bunny ears are a close second.

(Photo: Claire Capehart)

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.

The Christmas tree moves slowly from hillside to hearth. It spent its first week in a bucket beside the garage, not the most glamorous entrance but a respectable path to greatness. It’s what happens to trees cut early. The old “hurry up and wait,” yes, but something more — a tree chosen by all of us had to be chosen early.

We wrestled the tree into the house on Sunday but until yesterday it sat darkly in the corner, displacing the console, lamp and rocking chair that are usually there. But yesterday Claire visited, worked her magic, and now the tree lacks only ornaments.

As the tree evolves, I have time to contemplate its significant moment of passage. Is it the choosing, the cutting, the standing, the watering? It is, I’m convinced, the illuminating. The red, blue, green, orange and white bulbs (not the fairy lights, but the real thing, the opaque C7s) have turned a field tree into an emblem.

The lights are on, the corner is bright again. Christmastime is here.