Blue Christmas

My friend's church held a special service last night, at which I completed my only musical assignment of the Christmas season.  The service was called "Blue Christmas", and it was designed for people who weren't especially merry this holiday season, for people who were mourning the loss of a loved one, of a job, of their health. It was for people who felt blue, instead of red or green or sparkly gold.

I'll admit up front that I'm not always a "happy Christmas" person.  Even as a child, I felt some poignant sadness about this season.  The whole birth of Jesus story kind of upset me (how awful to make that long trip and be turned away at the inn, forced to have a baby in a barn!)  Even looking at photos of the lovely virgin mother and her baby made me sad, knowing what would happen to her child just 33 years later.

And though I'm a pretty regular church-goer, I'm not a terribly religious person.  I'm not sure I'd even call myself a spiritual person anymore.  After five and half decades of living in the real world, my capacity for wonder has diminished somewhat.  Still, the burnished hues of autumn, a canopy of sparkling stars in the night sky, even a perfectly turned melody or a smartly crafted sentence can stir my passion.  And whatever your religious beliefs, or your feelings about the divinity of Jesus, who can dispute the miraculous influence of this simple man whose legacy created the largest religious movement in the world?

As the song goes, Jesus was a man who was acquainted with grief.  Reading the Bible, you get the sense that here was a man who knew what hardship was, who understood that suffering took its toll on the common man, but that also believed there were ways to mitigate life's inevitable sadness with hope and love.

The minister at last night's service was very reflective of those ideas.  He, too, obviously understands sorrow and grief - he described it to a "T."   The sense of being stuck in one place, unable to move, as if you're mired in quicksand.  The way it  hits  you in the face every morning when you wake up, struck fresh with the memory of your loss.  Most of all, the way it saps your strength, the bone breaking weariness of carrying such a heavy burden, of being so tired and weary of it all.

Since we were in church, this was the place in the story where Jesus entered.  "Come all ye who are weary," He says, "and I will give you rest."

Rest.

The sweetest word in the world to those worn down with grief.  When we're burdened by sadness, loss, despair, doubt, Christianity tells us that Jesus will walk beside us and carry that burden for a while.  "It doesn't happen in an instant," the minister said last night.  "It's not magic.  But it's possible, it's available, it's there if you reach out your hand.  You are not alone."

There weren't a lot of people in the sanctuary - at first just a handful, and then later, another handful, until it was finally a respectable armload of folks who scattered themselves along the pews.  There were young and old, an elderly couple who I heard had just lost their only son.  A young woman, all alone, who knelt and genuflected, even though this was a Presbyterian church where that isn't ever done.

The altar itself was adorned with about 50 small votive candles, and after the message, people were invited to come forward, light a candle, and speak the name or names of those persons they were holding in their hearts. I was a bit skeptical whether people would feel free to do this.  In the protestant tradition, we don't go in much for candle lighting or naming.  But the moment the invitation was made, people practically surged to the front, the elderly couple I mentioned earlier one of the first in line.

Arm in arm, they approached the altar, and with trembling hands, lit the tiny candle.  Leaning into the microphone, he spoke  -"Jeffrey David Prichard, our son."

There were people who spoke loudly and clearly, those whose voices were only a whisper. They hugged one another as they left the chancel and returned to their pews.  I had been asked to play softly during this time, and while I had prepared a lovely, simple version of Silent Night, I ended up quickly turning to another piece in the collection I had brought.  And at the close of that, still another.

I've been fighting a sinus infection for days now, and physically I'm tired.  I'm carrying some other sadnesses around too, so emotionally I'm tired.  Before I went into that service last night, I wanted nothing more than to crawl under the covers and stay there for days.  I craved someone to do something for me, to shoulder every burden and take care of me.

Truthfully, when I left the church last night, I felt lighter somehow, clearer headed, less likely to cry at the drop of a hat.  I give some of the credit to the heavy duty decongestant I swallowed before I went in - my head no longer feels as if it's going to explode.

But I wonder if there is more to it than that, if a spiritual force empowers people in community to bolster one another, if the energy created by commonly held beliefs creates a cushion of comfort for our weary souls.

Whatever the source, I feel more rested today, less burdened.

Not quite so blue.

How about you?  What color is your Christmas?

The Real World

A while back I wrote about making a conscious effort to wean myself from the computer, from my occasional obsessive fixation with social media and blogging.  I've continued in that effort, and I'm pleasantly surprised at the outcome.  On days when I can successfully limit my online meandering, I feel infinitely calmer, less rushed, and more productive.  It feels as if the day suddenly expands, and when I look at my watch I'm surprised that it's earlier than I thought (when I usually have the opposite reaction). Writer Anne Lamott talks about this very thing in a recent article for Sunset magazine.  "You have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement," she says.  "Connection" and "amazement" being code words for living life to its fullest, for pursuing all those creative pursuits and real social interactions that make life meaningful for the long haul.  Although Lamott cites other things that share the blame for stealing our precious time - things like housecleaning, and going to the gym, and work - I think the internet is one of the most insidious culprits.   Housecleaning and exercise at least create a sense of personal satisfaction - you can see and feel that you've accomplished something.  Spending time on the internet - the few minutes that turns into an hour or more - actually leaves me feeling simultaneously drained and agitated, an odd state of disequilibrium that's peculiar to the 21st century human.  They've yet to come up with a name for this condition, but I suspect that at some point in the future, we'll see support groups developing to help those similarly afflicted.

The obsessive texting, emailing, Facebooking, and Twittering is surely indicative of the way we crave interaction with other humans.  We've all glommed onto this ability to "talk" to our friends and family at any time - while standing in line at the grocery, in a boring meeting at work, or even (God help us) in the bathroom (no, I have never texted, emailed, or talked on my phone in the bathroom, and I never will).   It seems kind of pathetic, and rather poignant too, that we all enjoy this remote connection so much.  Wouldn't it be so much nicer if we could meet our friends face to face every morning at the local diner and talk about what's happening in our lives, share our thoughts on the book we're reading, discuss the news of the day or comment on the weather.   Because that's really all the "social media" interaction amounts to in most cases - a chance to share our thoughts and relate what's happening in our lives to other people who might care.

Ah, but that kind of interaction belongs to another time and place, doesn't it - that elusive "Mayberry" for which I'm always longing.  For most of us, there is no local diner, only myriads of Starbucks and McDonald's.  And who has time to meet there in the morning,  with traffic and school and work and meetings, not to mention all those texts and emails to answer.

Lamott's final point is not only valid, but vital.  "What fills us is real, sweet, dopey, funny life," she says.  Don't wait until you're 80 to discover that all the time you spent texting, emailing, and checking the news feed, would have been better spent meeting a friend for coffee, or taking your dog for a walk, or visiting your elderly neighbor.

Don't become so enamored of the virtual world that you forget how to enjoy the real one.

Hmmm...I think I'll make that my Facebook status for today.

With Friends Like These...

One of my young friends was involved in a car accident last week, and though she wasn't critically hurt, she suffered some debilitating injuries - her clavicle is fractured, her knees are pretty banged up, and she took a rather hard hit on the nose.   Her little car was totaled, and from the looks of it, she was lucky to come out in one (somewhat broken) piece. My  maternal instinct kicks in when it comes to A., because she's about my son's age and she lives alone about 1000 miles away from her parents.  So I've been worried about her, and join the legion of her friends and supporters who are trying to rally around and help however we can.

Well, at least most of them are trying to help.

There is one "friend" whose behavior has been so outrageously self-centered that I'm dumbfounded beyond words.  A situation evolved last Thursday where A. re-injured her collar-bone, turning a hairline crack into a resounding, bone-popping fracture.   In the pain and confusion of trying to contact help, two friends were dispatched to the rescue - the girl in question, and a fellow teacher from the school where A. teachers.  The teacher friend arrived first, and finding A. nearly unconscious with pain, wasted no time getting her to the Emergency Department.

When the "other friend" arrived and discovered she had been "stood up," she became enraged.  She bombarded A. with angry phone messages, accusing her of being "ungrateful" and "selfish" and "inconsiderate."   She had "gone to all the trouble of rearranging her day" in order to help, and then A. simply "disregarded her."

It hasn't stopped there - despite A.'s attempts to apologize and explain, the girl has continued to send long winded diatribes over phone and e-mail.  She even went so far as to post a scathing comment on A.'s Facebook page, going into great detail about her "immature behavior."

Is it naive to find this kind of behavior appalling and irrational?  Please don't tell me this attitude is the norm for Generation X ~ if it is, I'll have to resign from the human race effective immediately.

The incident has left me thinking about friendship, and the way some people seem to attract the attention of needy, self-involved people.  I've had a couple of "toxic" friendships - those where I allowed someone to take advantage of my good nature and use it to further their own narcissistic intentions.  Because I'm a "people pleaser" at heart, it's easy enough for someone to use that personality trait to get what they want out of the relationship, with little or no consideration for what I might need.

Like me, A. is a young woman who believes in the "golden rule."  She plays fair, she works hard, she treats others with respect and kindness.  That's one of the reasons she's such a successful teacher.   It's also what makes her attractive to someone like the woman who has hurt her feelings so badly - she knows that A. would bend over backward to make the friendship work, would, in effect, pay homage to this woman and her needs.

So while A. is telling me all the ways she's attempted to explain what occurred that day, to convince her friend that she really does appreciate all the things that she's done to help, and to apologize profusely for whatever inconvenience she's caused, I'm thinking she should just tell the woman to stuff it.    It's about time someone brought this young woman to task for her kindergarten-ish behavior.  She's not a youngster, after all - she's in her late 20's, already the mother of a 2-year-old with another child on the way.  How can anyone so entirely self-centered face the demanding reality of raising children?  Why should she be allowed to railroad another person with this kind of unkindness?

Believe me, if there were police officers for bad behavior, I'd gladly turn her in.

Rather than continue to grovel, perhaps A. should take a hard line in her next e-mail or phone message to this woman.  What's to lose by telling her that she has hurt your feelings, that you consider her behavior unkind, selfish, and unfair?  That you're unable to continue a friendship with someone who could, in effect, kick you that hard while you were already down.

I doubt if she'd listen to a word of it,  but it might make A. feel better.  And right now, she can use any of that medicine she can get.

How about you?  Have you ever had a toxic friend like this?  How have you handled the situation?

Three Photographs

On the small table beside my bed, there are three photographs.  One of my son, age 2, standing in our breezeway with a very contemplative expression on his round, baby face, dressed in the matching Carter's slacks and t-shirts I bought for him in those days.  He's holding a Winnie the Pooh bear, his hand cupped around the bear's face, and I think he's about to capture an idea for one of the stories or drawings he used to spend endless hours creating. There is another photo of Brian, taken about 13 years later, on his first day of high school.  It's a tiny photo, the size listed in the school photographer's package as "wallet".  His face - thinner now, with definite signs of the man he will become - is still serious, although with a hint of smile.  I imagine he was nervous that day, the first day in a new place where he knows no one, does not quite fit in, is unsure just where he will be able to make any kind of mark.  I feel protective of him when I gaze at that picture, knowing as I now do that the years ahead would not be good ones for him.

There is one more photo, this one of my husband holding Magic in his arms on the dog's first birthday, a photo we gave to my mother in law for Christmas, a photo that she kept on her bedside table until I took it out of her apartment on the day she died.

Each night before I turn out the light, these three photos are the last thing I see before I sleep.  My eyes rest on each one in turn - the baby boy, the young man, the husband, even the magical little dog - the men in my life.

And I think how lucky I am.

But I also  think about the way time passes, so swift and inexorably sure.   Those long ago days with a small boy in tow  seemed endless, filled with games and growing and hopes for the future.  The teenage years, when the boy struggled to become a man, banging his head repeatedly against the walls of his world until we all wore the marks of his bruises - well, those days seemed like a black hole from which no reprieve of light was possible.

For about 10 years life seemed to organize itself into a pattern, and I had music to keep me busy, my family was settled and  healthy, we had our home in Florida and a dream of one day spending at least winters there.  I see that now as a golden time, a time of fulfillment and solid satisfaction with life in general.

These days, I sometimes feel as if I'm standing on a moving sidewalk, stock still, gliding along in this huge global continuum while the world swirls and eddies around me.  Life, passing by me while I remain motionless, letting the winds of change bluster through at will.

Perhaps those three photographs are emblematic of my natural tendency to dwell in the past and eventually get stuck there.  How does one go about taking charge of life, grabbing hold of circumstances by the throat and shaking them until something good falls onto the ground at your feet?

Although I'm still  a bit skeptical of the whole "if you can dream it you can do it" philosophy,  perhaps it makes sense to add a fourth photograph, one that encourages a vision of the future ~ something fresh and hopeful, just for me,  to gaze upon before I close my eyes to sleep.

'Tis the Season of Sickness

My husband loves to eat, so when he told me Thursday night that he didn't really feel like any dinner, warning bells started ringing in my head.  Sure enough, when I walked in the door after choir rehearsal he was stretched out on the reclining sofa, shivering like a leaf, despite being wrapped from head to toe in blankets and running the space heater full blast. "I'm really sick," he mumbled.

He really was.

He still is, actually, three days later. We've always called it "stomach flu", but now there's a fancier name for it - norovirus.  Whatever you name it, it's one nasty piece of work.  So I've been home playing nurse all weekend,  and washing my hands like a mad woman in hopes of staving off this very contagious ailment.

Oddly enough, Sickness and Christmas actually go hand in hand in my memories. When I was a child, I was nearly always sick at Christmas time.  Outwardly, I was the picture of health, but a combination of upper respiratory allergy and asthma invariably flared up around the holidays - whether it was the first damp chill of winter, the dry heat of our furnace, or the excitement and increased activity surrounding the season, I was usually coughing and wheezing by Christmas day, often spending Christmas Eve night sitting up with the vaporizer running, and slathered in Vicks VapoRub, the remedy of choice in those days for opening up my clogged airways.

I didn't mind it so much - everyone made a fuss over me and I was pampered even more than usual.  My grandmother would buy me lots of new books, because reading seemed to comfort me while I sat up at night, unable to catch my breath.  My mother hovered over me, keeping her eagle eye trained for the slightest paleness in my complexion or the tiniest glimmer of fever in my eyes, listening intently to the sound of each breath, alert for the garbled rattle that indicated my bronchial tubes were clogged with mucous.

What I did mind was missing the big family Christmas party, and I missed it on more than one occasion.  On my father's side of the family, I had four uncles and one aunt, who between them had produced over a dozen cousins to play with.  There were big family gatherings each year at Christmas, and I looked forward to these occasions with a combination of eager anticipation and horror that was particular, I think, to the only child.

My father would go to the party anyway, leaving me home in the more than capable care of my mother and grandparents.  One year he was headed out the door, and I overheard an angry exchange of words between he and my mother, a rare occurrence in our house.

"I think you're just using her as an excuse not to go, because you don't want to be around my family," he said.

"That's not true, and you know it," my mother replied.  "She cannot be around all those people, half of them smoking, and most of the kids sick with colds.  Do you want her to get pneumonia?"

"Of course not," my father sighed.  "I just want her to have some fun for a change."

Although I was no more than 8 years old, I was troubled by this exchange.  Obviously, I was concerned about being a point of contention between my parents.  I was also surprised at the insinuation that my mother didn't care for my dad's big family - how could you not like them?  Not like Uncle Bill, always smiling and joking, carrying around a neat square shaped glass that always clinked with ice cubes and contained a silvery looking drink with a slice of lime stuck in it? Then there was Aunt Marge, so beautiful and stylish in her designer clothes, her thick black hair perfectly styled, her makeup astutely applied.  Then there were my cousins Lynn and Karen, girls my own age who had amazing adventures as majorettes and actresses in school plays - what wasn't to like?

But even more disturbing was my father's concern that I have some fun.  I was deeply puzzled by this - what was I doing (or not doing) that should bring more fun to my life?  Staying home and reading my books, or curling up with my grandparents and watching Gunsmoke or Bonanza on television - that was fun, wasn't it?  I didn't mind putting on my pajamas early and getting into bed surrounded  by a menagerie of stuffed animals while my mother lay beside me and read aloud - that was fun too.

Looking back, I think what my father was wishing for me was a more normal life, one where I was less a rarefied flower and more of a playful little girl.  I suspect he sensed that somewhere in my nature was a person who liked other people, who enjoyed a bit of excitement and gaiety, who could joke and laugh and tease her younger cousins, maybe even run around the basement or roughouse on the floor.

My somewhat sickly childhood prevented me from doing those things, and I admit that my mother encouraged me to languish rather than push myself toward recovery.  With the perspective of years, I also believe there was some truth in my dad's original assertion -  she didn't enjoy the party atmosphere, the big family, the noise and confusion.  A quiet only child like me, she preferred being home in the quiet and safety of her familiar surroundings.

I'm been kicked into caregiver mode this weekend, and I see myself responding in familiar ways, eager to do anything I can to relieve the discomfort, trying to find ways to make it better, observing vigilantly for signs of improvement.  I'm still planning to  attend a concert tonight, although I can faintly hear a little voice nagging me to stay home and keep an eye on Jim.  But he's up and around now, eating small amounts of food - he assures me he'll be fine for a couple of hours.

It's been a long weekend - and I think it's all right if I have a little fun for a change.