December 30, 2020
I hope you had a good
Christmas. I hope there was something special, one moment of, if not joy then
at least a sense of contentment. We all know that life is comprised of so many disparate
moments, and emotions, and experiences that, good or bad, become etched upon
our brains, a part of our memories, and a portion of the book of our lives that
we, alone are writing.
I recall Christmases past that
were busy, busy times; I’ve cooked a feast for 13 and more people and I’ve done
that more than once. We were still sleeping upstairs and the room that is now
our bedroom was empty at the time of that first big feast, and we set up two trestles
with a piece of plywood on them for our table. We have an old cedar chest that
is about six foot long, and that became a bench for the occasion. Luckily, it’s
a flat-topped, very sturdy piece that was the exact right height for that
particular diner table.
Looking back on that first big
feast, the most memorable moment was when my now late son, Anthony, a strapping
and always hungry teenager turned to me and said, “We should eat like this every
day!”
I also recall David looking at
all that food, and I could just see his mind calculating the cost. I simply
reminded him that a feast was supposed to be a lot of food—and that we had
budgeted for that one. Taking his cue from me, he relaxed.
That first Christmas family
feast was more than twenty-five years ago, and yet I can still reach back and
touch the joy, and the love. I guess because it’s the way I’ve conditioned
myself over the years to look on the positive, I really don’t recall how
exhausted I felt, though intellectually I know that I was. I also know that
there was a huge disagreement between a couple of my guests, a great roaring
war of words, though for the life of me I can’t recall who, or what it was
about. Again, conditioning. I tend not to hang on to the negative.
I’m proud of that conditioning
because as a child and a teenager, I was most definitely Wednesday’s child—full
of woe!
But being full of woe, or bitter,
or filled with negativity feels awful. And when I discovered that life was a
choice, I decided that since I didn’t like feeling awful, it was up to me to
change that. It took a while, but now, I never feel that way for very long.
That icky black miasma of negative vibes? Yeah, I don’t have that anymore.
Little flashes, a few difficult moments, that’s all. Kind of like how when your
power goes out and you have a backup generator that kicks in, but it takes a
few seconds to do so and you’re in the dark? I’m like that when it comes to
those down moments.
We ate well last week in the
Ashbury household. On Christmas Day, we had a prime rib roast that turned out
exceptionally well. And on Sunday, I roasted a duck that had been in my freezer
for a few months. Our daughter loves prime rib but refuses to eat duck. So she
very happily had chicken breasts, which went well with the sides I’d chosen to
serve with the duck: rice with raisins, candied yams, and David’s choice of
veggie, squash. As for the family members we were socially distant from over
the holiday weekend, I spoke with some of them and texted with the rest.
In between our two big meals,
we ate leftovers and on Saturday evening, the three of us were in the living
room, watching that new Wonder Woman movie that had premiered the day before.
And now it’s time to look
forward to the New Year. I saw an ad on CNN for a New Year’s Eve countdown, and
I’m curious. Will they be in Times Square? I know there will be no crowds there
on Thursday evening. If that’s the case, and they do film from there, I want to
see that. It’ll likely be the only New Year’s Eve in Times Square with no
people, ever. A once in a forever kind of event! I don’t want to miss that.
There’s a commercial for a
dating service that I saw the other day: it was a match between Satan and a
young woman named 2020. Talk about gallows humour! I was laughing and realized
that my laughter was the whole point of the ad—and at the same time, a
commentary on how best to cope with that which seems impossible to cope with.
Laughter really is the best
medicine. So wear that damn mask, and laugh. The sound carries well through the
fabric, and the sparkle in your eyes makes for a very nice smile, indeed.
David and I wish you all a
very happy and healthy and delightful 2021!
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
No comments:
Post a Comment