There is a photograph of Larry about 14 years ago to the day, sitting in our stark living room, glasses on, feet up, casually reading a history text. It is pasted into one of the few scrap books that I started early on in our family life on a page following the documentation of a very merry Christmas spent in Massachusetts. The caption reads: "Back to normal."
Every season of the year I greet with the gladness of anticipated joy and then bid farewell to with eagerness to be done with it, to move on. The Christmas Season is similar. There is something comforting about decorations that brighten the corners and soften the edges of the home, about smells of baking goodies reserved for December, and about music laced with joy, deep love and gratitude. I deck my halls Thanksgiving weekend, generally on Friday or Saturday. There was one year, however, that I did it gradually over that week. We were at my in-law's on Thanksgiving Day, and the rest of the week-end was free of the stress of cleaning and sorting and placing and hanging.
Ah, and the music. I love music. Years that have been particularly stressful of chaotic I find myself digging out the Christmas tapes or CDs or now just scrolling down my playlist and playing carols to myself, when no one else is around, as early as November 1st. This was one of those years. So as blogging friends complained about premature jingle bells heard after Halloween, I secretly crooned "White Christmas" along with Bing, and roasted chestnuts with Johnny Mathis.
As seasons change in nature, there is no normal. Well maybe in some places there is. In the southern California valleys there is the rainy season and the rest of the year. But in general the cycle of seasons keeps all transitions special and unique. When Christmas is over, however, life returns to an easier, neater, slower pace. Our Christmas Tree meets the curb on the 26th. (I must admit to being late this year. I de-decorated on the 27th.) Treasured items are carefully wrapped, packed into large Rubbermaid containers, and hoisted into the attic to the tunes of Led Zeppelin, Heart, and Journey. Or Paul Simon, Hootie, and the White Album. Depends on my mood.
It's fitting, I think, that we usher in the New Year with a natural de-cluttering of home and schedule. Maybe that helps us feel inspired to make those resolutions which are rarely kept. Sometimes I am anxious to say good-bye to a particular year, thinking that somehow the passing of the 31st, the flip of this particular calendar page, indicates a renewal, a washing away not of sin but of trial. 1998 was such a year. Larry had experienced some major health issues, #1 had had her first seizure, and maybe a second, and I declared that no one could get sick in 1999. It would not be allowed. But they did, of course.
This is another year like 1998. Some would try to read into the decade relationship, but there have been others in between. While we have on one hand been very blessed, we have on the other been very tried. I will not miss 2008. And deep inside, I wish that this man-made demarcation of time were more powerful than it is. I wish that this year could be void of heartache and worry and stress. But it won't even be free of moving and change. It won't be free of hospitals. It won't be free of budgetary concerns. It won't be free of diets. And these are just the problems that are foreseeable. Scheduled, even.
That knowledge notwithstanding, there is a certain comfort to getting up at 6 am this morning to wake the kids, make their lunches, and argue about the necessity of snow boots. Today I'll be driving the little kids to school. I'll make beds and fold some laundry. I'll vacuum and empty the dishwasher. I'll put the chicken on to marinate. I'll keep felting and I'll even pack a box or two.
This is about as normal as it gets.
