Christmas at my place
Or, doing what you can
1. Half my family is on the subcontinent for the holidays. My mom left the stockings stuffed and the freezer full, but, you know.
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| Dinner and dessert |
"Fruitcream!" declares my dad, who in halving a dozen grapes has just completed the most meticulous kitchen task I've ever seen him undertake. "It's a dessert!" "That is some bullshit," says my brother. "Or some Indian bullshit," I counter. This turns out to be true1.
2. We top our mod tree facsimile with the avenging angel, a creepy, balding mess of spray-painted cheesecloth I made in fifth-grade art class2. I didn't intentionally sculpt a faceless harbinger of death! I just sucked at crafts; that's all.
You can imagine what this looks like in the dark, lit red as if hurling curses from some glittering column of hellfire. Merry Christmas, all ye sinners in our living room.
3. I did not anticipate weather like this when I picked December for the Hail Mary bike ban. Half-crazy from watching roadies whiz past the kitchen window, I go outside and just start walking. This is a much more rewarding exercise than it is in the urban jungle, and within a few hours I've made it to Christmas mass3.
It's not a large park, and I'm nowhere far from echoes of garrulous family outings or the thumping tread of runners up the trail. But ankle-deep in leaves and loam in the dim crease of the hill I find a thick and heavy silence crouched amid the noise—a presence, not an absence, something I'm with and not without. An attendant ring of laurels form the buttresses, hold it in. The first, last, best cathedral. The first, last, best hope.
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1. Don't worry, Mom; I imagine the leftovers will still be in the fridge for you to try when you get home.
2. Our tree in Berkeley sports medals and a vicuna that Uncle Anand brought me back from South America.
3. I've also walked my left leg into uselessness, which calls into serious questions the merits of said bike ban. Next (lame) step? Hoping Curtis Cramblett's got some serious game.
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| Hark! |
3. I did not anticipate weather like this when I picked December for the Hail Mary bike ban. Half-crazy from watching roadies whiz past the kitchen window, I go outside and just start walking. This is a much more rewarding exercise than it is in the urban jungle, and within a few hours I've made it to Christmas mass3.
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| Revere in the shade, exalt in the sun. |
It's not a large park, and I'm nowhere far from echoes of garrulous family outings or the thumping tread of runners up the trail. But ankle-deep in leaves and loam in the dim crease of the hill I find a thick and heavy silence crouched amid the noise—a presence, not an absence, something I'm with and not without. An attendant ring of laurels form the buttresses, hold it in. The first, last, best cathedral. The first, last, best hope.
______________________________________________
1. Don't worry, Mom; I imagine the leftovers will still be in the fridge for you to try when you get home.
2. Our tree in Berkeley sports medals and a vicuna that Uncle Anand brought me back from South America.
3. I've also walked my left leg into uselessness, which calls into serious questions the merits of said bike ban. Next (lame) step? Hoping Curtis Cramblett's got some serious game.
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