Split Screen

Split Screen

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Last night was perhaps best summed up by my daughter Suzanne, who sent around this text early in the evening: “Christmas in Washington: Cookies in the oven, Congress on TV.” I imagine this was the case throughout the nation, where holiday activities met with political goings-on.

And in fact, there were decisions to be made. Does one trim the tree while watching members of Congress cast votes for article 1 and article 2?  How about addressing Christmas cars? Would that be a suitable accompaniment for watching the president be impeached? And does one keep the recorded carols playing, or turn them down out of respect?

I settled for a smidge of online shopping and a good conversation with Celia, who thinks there ought to be an upper age limit set for holding political office, just as there is a lower one. It’s an understandable sentiment given what was unfolding before us.

Headlamp Stroll

Headlamp Stroll

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Wearing a headlamp on this morning’s early walk with Copper, I felt like a Cyclops treading my suburban lane. It’s a strange sensation to emit light from your forehead — both convenient and powerful, even vaguely godlike.

But mostly, it’s freeing, which means I can better juggle leash and doggie bag and still have one hand tucked in my pocket because, well, it’s freezing cold out there.


In this season of light, when homes are decked out in garlands of white and colored bulbs, when my eyes search the darkness for the faintest trace of dawn, it feels good to emit light, as if within my own frail human self I carry what hope and heart I need. This is not true, of course. I know how much I need others. But for a moment, in the dark, it felt otherwise. 
Messiah Sing-Along

Messiah Sing-Along

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Tonight we gather again, the wavering sopranos, the alto who has a little sinus drainage and is wondering if she can hit the high notes, the tenor who hasn’t sung in public since high school, the baritone who does this every year and secretly wishes he could have a solo.

Tonight we gather to sing Handel’s great masterpiece, a most forgiving work, full of runs and other acrobatics but at heart a piece for the people— an egalitarian oratorio that welcomes all pilgrims.

I’m making educated guesses on the other singers, but I can vouch for this alto. I’ll take out my score tonight with joy and trepidation. “And He Shall Purify” is not for the faint of heart. Nor is the “Hallelujah Chorus” with its pause right before the end, a trap that has embarrassed more than one singer.  In fact, challenges lurk in every recitative, aria and chorus of this piece.

But I can also predict the joy and gladness that will flood our hearts at the finish — that we, a group of strangers at 7 p.m. will by 8:30 have sung a great masterwork together. Yes, there will be botched runs and missed entrances. But the “hallelujahs” will ring out loud and clear.

(No, we were not singing in National Cathedral … I wish!) 

Gaudete!

Gaudete!

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Yesterday was the Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, with rose-colored vestments and the theme of … rejoice!

And rejoice I shall, starting with today, the birthday not only of Beethoven but also of our own sweet doggie, Copper.  To celebrate the former, I drove to Metro (through sleet and freezing rain) to the sounds of the lovely Archduke Trio, which made the drive almost bearable.

To celebrate the latter, we had a celebration over the weekend, complete with steak and cake. We sang a song and lit a candle and played with the little guy, who had somehow found the squeak toy I bought him and pulled it out of a shopping bag. Can he be smarter than we think? You never know…

Gaudete and happy birthday, birthday boys!

Walking and Looking

Walking and Looking

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It was a skill I perfected when I lived and walked in New York City: When faced with a pedestrian barreling right at me, I learned to quickly glance down. To keep eye contact meant we’d likely find ourselves in one of those awkward dances where one heads right thinking the other will head left, only he heads right too. Looking down breaks the cycle and avoids collisions.

This behavior would not surprise Alexandra Horowitz. In her book On Looking, which I mentioned a few weeks ago, she describes pedestrian behavior as quick, fluid and fish-like. It depends on three basic rules (alignment, avoidance and following the person in front of you) plus a series of quick calculations made because we pay attention to each other.

Most of the time, people look where they are going. So the gaze is the giveaway. You can even follow someone’s head, because people actually incline in the direction they want to go.

The one type of pedestrian that breaks this rule: the phone talker. “Their conversational habits change the dynamic of the flowing shoal,” Horowitz writes. “No longer is each fish aware, in a deep, old-brain way, of where everyone is around him.”

And this means that my looking-away skill doesn’t work as well anymore.  Which is something I already knew, in my deep, old-brain way.

Drip Drip

Drip Drip

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I was already writing another blog post for today … and then I stepped outside.

It was the very definition of a “misty moisty morning,” warmer since yesterday’s cold rain, but still delightfully soggy with cloud swaths and drip-drips and absolutely no reason to be outdoors. Unless, of course, you have a dog who needs a walk.

And because I do, I was thrust out into this watery world, there to admire the droplets of water that grace the tips of each weeping cherry bough. They glittered, these droplets; they looked like the tiniest of flashlights, or maybe the ends of lighted scopes.

Undoubtedly there is physics at work here, surface tension perhaps, or maybe even something that involves an equation. All I know is that each droplet seemed so fabulously close to bursting that the sheer improbability of that made me smile.

Photo by John Thomas on Unsplash

Moonset

Moonset

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I woke early yesterday, as I do these days. Woke to a bright world, a full moon, and a persistent one. Even though the sky was lightening in the east, the moon was hanging on, slightly mottled with a haze of clouds, but still there.

It was strong enough to throw shadows on cars and houses — but soft enough to preserve the pre-dawn hush. It shined on a sleeping suburban world, utterly still, with frosted leaves that glittered in the grass.

In much of the world, moonlight matters. It’s the difference between seeing and stumbling. I thought about that as I walked west, into the moonset.

Ugly Sweaters?

Ugly Sweaters?

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For our office party today we’ve been told to wear our Christmas sweaters, “the tackier the better.”  I’m wearing mine, but I doubt it will win the prize — and I hope it doesn’t.

My Christmas sweater was a gift, and it was given with love, so I don’t want it to be skewered. But more to the point, I’m against ugly sweater contests in general because — strange as it sounds — I feel sorry for the sweaters.

I’ve been trying to figure out why that is. Could it be the way I sentimentalize clothing, a habit that has filled my closet with items that would be better off at Goodwill? Or could it be deeper than that?

Christmas sweaters, like Jello salad and green bean casserole, speak of an earlier, less ironic era. Could it be that in satirizing sweaters with appliqués and rick-rack we’re announcing that we’re beyond such froufrou — even though we’re following the fashion of our era just as rigidly. (Will we someday have ripped jean contests — the more ripped the better?)

Seems to me that with all there is to celebrate at the holidays, choosing to belittle something (even something that’s asking for it) is a poor use of our time.  I know, I know. Lighten up — it’s just a sweater. But maybe … it’s more.


(This is not my sweater. It’s from an invitation to an ugly sweater contest.)

A Dusting

A Dusting

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If I blink I’ll miss it, but my part of northern Virginia is awakening to a dusting of snow on grass and cars. It will melt away as soon as it has a chance but it’s good to see it again, if only briefly.

Even as I write these words, I ask myself, why the excitement? Cold weather bothers me and I don’t like driving in snow.  The vague tingle has to be left over from childhood, the sudden gift of a day off school.

But there is more, too. Snow transforms; it softens the landscape, makes it otherworldly. There is wonder in that, and a release, too.

(This photo was taken a few years ago when there was considerably more accumulation — but it proves the point!)

Light the Lights

Light the Lights

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Every year the lights matter more. Every year I wait for them, for certain houses that I know will pull out all the stops. With them we shake our tiny fists at the darkness. With them, we remind ourselves that spring will come again.

One house I pass on the way to Metro drips with soft white icicle lights. The bevy of bulbs transform this simple two-story into a fairy cottage.  It’s the slant of the roof and the way the house is tucked into the trees that does it. I could imagine Hansel and Gretel wandering up, expecting it to be made of gingerbread and marzipan. How kind of the occupants to leave the lights on till morning so we early commuters can be enchanted too.

I wonder if people know how much their efforts gladden the souls of passers-by. In that way lights are a visual reminder of how kindness spreads — from one harried heart to another.