Another Day in the Country
Sending Christmas cheer
© Another Day in the Country
Today I sat down to write my column. It’s 8 o’clock in the morning.
I have carried my breakfast of a cup of Korean coffee and a bagel with creamed cheese on top into the office and set them on the desk beside the mouse I manipulate to bring up a “page” on my computer so that I can write with this little ineffective keyboard that young inventors think is convenient. It isn’t.
I smile as I approach the subject, pick up my cup, take a sip of very hot coffee, and think, this will soon be cold. It always happens.
Once I start writing, all else is forgotten. It is only the sound of my fingers hitting the keys, the ring of my thumb glancing off the desktop as I space between words, the warmth of the lamp light falling on the desk.
I am in another world as I write, remembering how things were, choosing what to say, framing the sentence or silence a notion as too obtuse or too vulnerable for printing in a newspaper.
Meanwhile, the coffee grows cold, and the bagel hardens.
Only when I am done do I notice that there’s a second dish here on the desk — a white one, five by eight inches, with bamboo imprints on the edges, sitting there from the last time I sat down to write.
Was that yesterday? A week ago? How can that be?
I notice my answering machine is blinking
“Hello, this is your daughter. I’m just calling to say hi. I’ve already used the purse you brought me for Christmas. I wore it with a cream-colored outfit, boots, and everyone said ‘Oh, that fur purse looks just like you, Jana. Where did you get it?’ And oh, I’ve two funny stories to tell you when we finally talk. Remind me to tell you. Love you. Goodbye”
“Hello. Hello? I am trying to find Pat. Are you running for the phone? Sorry I forgot the code. Are you outside? Are you in Abilene exercising? Are you there at all? Oh, well.”
Click. She hangs up.
Amazing what I discover when I come into this office and sit down at this desk. I had proposed to talk about belonging this week. But in this instance, all the deep intriguing thoughts I was thinking earlier are gone into a muddle of distraction.
I figured out how to put photos from my phone onto the television set as a screen saver so when I pause a program I’m watching, familiar pictures appear on the screen,
There’s last year’s elf-on-a-shelf displays that Jess hid all over my house at Christmas. There’s my grandson grinning at me. I smile remembering the occasion the photo was taken. I love that sudden reminder of happy times. It always surprises me, continues to be unexpected.
Just seeing my grandson’s picture on the TV made me pick up my phone and text him.
“I just saw you on the TV, so I’m stopping to say hi. Your mom tells me you found someone to play tennis with. I always knew that learning tennis was a good thing for you, and you’re so good at it. Have fun!”
I love texting — the ability to shoot a thought out into the air where someone can pick it up at any time. They don’t have to run to answer the phone. You really aren’t bothering them, stopping them from something they are doing. It’s worry-free communication — a wonderful invention for someone who types.
Although, pause, I have a friend who doesn’t like texts, doesn’t write them, doesn’t read them, doesn’t respond to them, and I’m bewildered. How could you not like texts?
I have another friend who can’t see well enough to read texts. Her, I understand. I miss sending her pictures. Everyone knows how I love taking pictures. It seems I’ve always had a camera in one hand and a writing pen in the other. What would I do without pictures to document, to remind, to comfort me?
Speaking of comfort, decorating for holidays is a comforting thing. When I was in California, we decorated my daughter’s house for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. We did it as a family, enjoying every moment because we knew we wouldn’t be together later in December. Of course, I took pictures.
And now, here I am approaching the middle of the Christmas month, and I still have not done any decorating for Christmas here at my own home in Ramona.
The same Indian display of headdresses and cornhusk dolls that I put up six months ago still resides on top of the credenza in the living room. Fall leaves still adorn the table in the hall. Yellow and orange fall-colored dishes are still in the place of importance in the china cupboard where we eat. The tablecloth still spells “fall.”
What happened to Christmas? It’s been overshadowed by trips to California, that’s what.
Is there still time to start decorating in the middle of December when I’ll have to remove it all in two weeks to stay current? Or do I just skip it this year?
I suddenly remember visiting my old friend Dr. Shaw when he still lived in his own home in Michigan. I arrived to visit right before Christmas. There were no lights, no tree, no Christmas hullabaloo anywhere in the house.
I was in my 40s. He was approaching 80. And I said, “What? No tree? We must have one.”
He said, “It’s too much work.”
I insisted. “No work at all. It’s fun.”
And I went and got a tree, decorated it, and attempted to fill the house with Christmas cheer.
He said, “When you’re gone, my cleaning lady will just have to take it all down.”
I didn’t understand how anyone could refuse to decorate for Christmas. Who cares if you have to take it all down later? No problem. After all, joy is a fleeting thing. You have to grab it, hold it, appreciate it.
And here I am now, an octogenarian, on another day in the country, with Christmas approaching, and wondering about decorating.