Christmas Reflections

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"The mark of a really great writer is that he or she gives expression to what the masses of mankind think or feel without knowing it. The mediocre writer simply writes what everyone would have said."

-G.C. Lichtenberg

Cristmas Reflections

    Everything seems so small and simple. Everything seems really familiar—and really different. Everything seems to have changed, but nothing has really changed at all. Then again, the last time I slept in this room, anaphora wasn’t even on the horizon of my vocabulary.
    It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m sitting in a bed in a room that I haven’t spent the night in for more than a decade. It doesn’t look like it used to. The posterboard plastered with pictures of girls and phrases and other juvenile hallmarks has been replaced with tasteful photographs in varnished wooden frames. The window I used to rappel through has been replaced with stained glass. There are bookshelves and a file cabinet and tasteful looking drapes. It’s still my old room, but it’s more of a libraryish office now. The foldout bed is kind of uncomfortable on my rear end. Strangely enough, this is probably the first time I ever drank a glass of whiskey in here.
    The attic door is still about twenty feet from the bed. That hasn’t changed. I remember as a boy skirting that door, avoiding the evil things that lurked in the darkness above. Tonight I went up there to explore, partially to interrogate my childhood fears, partially to investigate the boxes of things I haven’t seen in so many years. I found a lot. I found that my childhood worries are buried in my past. I found some old ribbons I won in seemingly trivial contests. I found some old photographs of boys and girls, now men and women, who helped shape who I am. Maybe I helped shape who they are, too.
    There’s a glittery Christmas tree on a chest in the corner that twinkles the night through. It’s one of a half-dozen or so Christmas trees strategically placed in rooms throughout the house. My mother, it seems, was excited to have both of her children back in her home at the same time during the holidays. It’s the first time that’s happened in at least ten years.
    But there’s something about the trees that trips me up more than I expected. When first I arrived, I thought they were too much. I thought they were a feeble attempt at rekindling something so far in the past. I thought the butterflies I used to feel while laying in this room on Christmas Eve were a permanent fixture in the annals of my life. Yet here I am, butterflies and all, though I’m apprehensive about things other than what Santa Clause might leave in the living room below. It’s the introspection that has me reeling.
    I’ve discovered that the past is never very far in your future. I’ve discovered that, despite distance and time, sound relationships are lasting. I’ve discovered that love is a potent elixir that tears down superficial barriers and boundaries.
    Like so many lessons in life, it’s something that has to be felt, not understood. We know that the death of a friend will hurt. We don’t really understand the pain until a friend dies. We know that uninhibited dancing will feel good. We don’t comprehend until we throw our arms in the air and feel the beat of the drum instead of the eyes of others on our rhythmic gesticulations. In this vein, I knew the love of my family would help me heal from callous Christmases past. I had to live it to know it.
    In spending Christmas for so many years bereft of my closest family and friends, selfish thoughts gradually overtook me. In the last few weeks I acted to propel myself. I acted to protect myself. Weakness was the result. I remember now a book I read some years ago about helping people who are terminally ill with cancer. The fix was to encourage them to give to other people, to be more selfless. In thinking about others, they forgot about themselves. And that made them more whole. I first remembered the book because I wanted to give advice to a friend. Now I know it was me who needed those words. In giving me their love, my family has re-taught me this lesson I have known for so many years: To give is to receive. It seems so rudimentary. It’s an idea captured in so many Christmas stories. Tonight I am Scrooge in the throws of his epiphany.
    The hour is now late. This sleepy little Appalachian town is silent. This century-old house creaks as it settles with the addition of a few more minutes of time.
    Much has changed. Much hasn’t. I don’t know many people who live here anymore. But my roots remain, nurtured by formative forces and close relationships with people I care about.
    I took another journey earlier today through a drawer in the office downstairs. It’s full of thirty-five-odd years of photographs from times I remember and times I don’t. There are times in that drawer from before I was. There are times in that drawer from after I left. (Incidentally, there’s a window near the drawer I kicked a soccer ball through, and I don’t think there’s a photograph of that). But the faces staring back at me in those photos are part of who I am. The love they have given me is love I return.
    In these ways, the Christmas trees throughout the house have tripped me up more than I expected.