Adapt or Die

Originally Posted Saturday, December 21, 20013

The holidays upon me now, I crash.  There was the slight morning mania yesterday knowing I would have some time off from the factory, but that wore off and all that remained was fatigue.  Nothing has changed but that I don't have to go to work.  The chores that face me are no more glamorous than they were before, and my life is no less challenging, no more interesting.  I have no Christmas spirit this year, none at all, but I think it is not me.  I do not see it in children.  Christmas as it was, as I remember it and want it to be, was a cultural moment, and the moment is gone.  Adapt or Die.  The lights and decorations around my neighborhood are but a tribute to a thing long gone.  They are for the adults who remember.  Children are not enthralled.  The computer brings much more excitement than some string of lightbulbs on a gutter or a bush.  When I was a kid, we all would look at the lights in the growing dusk with a deep sense of mystery and reverence.  What if reindeer really did no how to fly?  It was too dangerous not to hold out a smidgen of hope, and even more significant, it was not so very much fun not to believe slightly.  Of course I knew some very bad kids whose families were dysfunctional and violent, and they saw Christmas decorations as a chance to do something bad, and you disliked their miscreant ways intensely (though you kept quiet as you did not wish to become the victim of their hatreds), but you knew that their lives were horribly haunted by incest and beatings and alcoholism, and you felt happy when you were away from them and their misery and back into your own fantastical world of Christmas specials and wonder. 

I do know a boy, though, who is rapidly growing up but who will surely always remember his Christmases playing hide and seek among the storefronts and blind alcoves of the Boulevard and ice skating in the park on cool southern nights. 

But this year, I am simply tired and am glad for the days and evenings off.  I may even get into my studio again.  Such a backlog of things.  But look at Aunt Thelma in this picture.  She makes me think of naughty holiday parties and the desire of men to have a Christmas surprise all their own.  What is it about her?  Holy smokes! 

The Christian Spirit still endures, though, and there are people who remain devout even in the face of horror.  A woman whose husband--a school teacher in Libya--was just shot down in Benghazi claims that she loves his murderers.  It is surely the spirit of God that moves her, she says (story).  There is much to inspire there.

This day will be like summer with high temperatures in the mid-eighties.  The sky is a high blue, and I think to take a little sun.  I shall work out early at the gym, have a very healthy lunch, write the holiday cards that I will mail today, and go Christmas shopping for my mother.  Tonight I plan to watch a movie whether at the little art cinema house ("Nebraska") or something here at home.  I will grill those vegetables I have yet to buy and continue drinking lots of herbal teas.  You cannot imagine the benefits of such a lifestyle except for social.  A non-drinker truly has nothing to offer a gathering.  He is best left to stay alone to wonder at the benefits of not drinking.  He knows that drinking is lots of fun and knows that his time is in the daylight when there is no excuse needed for not drinking.  But non-drinkers should not go out at night to spoil other people's fun.  They are a weakness and a stain upon the night.  Darkness is their cover and they should take themselves to bed.  I am an appropriate non-drinker, I promise you.  I will envy rather than spoil your fun.  But, oh!, you will wonder at me in the daylight.  There, of course, I am a true miracle of delight.