December is the month my mother died over twenty years ago. A long time ago yes, and also very close in my heart, as though it happened recently: I can remember the exact feelings I had when her death was announced to me while I stood in the Phoenix airport on December 2nd, trying to get home. The emptiness, the confusion, the ache that started to bubble up from deep inside.
December is the month I allowed a flirtation of mine to catapult me into a "romance" that ended my 25 year old marriage. December 10 it was, I remember clearly. Then the rage and broken heart that followed... And all the chasing after stories of love, and all the dead-ends...
December is the month that we prepare for Christmas holidays with family, and become anxious and off balance in the anticipation of this supposedly happy time. We remember perhaps the days when we were kids, and we snuggled in bed, smelling the pine of the Christmas tree, and we held our stuffed animal close and dreamed of the beautiful doll with eyelashes and curly hair that we had asked for, imagining it sitting all wrapped under the tree. The Grandmothers in my life were always hugely generous to me, the first grandchild, and what I unwrapped on Christmas morning invariably exceeded what I had wished for. And now, sadly, the dance has become a a little tired and burdensome, a laundry list in our brains of what to do for whom and will it be enough? And will those we love recognize us as special and offer that thoughtful gift? We become so hungry for love, for belonging. And then we distract ourselves by going out and shopping up a storm.
December is the month I ponder the multitude of deaths of black men in our cities, and hold fear in my heart that we are a more racist culture than I had ever imagined. And my mind spins about this suffering and I feel as though I hardly belong to this country anymore. Looking at these deaths is like looking into a bottomless hole, or through a tunnel where we can't see the light on the other side. I want to offer prayers, but remember I don't do that much in my life, if at all. I want to perform a ritual to purify my mind and heart and ultimately everyone else's. I want to call on the spirits of Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King, to come and bestow their humane wisdom and show the ignorant the way to compassion. I want to go into the Tenderloin or walk on Market street and ask forgiveness of the shivering homeless men lying in seedy comforters, men whose skin is most often black.
December is the month when I gave a large gift to a wildlife rescue organization, in the hopes that they will be able to stop the killing of elephants for their ivory, so I can feel assured that my grandchildren and their children will be able to experience these astonishing animals in their lifetimes. This single act of generosity feels as though it can heal some of the sadness that has shown up during these dark December days. Generosity is a beautiful practice, it brings people together, and isn't that what we all need now?
December marks the end of the year, and the inevitability of becoming one year older. Time is sliding out from under us, especially as we grow older, and it feels as though the years are passing awfully quickly. So, on December 31, we peer around the corner at the new year, and know that it too will be gone before we know it, and that we must be mindful, and grateful, and generous if we are to live our lives fully. When we were young we loved this ritual of the new year, didn't we? We were excited to become another year older, and closer to some desired state of being IN our lives and in control ... Now we think, oh no, why did it all go by so fast?
It see that what I have offered here is a dirge of sorts, a little wail in the night, and I suspect that this entry won't fill anyone with great excitement or warm feelings. It also occurs to me that before too long, we will be in January, and the days will start to get longer, and the leaves sprout on the trees, and I will be traveling in New Zealand on a holiday with daughter #1. A trip planned long ago and much anticipated. And as I march through the bush or sit by the sea in this different country, the dark of December will have already melted away.
Tonight I will give myself comfort as I begin again to read one of my most beloved books, Anna Karenina, the dark story of a beautiful outcast who surrendered her life for love. I will snuggle in my bed and read with relish, and feel glad that I too write stories, attempting to tell my own truth to anyone who will read. Books offer us worlds where we can dance and play and laugh and cry, and then return to the hard, cold truths that knock at our door. Books are magic to me. Not a better thing to do on a December night, I'd say!
You're right about the 'no great excitement,' but there were some warm feelings at revelatory moments ... my reaction is you didn't write this one for readers; you wrote it because you were in a mood mostly characterized by darkness, discomfort and melancholy, your lead-off line. And one way you've learned to get yourself up above that mood and out of its total grip is to write about it. So that's what you did and I'll bet it helped. But you already knew nothing is permanent anyway, especially moods.
ReplyDeleteMom, I deeply appreciated your thoughts and your personal insights to this time of year. I do get the melancholy this time of year as well, I almost think of it for some as a right of passage. I would love for this time of year to be about giving of ourselves to each other and that be our present. For this life the only thing that truly matters is our relationship one to another.
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