Happy Hollydays

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a laptop was on, they even unplugged the mouse.

Their wish lists was posted in the blogosphere

Knowing that Santa would read it with care.

The rugrats were nestled all snug in their beds

While visions of iPods danced in their heads.

With mom in her flannel and dad in his shorts

While the house filled with snoring reports.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter

Dad sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Someone was tangled over the Christmas display

A fat man in red with eight reindeer and a sleigh!

The fat man moved fast for someone his size

Untangled himself and disappeared with surprise

Santa had arrived, landing on the roof

Bringing incontrovertible proof.

He was chubby and plump, with a big round belly

That shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

So dad took the cookies & milk and hid them away

Obesity is pandemic and wasn’t okay.

He had all sorts of presents and left them with glee

iPhones, iPads, and Blu-Ray DVDs

And laying his finger aside of his nose

And giving a nod, out the window he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle

And away they all flew like a heat seeking missile

But I heard his exclaim, ‘ ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

Silent Realization

I found this old photo and I looked at the child I used to be and I remembered. I have a hole in my heart, an intangible something missing inside me. As a child, I knew it instinctively. I looked at the world through big, dark, melancholy eyes. 

I listened to the world around me, a perfect child; I spoke only when spoken too, seen but not heard. But my mind roiled in poignant observations. The silent accusatory look to the nurse who promised me the shot wouldn’t hurt. The sheer indignation when my nanny slipped me a lump of coal when I was a child, because I didn’t deserve a lump of coal. I was a good girl! But I held my tongue, nanny always knew me better than anyone else, ever. Perhaps she saw into my quiet silences and saw the potential mischief in my eyes.

Then I grew older, left my nanny and my childhood behind. The painful battle with puberty that seemed to turn that missing piece into a large gaping black hole of deep, inconsolable grief left me weak with doubt. Then adulthood, when I learned that perhaps I could fill the hole with fair weather friends, loose morals, cheap liquor and fast cars.  I threw bits and pieces of hearts and lives that I touched and left. Mad moments of sheer abandon, poor judgment and bad mistakes.

Now, I find that I have silently, subconsciously, filled the hole with a hardened cement of sour grief and ashes of regrets.

If I could, I would break the cement and drain the grief, to find room for the love I have missed.  

First Snow

First snow arrived

With its chill of winter frost

While Summer's last rose

Bends her head and weeps

Just The Way She Is

I’ve started listening to this song by Bruno Mars called “Just The Way You Are” and I’ve noticed that my friends don’t like it because 1)it’s horribly sappy 2)It’s patronizing to women.

I can’t disagree with the sappy description, it is sappy. But isn’t ‘sappy’ a requirement for a love song? I like the silly song; it doesn’t make me think too hard. When I hear the song, its upbeat tune shakes up the grey doldrums of my day. The chorus is:

 “When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change, cuz you’re amazing, just the way you are. And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while, cuz girl you’re amazing just the way you are!”

Now the patronizing accusation is based on someone saying, that he’s singing about a very insecure woman and by extension, all women. I can’t assume to know what the songwriter was thinking when he wrote the song. I really don’t care; this is a cute little ditty that by next year this time I will have forgotten.

I like the chorus, because I know of one particular woman who fits the description of being beautiful with a smile that can stop the world turning on its axis (that’s a whole other story). But the more I thought about it, I can’t really agree that it’s a patronizing song, I over analyzed and came up with this hypothesis.

We live in a culture where young teen girls are considering plastic surgery to enhance their features, but to what end? Is every teenage girl going to be a movie star? Do they all need to look like one? Why? Are th

ey doing it with the hopes that boys will like them more or because they need to like themselves more?

When considered under that premise, can’t we just enjoy a boy telling a girl that he thinks she perfect just the way she is?

Birth

Into this world we are born, a wailing ball of detritus. We scream our fury; instinctively we know the fight before us. Do we challenge the fates then, with our wrinkly balled little fists? Or do we scream in frustration, only knowing hope as we learn the ropes of despair? Do we instinctively know that we are born alone, live alone, die alone and bemoan our destiny? Or is the scream one of anger and challenge, denying the darkness?

When we open our eyes, did we greet it with wondering awe or cold, angry disdain? Or are our eyes fresh sponges, waiting to absorb everything it sees? When does the spark of innocence in our eyes turn to blazing flames of passion? When does the passion slow to embers before it fades away?

I've been told I was born with an 'old soul', do my eyes look as if they have already seen too much after a day of life? 

Shadow

The reason we sleep at night is to allow our brains to rest, our minds to stop and our hearts to lie still. So when we stay past the stroke of midnight, the darkness starts to seep into the crevices of your heart and the madness begins.

The things you hide in the light of day return to consume you. The doubts, the fears grow with every waking moment that slowly gives way to the fatigue. But you struggle against that inevitable sleep. Your mind refuses to yield, your heart grows weary and the brain stops being logical. 

There’s no one to tell you it will be all right, there’s no one you believe can make things right and you rue the day of your birth because every moment has been nothing but a lingering agony. Life is not a gift, it’s a curse and you drown in your self-pity.

You give in to those dark moments when everything seems bleak and hopeless. As if tomorrow the sun will never shine, the future is just another looming abyss and you wonder if to jump means not because you want to fly, but because you want to die.

Your mind wanders across great stretches of emptiness, as you heart sheds its final tear and you become just another shadow, waiting to disappear.

Fighting the Doubts

Tear streaked windows, lashed by the early autumn storms; the road is slick beneath me. Twisting lonely roads slip by as ribbons of grey in a canvas of black night. I hazard to rush, the night slips from me, a slicked down flash of lightening. I flee into the night, searching for my destination. A turn, a curve, each mile an adventure of shadows and unknowns; it is deception and darkness.

Suddenly a turn opens into an expanse of wide, roaring surf and I’m buffeted by winds that snap angrily. I am rocked in my perspective and I must stop and pay homage to the majesty that is nature and all her surprises.

I stop in that moment, pondering the night, wondering where to proceed next. Each stop is simply a destination, a temporary respite. But where is my goal? Where am I supposed to be  tonight, tomorrow, next week or for the rest of my life?

Last night, I dismiss the doubts; in my numbed state of fatigue hoping the morning will find my sorrow alleviated and my hopes restored. Yet the bright sun of the morning glistens and bounces off dappled diamond sparkles amidst the leaves on the trees. The sun’s brilliance reflected on the surface of the lake. The beauty takes my breath away but just as quickly, the dark clouds of doubt rush back and beat upon my battered soul.

Life is fleeting, traces erase easily, but make your mark upon the shifting sands of time and know, every moment, how ever brief is worthy of song and celebration.

I will fight fiercely to find joy even if the fight never ends. Even if the moments are just fragments, sparse and small. I will piece together a mosaic of joy and happiness, imperfect, unfinished, but mine!