Christmases Past

I have a few entries in draft format, but none that I'm ready to let go of yet. So here are some poems, a journal entry, and an artist's statement representative of my Christmases Past.

Year-Old Tinsel
(1975)
Someone’s always left out at Christmas
Lonely homework,
Dead wrapping paper,
Year-old tinsel,
Broken ornaments,
Burned out lights,
Gifts to be returned.


Golden Chains
(1975 or 1976)

Sometimes
Golden bracelets sparkle up
and blend into meaningless round glows of light,
reminding me of the time
when I looked out the windowpane one rainy winter night,
and was captivated so by the Christmascolored radiance
of the lines of tiny Christmas lights.
(They shine in carefully wrought imagelessness
those fragments of random artists’ innocence:
I thought:
All the goods of our hearts are here.)

Sometimes I sit
pretending to meditate, blending into nothingness,
yet overwhelmed by overlapping brightnesses:
Too full of tears, too full of hate.
Guilty, I go over every memory,
and even while splintering time into these
fragments of shouldn’t-have-done seconds,
I think:
If only all the goods of our hearts were here.


12/9/03

Usually in December I want to buy myself presents. This year, there is no money to buy myself, or anyone else, any presents. So instead I bought some materials with which to make Christmas decorations, donated a $15 gift for a woman at a local shelter, and signed up to participate in two Secret Santas to the tune of $10 apiece. Of course I can’t spend nothing, even when that’s what I should do.

What’s very clear to me, in spirit, is that Christmas is all about decoration. That’s always been true for me, but this year in particular. Part of me is mourning my cousin Kelly, who created beauty out of branches and berries and had a lot more artistic integrity than I do--she was a pure naturalist, pure minimalist, never seduced by a bit of gold or glitter. Part of me is playing around with the meaning of the word “gift.” It’s rare, strange, new for 2003, but I feel like giving--not getting. I want to take materials, make them into stuff, and in the making create stuff that is of value. I want to give this value to other people, even if only by putting it in a place where others will see and admire it. Some might call that exercising a gift.

Be that as it may, I can’t really make any efforts, apart from decking out the front of my house, as I am limited in resources and limited in time. So, nobody’s getting nothing, and I am being ostrich-head-in-the-sand. It would be appropriate to say, now, in a timely way, “I can’t afford to exchange presents with you this year.” But I am not ’fessing up to my friends. As [my husband] might ask--I hear his voice in my head--“And why is that, [my name]?”

The other thought pattern that’s operating right now, and the one that’s interfering with Responsible Adulthood, is that Christmas and the Winter Solstice are the season of miracles, where light and glitter usher in all kinds of surprising grace. Kindness. Triumph. Unsurpassed glory. I’m convinced Santa Claus and his eight flying reindeer will land in the undisturbed field of snow at the farm across the way. I can hear the bells already. I am as rational as a child, and I await a new birth. I wonder if there’s anything Christian about it.


The Snowflakes of 2003

A performance piece celebrating the Christmas season, derived from a desire to be known and to “belong” in a new business setting, The Snowflakes of 2003 exceeded expectations. It made people happy.

The project was created without a budget and in haste. Working with standard photocopying paper over a period of several days, the artist cut out about fifty snowflakes, each with a different six-pointed design. Without unfolding any of the snowflakes, she put them into a small basket, and on December 19, 2003, brought the basket around to colleagues in her office. Without saying what was in the basket, she invited each person to “pick one.” While the intention was to include as many people was possible, there was a strong element of chance and a little bit of impulsiveness involved in determining who actually had the opportunity to make a selection. Nobody who was approached declined the offer. A few were puzzled, but almost everyone expressed delight when they realized what they had received.

The magic of selecting and the element of surprise in unfolding transported adults back to the innocence of their childhood; the face-to-face contact imparted meaning; and the humble nature of the material, paper, coupled with the individual nature of each snowflake design, completely bypassed any sense of mass commercialism. Through a series of actions of uncommon simplicity, Snowflakes 2003 redefined the experience of giving and receiving a “gift” and, perhaps, enabled participants to connect with the true spirit of Christmas.