ho-ho-holiday nods
by bam
most every friday, i carve out an hour. or maybe more than one.
it’s the hour when i pull up a chair, and sit for a moment. wait for the bubbling up to begin. it’s when i sift through the landscape of the week, see where my heart trips up. where it wants to play a frame over and over again. it’s the hour when i capture some scene of my children’s lives, as that life rolls on. it’s where i stop and pause and stare at some God-given miracle, the flight of a bird, the droop of a bloom. it’s where i wonder out loud.
and so it comes today. at the far side of the day, instead of the start. a field trip pulled me away. and the bus broke down on the long ride home. but, on fridays, i never feel settled till i’ve pulled up a chair.
so here i am, just me and my words and my bubbling-up heart.
it’s quiet here, the way i like it best of all, the way that lets me breathe. deep in, and deep out.
the clock ticks. the tea kettle is almost to whistling. the back yard, where all my flocks come, where they chitter and squawk, it’s silver-blue light out there. the sun has slipped from the afternoon sky. there’s barely the barest tinge of pink-fingered sky off to the west.
oh, there’s the kettle.
and there goes the last of the light. all i see now is black against gray. the limbs of the trees stretched like veins against sky.
my night’s work will be filled with elf sorts of tasks. i’ve holiday bread, 10 loaves, to deliver. each one tied with a cord, pulled on a sled perhaps. depends when the snow comes.
i’ve decided this year that i am making all of december a month for quietly giving. none of this mad-dash rush at the end. i’ve made the stretch from the first through till christmas a time to turn to those who’ve made a difference, to say, with a loaf, or a word, thank you for all you bring to me on the unlikeliest of days.
thank you to the neighbor who left a basket of tomatoes at my back stoop.
thank you to the one who lets my boy play in her basement for hours on end.
thank you mister bus driver, for marking each ride with a wave and a smile. for giving me reason, each blessed morning we manage to get there, for walking home with my own smile inside.
thank you to the soulful women who type beside me, tuesday through thursday. thank you for giving me reason to want to come to work.
thank you to the principal who made sure my little one was safe at heart during his days in the woods (and typed out a furtive email to let me know that he was).
thank you, deeply and truly, to each of you who come here during the days of the year when, somehow, you carve out the minutes it takes to come and see what’s out on the table. maybe you nibble, maybe you pass. but back and again, you come and you come.
nearly four years it’s been (12.12.06, the very first entry). and here we are on the brink of that marker, and too, the brink of the eve when a boy who’s grown up here will find out the news about college.
it’s a big december, as always.
bigger than most because of the latter.
how did we get here, so many are asking? how did we get to this place where our just-born children were finding out about college–where they would go, where they would dream, where they’d spread wings and fly from our nest?
it’s a good time for quiet, this brink of so much. so quiet i’ve stitched. in a card typed and cut and pasted and stamped. in bread studded with almond paste and golden raisins and cranberries too. wrapped in bakery paper, the white waxy kind.
it’s a quiet i’ve carved in tiptoeing down the stairs early and all alone. it’s a quiet i find in feeding my birds.
it’s a quiet inside that comes when you learn, at last, to whisper, this is enough. this says it all.
and so you pull a sled through the ridges of snow. you knock at a door, and hand over bread and a card and a merry, merry that says in so many ways: thank you for making my days as rich as they are.
merry merry to each and every one of you. those who still come here, and those who’ve not been in a very long while. i never forget a one of you.
may your december days be blessed through and through.
what’s on your thank you list this december?
3 comments:
Karen
Oh, Barbara, you are so deep, so sensitive, so good. I must have just caught your latest delving right after you hit send, or publish, or whatever button you push. You certainly push your dedicated readers’ buttons–in a good way!
Just recently I have come to be very thankful for the dedicated volunteer rescuers who work at animal shelters–not the welcoming, nurturing, spic-and-span no-kill places like Anti-Cruelty–but the smaller pounds, urban and rural, where way too many lost, surrendered and just plain thrown-away dogs and cats wait to die, some innocently wagging their tails, some whimpering, some defensive, all probably wondering how they wound up there. These good people work their butts off to find homes, foster homes, boarding–anything to get those animals out, get them to a vet, and get them loved. It is really amazing how they do it, through a growing e-mail network. This Christmas I will say thank-you to a few of them with modest donations–they know how to make a little go a long way–for food, vet service, gasoline for transports. I could not face what they face every day, but I can support them.
Friday, December 10, 2010 – 05:48 PM
slj
In this month, where hope comes wick by wick and mug by mug, I give thanks that you open the door to your heart/home to folks who not only pull up with a sled, but their chairs and the truths that rest deep within their hearts. Blessings as you find quiet in the day to go inward to find vision, grace and hope.
Monday, December 13, 2010 – 08:11 PM
JACK
PHEW! I made it. Not sure what is happening, but I’ve been unable to comment this week. Computer won’t allow it!
But, my thank you list is long, long this month. There are days when my glass is so much more than half-full; it;s overflowing. And among what I’m thankful for is the support and concern, love and prayers, of those of you who are at the table. I’ve had some tough moments the past 12 months, and all of you have opened your hearts to me, added me to your prayer lists, and encouraged me in my journey. I thank all of you this most wonderful season.
Friday, December 17, 2010 – 09:13 AM