Month: December 2015

There is something cathartic about winter. It’s like the year, and all its complexity has been frozen, santitized, and swept clean. Winter wraps the year up in neat little packages and bows, as if to say, this is what you’ve done this year, and this is the sum of all your investments, far and wide. A sort of annual report card, in a sense. 

I guess it’s Christmas that does that more than anything. You see those people you only see once or twice a year, and you feel you somehow have to give account for your life thus far. God forbid you only have the same things to say as last year. And so it goes, your year, packaged up succintly in dinner table talking points. 

Christmas was a strange one this year. It didn’t help that it was about eighty degrees all week, and people wore their shorts to Christmas dinner. I guess the weather was fitting for how I felt about the holiday overrall this time. I didn’t even realize it was Christmas until about two weeks before. I had been busy out of state plugging away in a sort of art house for the previous several months. When the date for my holiday plane ticket rolled into view, I barely noticed. It didn’t even hit me until I saw the wreaths in the airport. Oh yes, I thought, it really is Christmas.

Being the quintessential starving artist, I announced that I would not be giving gifts this year. This was met with a chorus of resigned acceptance. Sorry, guys, next year will be better. So, I missed the rite of Christmas shopping. And busy as a work at home writer, I don’t think I heard a Christmas song all season. 

I went to stay with my sister, whose Christmas fared no better. In her first year as a full-time working mom, she hadn’t quite got the balance of motherhood and career together yet.  She didn’t get to Christmas shopping until…oh, say, the 23rd or so. Then she did several shopping trips, coming home somewhere around midnight,  with still not the right gifts, and falling into bed mumbling, “Christmas is for kids.” Then she would get up a few hours later, do her morning workout, and off to work she’d go. The lights are still in a bin out on the front stoop, waiting to be hung, and from what I hear, the six year old orchestrated the tree decorating a few days before I got there.

The night of Christmas Eve, she passed out at 1 am, barely dropping the shopping bags on a heap on the bedroom floor. And the kids were sound asleep, happily dreaming of Santa and his sleigh. So, her husband and I spent the wee hours wrapping bikes, and dollhouses and Nintendos, and those weird rubber animals called amebos, I think. We went to bed around five, and the kids were up at six, and the in-laws arrived at eight, with brightly wrapped gifts and groceries for a lavish Christmas breakfast. I stayed in bed. They weren’t my in-laws. Oh, the joys of being single. 

I arrived to the party just in time to do the dishes, and see the in-laws off. Then our own parents arrived and we did it again. I didn’t give any gifts, and it looked like no one else had a lot of time to shop either. I’ve got a stack of gift cards to redeem. When her in-laws returned for an evening dinner, we were spent. We couldn’t even fake it. So, we were all relieved when the 26th rolled around and we could actually get some sleep. 

Now that it’s Monday after Christmas weekend and life is back to normal, I have never been happier for  a holiday to be over. But, I think I missed something this year. I missed the sort of release of a year reflected. I went through the motions, of course, but something was missing. I think it was the cold. 

The cold adds something to Christmas. Without cold, Christmas is just an expensive tradition involving way too much food. I don’t know if it’s a mark of getting older, but I am starting to rather dislike Christmas. 

We fight so hard to keep Christmas recognized, but really, is it worth it? This year, it was just a weird day in the middle of a coldless winter. 

There’s nothing left here, in this cold and empty room. It’s been hard swept clean and smells of bitter antiseptic. Every germ you’ve left, every wayward hair, erased. 

The boxes were the first to go, taped and sent to journey in a big white van. And with them went the stories, one by one. Now, it’s just you and me in this big, lonely house. 

So, pack it up and close it on down. There’s nothing left to see here. Only old memories, and silent rooms. Move it on, to those unfamiliar places, and the unknown on the other side. I know you feel like you’re freefaling right now. Your soul in desperate grasp, yearning for what’s ahead, and yet not quite free of what’s behind. 

But there’s nothing left for you here. So, say your goodbyes now, and snap one last shot. Then take my hand and walk away. Because it’s just you and me now. You and me and the big, wide world. 

And there’s nothing left for you here. 

It’s been an interesting couple of days. So, I’m staying at my sister’s for the holidays. It’s been a fun time, she’s got three kids, all in lower elementary. This means I get gifted lots of construction paper art masterpieces, and am treated to labored, but proud, displays of reading prowess. This, I encourage with embarrassing displays of approval.

That the next generation can read assures me proper retirement care. That the next generation will read, assures me job security. For that, I will do much, including jumping out of chairs and yelling with jubilation that Cat in the Hat has been conquered. If nothing else, these kids will have no doubt what Aunt Layla values.

Then again, I’ve been watching Netflix every night until about sunrise. And kids have great BS meters…So, I guess it’s more like…Aunt Layla likes Dr. Suess, Sherlock, and typing on her laptop. Yeah, that’s about right.

When I was teaching reading to homeschool students, I would take them to the library once in a while, and we would all get books and have silent reading time together. I always made a point to choose big, thick books for myself to set a good example. I don’t have the energy for all that anymore.

And besides that, I wonder if our reading landscape has not died, but simply changed. It’s no secret that we don’t read stacks of heady books anymore. But, how often are we are online? For most of us, who carry the internet in our pocket, being online is a natural flow of modern life. We are texting, we are posting, we are commenting.

We are downloading apps that helps us live our lives bigger, better, faster, more efficiently. We are Googling…everything from what to cook for dinner, to the self-diagnosis of every physical and psychological malady we don’t want to spend the money to cure. We read. Just not the way we used to do it.

Now, I am by no means arguing that online reading is sufficient. One must read books. Lots of books with big, dangerous ideas laid out in heavy poetic prose, and laced with metaphors and intricate literary techniques. Yes, to grow one must read the kind of books that make one stop and ponder who we are, how we got here, and where we are going. This is what will ensure the preservation of our civilization. Not WebMD.

But, maybe the state of reading isn’t as dismal as we think. Maybe we do read. We just don’t read the right things. And for that, I’m as guilty as anyone. That’s a much simpler problem than an illiterate society.

It’s been a bad morning.  It started last night. Yesterday I got food poisoning. Fortunately, no nausea, it has just felt like the flu, with fever and chills.

Then, my computer acted like it had gone to that great technology heaven in the sky… to forever cavort with all the discarded PDA’s and flip phones. Under great duress I tried to revive my dear friend until my teeth chattered with fever and I fell back  into the covers and dreamt of shiny new Mac Books. (Actually, I dreamt I was riding a broken bicycle down a dark and deserted country road…what does that mean?!)

So, early in the morning, I loaded up the invalid laptop, and headed to  Starbucks for some serious remedy. I got it to work…eventually. But I had to make some compromises. I had to run restore.

I lost a lot of stuff. The most important things,  like my novel, are still there.  But the software I originally wrote it in, is not…which means I lost a ton of previous versions and drafts, and a lot of poetry as well. But good news, that blurry uploaded snapshot where you can’t make out anything but my niece’s left foot,  is still there. Wouldn’t want to have lost that.

I have spent the morning backtracking trying to download different things I have that makes my computer…mine. It’s got me thinking about how much of me is on this machine.  The prose and verse of a life lived in LCD…read a poem I lost. I’ve had this computer for three years now, and it feels like…me.

My browser was comfortable and familiar, with all my bookmarks and buttons set to navigate through my digital life with ease .  My shortcuts were in perfect place, and I had the program tiles arranged exactly how I liked them. And now, it is all gone. Default. It’s the same computer, but not really.

I miss it. A life lived on LCD, displaced. I’m sure there’s some sort of poetic metaphor having to do with my nomadic lifestyle, but right now, I’m really much more interested in learning to back up. Or the secret backdoor to get back all my lost data.