The Weight of a Season or Ghosts of Christmas Past
It's hardly a new concept and I apologize to Mr. Dickens for usurping his iconic phrase, Ghost of Christmas Past. But it does haunt me this time of year (pun intended). Ghosts do indeed abound. Even the image of the painting that accompanies this blog was started in the early days of the pandemic, some two years ago, almost. It's a huge face. Hard to tame. Hard to come to grips with. It hangs on the wall taunting. Insistent. It has gone through many iterations. And just recently I revisited it. Reworking much about it. Looking for an answer.
““Who and what are you?” Scrooge demanded.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Long Past?” inquired Scrooge.
“No. Your past.””
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All that follows may be fiction or slightly true, or just tarnish on the lens of time.
“I walk every morning at first light with the dog, in the junipers and piñons on the east side of the property. The ground there is thick with pine needles, dove feathers, and deer tracks.
As we walk, she sniffs for what was, and I too slip backwards, to another woods once wandered. To a woods and a boy long since gone.
The woods deep and silent with fresh snow. The boy in awe with every step, as tiny avalanches from branches cascade cold down his neck. And not far in front, another dog sniffs for what was.”
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I REMEMBER THINGS. Small things. Moments memorized, lightly carried like tiny treasures across time. And when, the distance between here and there, becomes too great, I only need to recall.
I recall things like the warmth of a December sun, as it stretched across a dusty afternoon floor. So encompassing it reached to the bone. I still ache for that warmth when the air begins to chill.
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And I remember crude drawings scratched with a fingernail in frost crystals on the inside of a window glass. A child’s need to disturb such perfection should never be questioned. For even today, envious of the raw curiosity of that youth, I struggle to draw with that same intent.
And I recall a dense stand of cedars on my grandfather’s farm, where my brother pointed out a particular tree in mid July and said it would make a perfect Christmas tree. And then, come December, he remembered exactly where it was and cut it. It did make for a perfect tree that year. Surely, this is a lesson in daring and foresight.
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And I still remember the way the air fills up when a fresh cut tree comes indoors. Fragrant, with excitement and possibility jostling to share the common space. And the unfettered joy that spread so easily, so naturally, to all in that room.
I remember Christmas Eve church and midnight masses struggling to stay awake, where the only real prayer was for the upcoming morning to hurry. I recall first snows and first days of Winter breaks, and classic Christmas movies that made me laugh and cry the first time I saw them, and somehow still do.
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And I remember large boisterous family gatherings and silent Christmases, all alone. And broken toys, and broken dreams, and broken hearts, all signs of just how fragile we truly are.
This time of year, memories shape shift, drifting in and out like specters. No doubt, they live somewhere near the soul. A heart could never contain them all.
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Winter tends to pull us inward where recollection is easy and sometimes hard, for sadness lives there too. That is the nature of duality. Still, amidst the baggage of a lifetime, there are those tiny treasures, the good ones, just waiting to be recalled. Every year, I welcome winter for just that reason, because… I do remember things.