“Look at me, Jeffrey. Jeffrey, look at me. Jeffrey, I need you to listen to me. Leave your utensils alone, get your feet out of the chair, and put your hands in your lap. Jeffrey, if you don’t look at me and listen, you are going to lose a point. Jeffrey…” This was typical of the one sided conversation I heard each night at the table next to ours.
I have been gone for over a week. On vacation. My favorite kind of vacation. One in which I have no plans and no obligations. This is because I benefit sometimes from examining my life from a bit of a distance in order to recognize the patterns that surround me on a daily basis. We went to the Caribbean where I spent a lot of time walking, reading, sunning and thinking. And I must admit, it was a little strange being in a warm climate, beside the ocean at Christmas time. I have always been one of those festive fiends who start celebrating Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Pulling out old Greenberg turkey boxes filled with years of handmade decorations. Baking cookies, making candy, and tacking up strings of blinking lights while making as few nail holes as possible around the windows and across the roofline. When all of my kids grew up and were in college and in the military, I still tried to make things special for them, even though they might be home for only a few days at a time. But over the past few years, some of the yuletide enthusiasm has seemingly been drained out of me. Even the introduction of the Dave to our family seven years ago didn’t entirely rekindle my Christmas spirit. So I thought about this while I was away… David and I don’t usually give each other presents anymore--at least, not in the traditional sense. A few years ago we deliberately turned away from the tendency to overspend and get ourselves in debt by buying a bunch of stuff that didn’t satisfy anything in either of us. We realized that it was just adding stress to the season.
So we don’t give each other things anymore. Instead, we just spend the holidays together and take time to appreciate how lucky we are to have had each other for the past 32 years. We tend to use this time to make plans for the upcoming year, and we dare to dream about the many things we could do if we really wanted to change our lives. My most memorable gift this year was the realization that I don’t really want to change very many things about my life. I am such a lucky person. I talked to a lot of people who work a lot harder than I do for a lot less money. I heard stories of hardworking people who sacrifice their personal relationships by spending months at a time away from their families so they can send home their paychecks to make the lives of their loved ones more bearable. I saw a lot of people who were old, in poor health, and a lot who were just unhappy. I saw a lot of families like Jeffrey’s. Physically together, but miles apart emotionally. And I realized that my childhood had been much like that. I wasn’t a bad kid (and I don't think Jeffrey is either) but I could not go to a restaurant, or a playground, or a theme park, without getting jerked up by the arm at some point during the outing and threatened with dire consequences if I did not behave. I don’t have any pleasant childhood holiday memories involving my family. And I think that’s why I was so determined to make Christmas special for my kids. But decorations and cookies and presents aren’t the only things that make memories. Being present, supportive, responsible, thoughtful, and doing no harm—these are the things that make life memorable and filled with hope and strength. I sincerely hope to give and receive these gifts this year. And I hope that someday Jeffrey will look back on this time in his life and have a holiday epiphany.
I will conclude with a poem.
THESE ARE THE THINGS
I WILL REMEMBER
WHEN I’M VERY OLD
the breath-shaking beauty of your body
leaning toward me, hips forward
in ways I never fully understood
the naked longing in your eyes
and the million ways you look at me
as though you know my secrets
you know my secrets
before I do
before I knew you
I was a hollow globe
seldom shaken
and I almost never saw it snow
before you spread into this space behind my eyes
I wore my inspiration like a dark red robe
thought that flying dreams were a gift
learned that lying in your arms
answered the questions
swelling in my chest
formed long before I knew the value
of swelling
or punctuation
you are the coat I wear on Monday
to remember Sunday’s warmth
when I am old
I will remember that spreading my fingers
left beautiful spaces
did not make flying more difficult
did not leave me vulnerable to cold
did not limit the number of times
I was able to touch you
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