[click photo to "biggen", as my friend Pat used to say! ]
I think I'm a funny person anyway (some of you may not agree), and I seem to be invoking humor a *lot* these last 9 1/2 months, trying not to be snarky but, at the same time, making it real. The pandemic has forced us to be more creative in how we celebrate and how we gather, and my catch phrase has become "Nothing says Christmas like...", which is now a game:
~ Nothing says Christmas like... Jurassic Quest in the BB&T parking lot which, crazy as it sounds, was a super-fun outing Sarah invited me to share with her and Colin... and about 50 animatronic dinosaurs, complete with roars, squeaks, and an audio narration as you drive along at bumper-to-bumper speed, much slower than the 5-miles-per-hour they discourage you from exceeding!
~ Nothing says Christmas like... Disney princesses, Mickey Mouse, Ninja Turtles, and Olaf, right? There is (pictured above) a house in our old Pembroke Lakes neighborhood that has been overdecorating for twenty years, adding new features along the way and, this year, making the path one-way in an attempt to keep things safer for all. Just when you think you've seen it all, you haven't. They even featured the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. Fra-gee-lay... 😍
Nothing says Christmas like... seeing Santa at Bass Pro Shops, two concepts you'd never think to hear in the same sentence. There was plexiglass involved... sigh, and hooray... 💞
Nothing says Christmas like... watching Holidate, a hilarious and irreverent film (on Netflix) that is surely the anti-Hallmark (and that's a good thing for me, Martha!), which you realize in the first seven minutes when one of the characters has a line of dialogue that's not repeatable here, but make sure you're not eating or drinking anything so as to avoid a spit-take. I loved it, but your mileage may vary (which won't keep me from loving it!).
The non-snarky events of these last few weeks:
~ Listening to the Hipster Holidays Pandora station on my phone while I'm out on my walk
~ Surprising Rob for his birthday at his job in Pembroke Gardens
~ Enjoying an Extended Family (the MossFam6 plus my sister, her husband, daughter and daughter's roomie; my brother couldn't make it) Zoom call. How lovely to see everyone, even virtually, as it had been much too long... and we've vowed to do them regularly!
"It's good to be alive!" indeed... 💖
BOOK: Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light by Apryl Stott (Author, Illustrator)
POEM: Yellow Glove by Naomi Shihab Nye
POEM: Yellow Glove by Naomi Shihab Nye
What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?
I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don't kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don't suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don't lose the yellow gloves.
I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream — the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches — I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn't have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother's eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn't want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don't get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.
The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don't scream, don't lie, don't cheat, don't fight — you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change — next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he'd only hurry up with the bread when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.
Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?
Part of the difference between floating and going down.
No comments:
Post a Comment