Merry Christmas
I know I couldn’t have made it this far without you. Any time I’ve been on the verge of disaster you’ve gestured or spoken a word not to make my problems disappear, but to show me how to solve them. I came here full of my high hopes that buoyed me up into the clouds, and sunblind I exalted in my accomplishments. But as the easing hand of gravity began to press me down it was you who taught a floating man to fly. Then the darkness. So many times I shut my eyes in terror against the darkness, unknowing which came first: the shadows all around me, or my keeping out of the light. But again under your instruction I learned that my heart burning like a sun will light all the paths and heights before me. The most terrifying thing in the world is to think that we are not loved, that love is a lie, that there is a place or a thing somewhere, somehow that is made of terror and that banishes love. I see now so clearly that there of course could be no terror without love, no love without terror first to be loved. And even warm with that fire in my breast, even for moments, tears slid down my cheeks and sizzled in the blaze as I felt the weight of life on my shoulders. Atlas’ burden seemed a paltry marble next to this sacred duty of breathing, banding us all together in our fear and pride to make a paradise out of slow and crumbling wasteland energies. But how great an accomplishment it is to know that children can be born, and that they can laugh easy in a place carved out for them already, their own trials already made easier by those who have gone before. No dark without light, no warmth without chill, no life without death. Even the most magnificent of cities founder, as stars burn out in the sky. The weight is again passed around, the pressure on, the sinews flexed. I love the EARTH to death, from womb to grave, sun cresting all horizons as leaves and hands lift to its shining face. But in the flux, I need only one thing more, beyond blade and bandage.
I need you to watch over me.