Claim, the First: The road was not slick. It was wet and cold and the moisture in the air was just beginning to freeze, but that iciness was no match for the little heater in the wee little car that could. worry as we might and worry though we did, habit and knowledge won the day and we stopped for gas, and still arrived home in one sane piece. All astonishment.
Claim, the Second: We were, unexpectedly, treated to a moment of actual awareness of all that there is to be grateful for during this time of year. At work, we hosted a special event and the presence in the offbeat part of town where we hosted our holiday-themed event was a complete surprise to a traveling visitor and his family.
He stumbled upon it, and curiosity gripped his three young children.
Despite not having the fee, they clearly wanted to go through and see the dazzling lights, the lure of Christmas that surely most if not all children (we must account for the Wednesday Adamses of the world) are elated by when it’s plated before them so fervently and with almost an impossible amount of Christmas energy to hook them.
One of the children asked their father for a Christmas tree this year and we all bit our lips as he demurred. The hope on their little faces, oh! It seemed their situation did not allow for Christmas trees, they were on the move. There was slightly fraught moment observed before we were able to offer a greatly reduced fee if they wanted to come through. The father accepted and the children passed through with such glee you would have thought that the whole of Christmas morning was through those arches. They enjoyed themselves, you could see, immensely and then the whole family wandered back out onto the street to do who knows what or where for their Thanksgiving. The weather was starting to turn, of course, and the mother was pregnant and you realize how inept and helpless you can be when you’re faced with someone’s real need, but if, perhaps, we made those kids happy for a half an hour, made them feel like a family and Okay as Anne Lamott puts it, well, maybe it’s not nothing.
Claim, the Third: My adventure is of a particularly satisfying sort because it is entirely reliant upon my own creativity and werewithal to continue. It goes as I go, stops as I stop, and arrives the moment I open the door to it. It is lovely because it harkens back to a silly little childhood where I was made such magic for myself constantly. I used to think these were two separate ways of being. That you could have a magical life and feel the mysteries of the universe, the waves ebb and flow around you, the Divine within and all of that jazzy jazz or you could be a slick, straightforward, successful, materialized upon the material plane sort of lady. Short skirt, long jacket or Glinda the Good Fairy. That never the twain shall meet. I think this is wrong. I think the twain meet right at the intersection of my spine and shoulders. I think within me is the origin of universes. Soft, spongy, intersecting galaxies. I think I carry around like a goldfish in a bowl, this unbeatable center that pulls all else towards it. I think I have tried to live in the spaces between all that, but I am starting to see with this adventure, how much more integrated my parts and pieces really are.
