If you had just been there, you would know what I mean. The feeling of that day and why it was so special, why I was trying to hold onto the moment. We spent a year living with my mom in Germany but had to leave for a few months over the winter. We bought a used German car and drove to the UK, spent Christmas in a farmhouse I rented in the country outside of Cork. No internet. A sunroom where we sat around a small tree the owners put up for us and decorated. It was cold with thin windows, but they had a portable heater that hummed and glowed orange. And sometimes the light in the sky is the same as it was then, the look of it below the clouds when it clears in the distance and turns the color of abalone shell, turquoise and blue, some pink.
I imagined I could relive the time in that little Irish town standing on the street outside the shops. A feeling of calm, of being very far away but feeling very grounded too, very much in the right place. I bought a wool Irish cap and wrote the name of the town on the inseam, but it disappeared after we returned to Germany. So I bought another wool cap in a small town in Pennsylvania called Jim Thorpe. And had a similar memory of standing on the street in the winter when it was cold, and the sun came out to warm a patch on the street so small it seemed like it was just for me. And the memories combined down into one and mixed over time.
The sky today looks the same as it did in Skibbereen that day before Christmas, dark in the foreground but with a thin band of light at the bottom. How it’s symbolic this time of year, that there’s hope in a small ribbon of light however dark the rest of the day.
I regifted Charlotte a family heirloom and wrote her an origin story about it. I took Lily to a screening of a Nirvana concert filmed at the same theater where they played thirty years ago. I got Dawn a rock with money my mom gave me. And prepared firewood for the next few days as we’re expecting snow. I gathered fallen pine branches from the yard and placed them around the sensitive plants which felt wholesome. I am doing my best to honor the past without overlooking the present.
And now as if to mimic the falling down quality of my mom’s medieval house in Germany we have a bunch of crap jammed in the makeshift pantry area in our garage. Brussels sprouts and dates, radishes for the salad, oranges and nuts, blue cheese and chocolates.
We recreate the homes from our youth and our memories there, and Christmas is the time many of us do that the most. Let me reach out to you now wherever you are for a hug and a smile…and for the next time we see the light.
Categories: inspiration, writing
Thank you for this story, which I enjoyed reading on Christmas morning, sitting on the couch in the Sunroom listening to Bill Evans, waiting for a test result to brew and preparing myself for the kitchen fray. That Covid test sits clear beside me now (another story for another year): Go!
All the best for Christmas and the New year. I hope it’s full of grand memories old and new.
DD
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Bill Evans and Covid tests, some nog! New traditions, some better packed up and stowed in the freaking attic right? Cheers to you and yours David, happy Christmas my dear friend.
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You helped tip the balance against Covid with your writing Bill, making 2020 a reasonable year after all.
Sincere thanks dear friend.
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Lovely note, wow. Thanks David.
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It’s make or break for believers–hell yeah, I’m one. Give me elves, reindeer, and Father Christmas/Mother Wisdom. Thanks for showing up, Bill. For a guy I’ve never met, you mean a lot to me. Merry Yule
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Best comment ever lady and I feel the same. Joyous to connect this way…thanks for being you! And be well my friend, look forward to reading you again very soon (please!). Merry Yule to you and yours also.
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Read this story on a quiet, rainy Christmas Eve. Thank you. It triggered more memories of Christmas Eve pasts. Thanks.
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Rain here too! And turning to snow, we’re hoping! Thanks Rosemary for this and wishing you warmth and wellness…and nice to meet! The rain can have a restorative vibe to it if you allow for that..we try to tell ourselves that to keep from going nuts in the Northwest anyhow. Be well! Bill
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Really nice, Bill. A warmth suffusing the story and a caring afterglow. Hope to catch up soon.
Bruce
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Yes and hope you are doing okay my friend! We miss you! Richey said that precisely earlier this week, perhaps your ears were burning. Cheers to you and yours buddy. Thanks for everything this year!
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Thanks Bill. I’ve been missing you too, which (as I’m sure you get) is a good sign. 🙂
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May your spirit be bright regardless of the weather & may your memories keep flooding in and stimulating such great descriptive scenes and impressions!
Happy New Year a bit ahead of time – I’m gonna be out of connectivity range for the next week plus smiling at 2021 vanishing (though it leaves a slew of memories for all of us to wrestle with for years ahead) …
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What a lovely wish Jazz, and I wish you the same. Hope your time soon “letting go” will do you well, I’m sure it will. What a great time of year to do that. Happy we’ve connected this year and I thank you for being there and for sending such rays of kindness always! Merry Christmas my friend! Bill
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Big hug to you, Bill. All the best to you and family for 2022.
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And to you lady! And all the magical things you’ll cook up and curate for us next year…sending you love and cheer, old friend! Bill
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Txx
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Happy New Year Bill. And thanks for being a reliable source of purposeful, well written prose and for transporting me for just a moment into someone else’s reality. It’s a respite for certain.
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Always a joy to hear from you Ilona! Hope your holidays were warm and memorable, and love your kind note here…thank you dearly! Bill
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Hi Bill. Wishing you and your family all the good stuff. Be cool.
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Thanks Ross and you too buddy!
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