Holiday Circus

Originally Posted Monday, November 25, 2013

The Holidays are here.  Let's have some fun.  It doesn't have to be of the usual sort, codified and sanctioned.  We can simply take a walk into parts unknown.  It doesn't even have to be that unknown.  Just to us.  It might even be going to a place you often go but at a different time or day of the week.  The difference is bound to do something good.  My mother is retired and seems often bored.  I'll call her and ask her what she is doing.  She'll tell me in a downbeat voice filled with lethargy, "Oh, nothing.  I'm playing games on the computer."  And I wonder at that.  I tell her she should go here or go there, but she doesn't.  I haven't gotten where she is yet, so I don't want to be judgmental and naive, and I won't damn her for it.  But driving down the road on my way away from work (I had snuck out early), I looked at all the businesses in little shopping plazas and corner stores that I never even notice.  What would it be like to pick out two or three a day and just go there to see?  An Arabian sandwich shop or a knitting store?  Eventually, I think, something could turn a life around.  A conversation with an unlikely person, a movement or an action or a piece of yarn.  Who knows?  It could be better than watching television. 

Speaking of which. . . did I already tell you that I saw the movie "Garden State" on HBO the other night?  I'd never seen it.  I wonder why?  It reminded me a bit of a Wes Anderson film.  And the soundtrack was just as good, too.  Here is the song that got me (link).  I can't quit listening to it.  Why had I missed this song, anyway?  I had an embarrassed affection for The Shins when their first album came out.  If you haven't seen the film and get the chance, I think it is a good film for Thanksgiving. 

Thanksgiving will be spent in town this year.  My mother and I are foregoing the hillbilly holidays.  I was surprised, really, at my mother's lack of interest in going.  In actuality, the hillbillies are now a younger generation than my mother who is the last representative of hers is, I guess (though I've never thought of this before) the family's matriarch.  The newer hillbillies are modernized versions, a bit cleaner and, of course, t.v. and internet savvy.  I still get a kick out of them, though, but the stories are not as good as they once were.  Whoa. . . I am making myself sad. 

So onto better things like a walk into the unknown.  Maybe I'll head to a marsh or a savanna in the gray dampness of an autumn day.  I used to do it all the time.  Where and how does it all get turned around? No doubt you will call me one day and ask me what I am doing, and I, in turn, will tell you in a downbeat, lethargy-filled voice. . . . But not this week.  Let's do something fun.  Life is still a cabaret, or at least a carnival.  Let's head off to that big old holiday circus.  It will be fun.  Big, big fun.