When I left the house for my walk this morning, it was a mild, almost warm, morning. Everything was soggy after a night of rain, but it wasn’t raining. I got to the trailhead and got going down the paved local trail I favor, in the pre-dawn darkness. I stepped along contentedly, well rested, and not in much pain at all. Nice start to a merry Giftmas eve day.
Now I’m sitting in the seat of a convenient piece of construction equipment, waiting for a surprise downpour to pass before I continue. It’s raining quite hard. The sun is not yet up, and I listen to the rain in the darkness, pounding the top of the cab of this… bucket loader? I think that’s what it’s called. I don’t remember with certainty, but sitting here I am reminded of a very different time in my life, in a different place. I’m grateful that the cab wasn’t locked. I’m warm and dry. Waiting.
On my way to the trailhead I saw Santa’s reindeer prancing down the road. Not really, but it sure gave that impression to see a group of men running together, decked in holiday lights over their reflective vests, and some wearing fun headgear that looked like antlers. The guy in front was wearing a light-up red nose – very Rudolph. I grinned with delight as I passed. They were singing carols. I sang along as I drove on by. I fucking love this holiday!
… I wish I had a cup of coffee…
Merry Giftmas, y’all! Don’t kill anyone today, please, nor tomorrow. Actually, while we’re talking about it, maybe just don’t kill anyone, ever? Just don’t let your anger or despair get out of hand in that unacceptable fashion, please. Enjoy the holiday. Sit back with a hot cup of something and be merry, sharing comfort, and yes, joy. Phone a far away old friend. Send holiday greetings to people you remember and miss. Share tales of Giftmases past. Give a gift. Give a moment of kindness. Be the change you wish to see in the world. It’s too easy to do better to pass up that chance. ‘Tis the season, after all.
The rain stops. I smile in the darkness and wonder where I might go for a quiet holiday coffee, or whether to simply return home to enjoy the morning in the festive glow of the merrily lit Yule tree? …Or maybe even crawl back into the warm tangle of cozy blankets as my Traveling Partner sleeps, and nap a little myself…? It’s Giftmas eve (day), and I have options. Time to begin again! I finish my writing, and adjust my headlamp and get back on the trail.
My sleep was disturbed and restless and the night seemed to pass slowly. My dreams were unsettling, but not actually nightmares. I went to bed in pain after an unproductive day struggling to manage pain and still get some housework done. The Giftmas holiday is almost here and I’d like the living room to be quite presentable in photographs. Seems reasonable – my pain and energy level may have the last word, in spite of my intentions.
I woke still in pain. (Fuck pain.) I started my day in a routine way. It’s the last work shift for me before the holiday. We settled on fried rice for Giftmas eve dinner; I remind myself to make rice after work today so I have that ready to use for tomorrow evening. After some discussion, we decided a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs, link sausages, and toast would be lovely for Giftmas morning. We all know we’re likely to over-indulge in rich treats and favorite sweets, and a hearty protein-rich breakfast will be a nice balance. My Traveling Partner spoke up in the evening, yesterday, and asked for roast beef for Giftmas dinner. Looks like I need to make a trip to the store for a roast, and some potatoes (for mashing), and a vegetable… and maybe some nice dinner rolls? (I could bake, but fucking hell, I’m just one woman.) It all sounds lovely.
I sit quietly for a moment, just thinking it over. Not planning, or “walking myself through it” in any sort of tactical way, just imagining the moments, the flavors, and the warm sentiment. Family at home for the holidays. Wholesome. There won’t be any shootings or violence at our house over the holidays; that’s not who we are. Hell, there may not be any harsh words or impatience, though we’re human and there certainly could be. There will be love and joy and humor and gratitude and fun. There will be celebration and looking ahead to another year. There will be tasty meals and delightful treats, and gifts to enjoy once opened.
… Here’s an important question; in a household of adults only, is it coffee and breakfast first, or gifts first? I chuckle to myself. I’m like a child over Giftmas and often forget we can easily wait, easily take time with all of it. We can even sleep in, if we can sleep. There’s no rush…
A wonderful Giftmas time
I breathe, exhale, and relax. I’m excited for the holiday, but recognize how easily excitement can become anxiety or irritability. I remind myself to put love first, to listen deeply, to be mindful of social cues and patient with those around me. We’re enjoying this together, but we’re each having our own experience. I sit with my feelings of contentment and quiet excitement. For now, that’s enough.
I have been taking a look back at Giftmas holidays past… Thinking and remembering, and considering the gaps in my recollections, that – in spite of being “gaps” – are part of what makes this holiday so “magical” and wonderful for me.
My childhood memories, though few, are visceral, powerful memories triggered by scents, by colors, by the twinkle of lights in the periphery of my vision on a winter day. They tend to be what continues to provoke me to “chase the dream” and try to hard, year after year, to recapture that magic. (Sometimes this has led me to stray from my path.) I don’t remember early Christmases, aside from a few lingering recollections of a particular gift item – a bicycle with a purple “banana seat”, a Barbie van, a kitchen playset, roller skates… they aren’t attached to years or context, I just remember those things as existing, connected to Christmases past.
The Ghosts of Christmas Magic.
My most intensely magical recollection of Christmas was a particular year… 1972? 1973? The tree stood in a bucket on the front porch, all the way to Christmas Eve. More than once that year my Dad snarled “if you kids don’t behave, there won’t be any Christmas!” Which terrified me to my child-soul. (Was I really that bad?! That Santa wouldn’t come at all…??) I had no understanding of adult hardship, or adult anxiety, or the pressure parents might face to “deliver” on the promise of Christmas to a child.
Two people who understood Christmas magic.
I went to bed that night, the house entirely ordinary in every way, feeling a bit saddened by my apparent naughtiness. I woke later, in the wee hours, to sounds I didn’t understand, and crept down the stairs very quietly – I could see light, around the corner of the landing. I peered down and around, hoping not to be seen, and… the wonder. The pure magic of the tree fully decorated, fully lit, stockings hanging from the mantlepiece. The piled up presents shimmered and sparkled as the tree lights twinkled. Wow! Santa had come!! I ran back up the stairs and crept close to my Dad, sleeping in my parent’s big bed. “Daddy? Daddy!” I wispered, “Santa came! He was here!” My father sleepily replied “You must not have been as naughty as I thought. Go back to sleep for a little while, it’s too early – he’s probably still working on things in the livingroom. If he sees you up, he’ll take it all back.” I raced quietly back to bed, and lay still and awake, listening carefully, for what seemed like hours, until my next youngest sister also woke, and also crept down the stairs, and came hollering back up like a storm “Santa was here! Santa was here!” and waking the household.
The morning became a chaos of wrapping paper shredded then discarded, a fire in the fireplace, and the arrival later of grandparents with more presents, Mom in the kitchen making breakfast, and Daddy making Bloody Mary’s. I only understood later how late into the night they’d been up, sharing the evening over package wrapping and toy assembling and tree decorating, and how little sleep they’d actually gotten that night (because I’d woken up around 5 a.m.) – but the magic lives with me even to this day. Real Christmas magic, created by mortal parents, for the delight of little girls. Beautiful. I don’t remember a single thing I got that Christmas – but I sure remember that Christmas.
Something changed after that Christmas, in a wonderful and unexpected way. The very next Christmas, Santa rather unexpectedly left our stockings at the foot of our beds! I remember waking (again, too early) and seeing/feeling it there… my stocking! Full of… Christmas! I surreptitiously dumped it on my bed, and gently looked through it, certain I shouldn’t be. I crept quietly to my parent’s bedroom, and gently woke my Dad to tell him, “Santa made a mistake and left my stocking on my bed, Daddy!” he opened one eye, reluctantly it seemed, and eyed the clock on his nightstand – 4 a.m. – “Go ahead and open it quietly, Babygirl, it’s okay. You can enjoy anything you find there as long as you’re quiet until at least 7 o’clock. If your sisters wake up, tell them, too, okay? Daddy wants to sleep until 7 o’clock, okay?” “Okay, Daddy,” I wispered, and softly slipped away to my room, closed the door and turned on my light.
Christmas had come! There were chocolates and lollies, and maple sugar candy, and little toys and puzzles, and a necklace of sparkly beads, and a tangerine in the toe of my stocking – I ate it first, feeling very “good” to save the chocolate for later. By 7 a.m., I was waiting impatiently, all sugared up, and so were my sisters. We three went to the door of my parents room promptly at 7 o’clock, “Daddy? Daddy… it’s 7 o’clock. Santa was here. It’s Christmas.” I heard my Mom groan from the other side of the bed. “Ern, couldn’t you have said 9??” (Ever after that Christmas, the stockings were always on the foot of our beds. A tradition I still adore, and what a creative way for exhausted hungover parents to get just a little more sleep. lol)
There were other merry Christmas holidays with family, and I enjoyed them. The holidays with my Granny as a teenager, spent visiting my various aunts and sharing the holiday with younger cousins, were lovely and safe and warm and joyful and full of light and love and tasty homemade cookies. I remember some of those moments, and what I remember I remember quite fondly. They blur together a bit, forming neither recollections of heartache nor recollections of profound joy. That’s okay, too; I know I was loved.
The Ghosts of Christmas Trauma
I’ll tread lightly here, because it’s a bit of a buzz kill; my first marriage was full of violence, terror, and trauma. Peculiarly, it was also were I found my earliest artistic encouragement, and Christmases were strange, sorrowful, scary, beautiful and full of madness. We were both trying to capture magic we remembered, but it all went terribly wrong as often as it ever went right. I developed a real terror around putting lights on the tree, and a profound, lasting, gut-wrenching anxiety that any single light might be placed “incorrectly”, resulting in unspeakable punishment.
The eagerness of Christmas morning was outweighed by the fear that a gift might be the wrong size, or color, or brand, or type of thing. My joy and my terror competed for attention, every year. I have magical memories of the Augsburg Kristkindlesmarket those years that we lived in that beautiful city, but I also remember walking without a coat on a snowy Christmas Day hoping to find any shop open wherein I could buy something special to replace something that wasn’t “good enough”, tears freezing on my face, ankles cold in the snow, shaking as much with fear as with the cold.
The first Yule season holiday after I finally left that nightmare was… strange. My Granny was fearful that I wasn’t ready to be alone, and invited me out to spend Christmas with her. It was lovely and warm and gentle, and I’m so glad I went. It was a time of healing, and I definitely needed that. When I wept over the loss of all my precious ornaments collected over the previous 14 years, she reminded me that I could start over (and she had sent me a box of antique ornaments she knew had been special to me as a child, that I would find waiting for me when I returned home. I still have those). She sent me home with something to think about, too; I could make Christmas over into something that felt right to me. My values. My idea of magical. No fear. The seeds of my own Giftmas traditions were born in that gentle holiday spent with my Granny, in 1995, as we talked about love and marriage and trauma and divorce and the challenges of finding our way through the chaos in life.
Tales of Giftmas Present(s)
Ever since that Christmas back in 1995, I’ve cherished the holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s my own way and shared that love and joy with my partner(s), over various relationships over the years. I have ornaments from so many years – each year I add at least one new one, something special that says something about the year that has passed, and what made it special.
This year’s special ornament, made by my beloved Traveling Partner, favorite “sticker” characters we have swapped back and forth in our DMs all year, Peach and Goma.
I think about my Dear Friend, and Giftmases we shared over the years. So many special ones.
I enjoy really celebrating each year as it draws to a close. I love finding gifts to delight friends, family, loved ones. I love filling stockings each Giftmas Eve. I enjoy the shopping. The wrapping. The presents under the tree. I love the memories – year by year new beautiful memories add to those that have come before, crowding out the memories of terror or of sorrow. I remember the gifts, and the moments, and the love, every year. It’s not about gifts for me (though I definitely do love presents!); it’s about the gratitude, the appreciation, the fondness, and the celebration – and showing that joy through gift-giving as a tradition. The giving (and even the shopping) is a special thing of its own, and it has importance to the celebration, for me. Giftmas is built on these moments of giving and sharing: shared moments of light in a world that sometimes feels filled with darkness, moments to share “enough” and make it feel bountiful, and moments to set aside life’s challenges in favor of shared comfort and joy.
That very first Giftmas I spent with my Traveling Partner is a particularly fond memory filled with adult holiday magic, joy, and love. 2010. We had moved in together, and we didn’t have a lot (we’d both recently been through bad breakups and a lot of upheaval, moving suddenly had been very costly). We didn’t make much money, and rent was a bigger piece of our budget than ideal. It was hard times. We were doing our best, and agreed that maybe this year we’d “just skip Giftmas”. Wasn’t love enough, after all? I didn’t cry over it (at least not where he could see me), because it just made sense. Practical. Real. We were, after all, both adults.
I came home from work feeling a little blue one cold afternoon to a little tree in the corner of the livingroom, decorated for Giftmas, lights ornaments and little presents underneath. I remember the happy tears, and the joy on his face to see me so delighted. I remember his strong arms around me. I remember the love. More Giftmas magic. No fear. No sorrow.
So much love captured in a moment.
One of the most beautiful things my Traveling Partner did for me was buy me my first pre-lit fake tree, so I wouldn’t have to string the lights every year. He had seen (the prior year, before we moved in together) how much it hurt me, and how I struggled happy/sad with it, and he made it right. (I fucking love that guy.) Another beautiful memory of Giftmas magic. The real caring and consideration, the thoughtfulness, and the love; if I hadn’t understood how much these are part of Giftmas before, I surely knew then.
Along the way there have been so many lovely holidays. Beautiful moments. Giftmas magic. Thanksgiving feasts and New Years’ toasts. It’s a beautiful season and I do it my way – I’ve learned. There have been ups and downs and challenges, and years when there just wasn’t any money to be fancy, and years when somehow things were amazing in spite of that. Eventually, I enjoyed some Giftmas holidays “all alone” – and I enjoyed those my way, too. They were beautiful and bright and full of love, and solitude did not diminish that. One of those is among my favorites.
The more recent years are reflected in my writing (and I’ve grown along the way):
I sit for moment, thinking about how fortunate I am, and how far I’ve come. I’m grateful for every sparkle of Giftmas magic, and every year that I’ve enjoyed some little moment that continues to stand out for me now. No doubt there’s more to say, and I thought I had some kind of point… I guess I’m saying “begin again” when things seem to be sliding sideways unexpectedly. Put love first, and take care of yourself. Be kind and be compassionate and thoughtful, and take time to enjoy little moments of joy and delight – and make the holiday magic on your own terms. It’s not a contest, or a race, and there’s no report card at the end. There’s nothing to live up to that you didn’t make up on your own. I smile and sigh to myself, feeling content, feeling merry, feeling grateful and incredibly fortunate – and excited about Giftmas day. It’s only 3 days away!
I woke during the night, and it was the strangest thing. I turned over, and the vertigo that washed over me woke me abruptly. I thought it was near time to wake up anyway, so I laid still and quiet, and quite straight and flat on my back, waiting for the vertigo to pass. Once it did, which seemed rather a long while later, awake in the darkness, I checked the time. 02:55. Definitely not time to get up. I made myself more comfortable and went back to sleep. There was a Billy Joel song stuck in my head, which seemed peculiar enough to wonder why, as I drifted off to sleep.
I woke again later, properly time to get up and head for the trail. My vertigo spun my senses as I tried to orient myself. Damn it, why now? It passes and I sit up, aware of the intensity of the pain in my neck and back. Rough. I’m feeling pretty fucking mortal this morning and find myself worrying about making things as easy as possible on my Traveling Partner should my mortality catch up with me unexpectedly… Time to focus on paying off debts and fattening up savings and having things properly in order… But… For fucks sake isn’t it always time for those things? I sigh quietly and get up. I’ve got shit to do, and the morning begins here, now.
My day begins in earnest with the kitchen sink backing up first thing. What the absolute fuck?! Are you kidding me with this shit?! I snarl quietly to myself, aggravated with someone’s carelessness. Eggshells jammed into the drain, but not down into the disposal, and the strainer cup placed over those, so it wasn’t evident that they were there. Of course they didn’t go through the disposal that way. G’damn it. I try so hard to be quiet in the morning but I definitely can’t walk away with the fucking sink backed up. I roll up my sleeves and clear the clog. So gross. First fucking thing in the morning, too; I’m barely fucking awake and I’m not ready for this bullshit. Fixed. I wash my hands and head out, still annoyed.
The drive to the trailhead is quiet and pleasant. By the time I get parked I’m over being mad about the sink, but I definitely wish the Anxious Adventurer would take a little more basic care moment to moment, particularly in the fucking kitchen and in the shop. That kind of careless bullshit gets shit broken, or gets people hurt, or creates risk of injury or food-born illness. It’s too easy to get it right. It irritates me that he makes extra work for me so often. (I know he doesn’t mean to.) I sigh quietly. It begins to rain. My tinnitus is loud in my ears. My neck and back ache ferociously, a column of pain rising from my waist to the base of my skull. Fuck pain. I don’t feel much like walking in a drizzle in the pre-dawn darkness, uncertain whether my vertigo may flare up again, so I meditate, and write a bit, and wait for a break in the rain.
I’ve a couple errands to run for my Traveling Partner this morning, and think about stopping in town for a quiet coffee and a visit to the art supply store… No reason, really, it just sounds fun and satisfying. It’s a nice day to do something for myself, too.
The rain continues to fall. I listen to the raindrops on the car roof and sit quietly with my thoughts until it’s time to begin again.
I’m sipping my coffee in the quiet of the office, quite early. It was raining too hard to walk in the darkness. Honestly, it was raining too hard to walk. I would not have enjoyed it, and enjoying it is at least part of my intention, each morning, each walk. So I made the drive in to the office, early. I took time to meditate. I made coffee. I had some oatmeal. I walked the halls of the building, a bit, just to stretch my legs and be in motion. I feel stiff. It’s the arthritis, most likely. My head aches. Probably my neck. My tinnitus is loud. It is what it is, eh? A very human, very mortal, experience, and I guess I’m okay with it. There are not presently “other alternatives” from which I’d care to choose something else. I’ve got this, it’s okay, and it’s enough.
I sip my coffee thinking about a note on my calendar I spotted this morning. It reminds me that 12 years ago tomorrow was the day I found out the details of my (most serious) TBI. A head injury in the 1970s that wiped most of my memory, and set back my cognitive and intellectual (and emotional) progress considerably, but which my parents sort of… “kept from me”. I don’t remember the injury itself (hell, I don’t remember most of my life from before that injury, either, mostly just a strange assortment of third person stories told to me by other family members is what I’ve got in the place where my own memory should be, and damned few of those). I do remember having to go to speech therapy. I remember suddenly needing glasses, and being profoundly light sensitive and having a lot of headaches. I remember getting terrible grades in school, when I’d always had good grades “before”.
I found out about my adolescent TBI 12 years ago, because I was in such despair that as I approached 50 taking my own life seemed a rational “solution”, but I’d made myself a promise to give therapy one more try (it was the last item on my to-do list), and I was trying to get into a PTSD clinical trial for a new treatment. In considering my application for that trial, they turned up the microfiche records of an emergency room visit and hospital admission for my (serious) head injury. It was… news to me. The new information simultaneously explained a lot, and also brought a ton of new questions with it. Pieces fell into place – which was useful – but I suddenly also felt like I “didn’t know myself”, and that the entire context of my adolescence and early adult life was completely different than I’d understood it to be. My whole sense of “who I am” felt changed.
…The information did nothing to reduce my feeling of despair, and may have actually deepened it. It also very nearly cost me my relationship with my Traveling Partner; we were neither of us certain that I was even truly competent to be in the relationship we shared at all, with this information available to us. I was so close to giving up…
A short time later, I started this blog. A short time after that, I found a new therapist, and started a new healing journey with a completely different understanding of where I stood as I began it.
The note on my calendar asks me to consider it, and some questions – a note from past me to me here, now.
Is the knowledge still important to me?
What does it mean to me now?
What does the knowledge add to, or take from, my every day experience?
How do I make use of this knowledge in a productive way, today?
Does knowing this about myself improve how I treat myself, or other people?
Deep. Worthy of reflection. I sip my coffee and consider the questions, as I consider that past moment when I found out. The tone of compassionate regret in the voice of the woman on the phone advising me I could not be accepted into their clinical trial for a PTSD treatment because of my history of head trauma. My feeling of surprise, of curiosity, of sorrow, of deepening despair. The call to my mother later to ask about it, and that painful moment when she hung up on me rather than discuss it. The hurt. None of that feels particularly difficult or visceral now, but it was so hard to live those moments 12 years ago. Now it’s just… information. Part of the background. Historical data. A step on a path.
This particular head injury wasn’t the only head trauma I sustained (it’s tempting to say something flippant about domestic violence being a kick in the head, but it’s not actually funny, at all), but it was new information 12 years ago, and it did lead me to consider things differently, and to learn more about what the potential consequences of such things really could be. It pushed me to consider different kinds of therapy, for problems other than PTSD. It let me put other injuries and traumatic events into a bigger picture that was more complete. It let me get therapy and rehabilitative support that I’d never been offered (or able to accept) before – and never known to ask for, or seek out. I wasn’t sure it would help to try to rehabilitate a head injury that was decades old…
(tl;dr – it totally did, a lot)
…It’s a strange path that we each walk, is it not? A journey with no map, no clear destination, sometimes a poor understanding of the starting point as we begin is… a very strange thing, indeed. The journey is the destination. I feel grateful for the many chances I’ve had (and taken) to begin again. I’m grateful for every sunrise I see, and every sunset I’m fortunate to enjoy at the end of a day. There’s no knowing how much time we get in this mortal life. I’m glad I didn’t end mine prematurely; it’s been a worthy journey so far. I hope to go much further. There’s so much left to do, to see, and to feel. So many more beginnings to undertake, and practices to practice, and also… I’ve got this list of shit to do, and the holidays ahead. lol It’s time. Again. Time to begin again. Time to walk my path. Time to practice the practices that have helped me along the way for the past 12 years.
Evening Light 