Mourning Christmas

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There’s a misty drizzle turning the dried winter scum on my truck into a gross gray slime. I might say it’s unseasonably warm for January, but in this corner of the North Coast, there is no unseasonable. We had snow and ice. One day we even had sunshine. Now we have slush and rain.

But today is not a day for sunshine. Today is a day of mourning.

I put Christmas to rest today. I peeled the last of the clear lights from the three birch trees in the front yard, and stuffed them in the attic. All the gifts are no longer gifts, simply possessions. And my Christmas CDs, which I listen to surreptitiously long after December 25th, have been buried on the back of the shelf.

But it’s my soul that closed the door on Christmas today, I think. Because what I really love about Christmas is the mood, the spirit. All the lights, decorations, music, gifts, are simply enhancements to the heart of the season; the sense that during this time it’s okay to care about others, to love and to give. Joy rules.

Until today.

Today I walked by the guy playing guitar on the street without a nod. Why?

Why not? Did I ask him to sit in my path and play his guitar? No. Do I like the mushy folksy stuff he’s playing? No.

Would I have ignored him a month ago? No. In December I would have dropped something into his case. Smiled at him, told him it sounds good. Not today.

Today I put Christmas to rest. Today I mourn.

* The mood is fact. The events are fiction.
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Perfect 10?

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Ten. Not the Commandments or a gymnast’s perfect score. Not the old Dudley Moore movie or the backdrop of Hamilton’s picture.

Ten is the New Year. At least, on January 1, 2010 it was. How will yours rate?

So we may call it Twenty Ten, or out of a decade’s habit, Oh Ten. But to me it’s simply Ten. It sounds so clean, so perfect.

But a new year can be like a new car. The minute you drive off the dealer’s lot, your brand new year is a used year.

So what’s the minute for you when the shiny New Year is, well, just a used year? Is it the first time you break your resolution; when you light up, pig out, blow up, veg out, drink up, pass out or shoot up? Or when you simply fall flat on your face with a self-proclaimed challenge?

Maybe it’s more gradual, when old habits slowly weasel back into your life. When exciting new commitments become old and worn, and pushed further back in the closet.

Is it when you realize, it may be a New Year, but it’s the old you?

Change, true change in our lives rarely happens suddenly. We know this, and yet pretend not to. Lasting change is a process, like putting miles on your new car. It may be used, but you pull into your driveway for the first time, and the odometer is still mostly a long row of zeros. You have months of new car smell to enjoy.

Can we see the New Year that way? There’s three hundred sixty five days in this New Year.

Change a little every day, and next year – next year you’ll look back and see. It was a New Year all year long.And on a scale from one to ten, you’ll see this year was, definitely, a 10.
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