christmas time
From my sister's house, I went off to New Hampshire with my dad, his girlfriend, and my brother. Skiing was great. I think my dad and Janet had less fun, because they were skiing more cautiously -- they were basically fighting the mountain the whole time. I can't blame them really -- besides being on the upward end of middle-aged, they're both skiing on reconstructed knees. Because of skiing accidents. So.
Nonetheless, my brother and I bombed down most of the trails, and got some pretty good air a few times. The second day, we waked and baked, which made the brief journey to the chairlift very exciting, almost suspenseful -- like we were on a mission. Not to mention the first lift ride itself -- I went on alone, because I got a little ahead of my brother. It's a very long lift, that first one we did, at Attitash, and very scenic. With my goggles on, everything was tinted gold, and the sun kept peaking through the trees; it was... majestic, really. And the quiet of the snow falling and the isolation of being suspended high in the air, and the symmetry, sitting in the middle of the chair, under the cable, going on forever in a straight line, up over the mountaintops, all these evenly spaced chairs in front of me moving forward at a steady pace... There was just something so calming and wonderful about it.
So wonderful that I started silently monologuing about it, composing a journal entry, and I ended up thinking things like, "And I thought everything you are reading right now -- these exact words -- this sentence -- then on the chairlift, and I'm saying 'then' even though right now it's 'now'." Because, I don't know, I was high. I was kind of disappointed and annoyed that my meditative state had slipped away and been replaced with that kind of ridiculous rambling. I also kept getting ridiculous songs in my head -- songs from "Baby Songs," and also "A Whole New World." Ohhh, my brain.
Both nights we went swimming in the hotel, and made great use of the outdoor hot tub. We'd been daring ourselves to stand outside of the hot tub for short period of time before getting back in. And this escalated to a pretty absurd point pretty quickly. At one point, my dad and I left the sauna and went outside to join Janet and Jonathan in the hot tub... and my Dad didn't even notice that there were four other people (siblings, I think, ranging in age from 8-ish to 20-ish). He was so intent on fulfilling the dare he and Jonathan had settled on that he just went outside growling like a crazy person, with this maniacal look in his eye, and his arms held out like a zombie or something, and he went straight for the snow and lay down on it for several seconds, before (still growling), getting into the tub.
The other family was stunned, I think. But we all laughed and tried to make it seem less crazy. I asked my brother if he had done that when he came out, as he'd said he would, but he said no, he'd decided not to because of the other people. But it turned out that was no reason to stop our craziness. They joined right in, led by the 8-year-old, who stood up and announced to my dad, "Just because you did that, I'm going to do it!" And did so. Eventually this resulted in me too running across the snow (in a bathing suit, in 14 degree weather (Fahrenheit) with WIND), lying down in it and rolling, and scooping the snow and throwing it in the air. And then getting back in the hot tub. Which is really only kind of relieving -- it feels better than freezing, but it burns too -- feels like a million hot needles poking you all over. But then the tingling subsides and you feel all nice and toasty.
So (between the sauna, the cold air and snow, the hot tub, the indoor jacuzzi, and the pool) we enjoyed messing with our senses.
And then Dad dropped us off here, at my Mom's house, where another of my sisters is staying for a few days (my brother-in-law too, but he had to leave this morning). We've spent the past few days shopping and wrapping, mostly, and also watching old home videos we hadn't seen in forever. It's weird to see those.
I think that, in a way, though, I feel less nostalgic than I have often tended to feel in the past. I think that... things weren't necessarily better then -- I wasn't, really. I mean, I was a very happy child, I think. But I also was very sensitive, too, and I did have a bit of middle-child syndrome going on. Some of the same things that get to me now got to me then too. And now I am in more control of my life and more aware of who and how I want to be. Being a grown-up isn't really so bad, is it? I like things the way they are right now.
I'm kind of bummed about not getting to wake up in Liz's house tomorrow morning though. I won't get to watch DJ and Molly go down the stairs and see what Santa's left. But I'll see them shortly after and they can tell us about it, and that's good enough.
Now we've gone to Christmas mass. There's something very melancholy about Catholic services, sometimes. The ones I like best, anyway. When it's nighttime and there are candles and wreaths and branches and Christmas songs -- not the stupid ones on the radio -- the real ones, the epic religious ones, in minor keys, sung by choirs, accompanied by strings or organ pipes. And Father Bailey gave mass tonight -- he usually did when I was little. He must be very old. He reminds me of my grandparents, in a way. It's such an old, weary, dying religion. I found the mass very moving, for some reason.
I remember when I was younger, deciding that tradition and ritual were empty -- that I'd be better off really praying in my own way. But now it's my own "real" prayer that's empty because... I don't believe much of anything. Nothing solid. It's through the ritual that feeling comes, and a sense of meaning, even if there's nothing behind it. It's in the doing it, in the saying it. It's a good thing to do sometimes, I think, even though it doesn't mean anything.
I mean, not "anything" like the kinds of things I expected. Not Metaphysics the way the old philosophers wanted it to be, not Truth. It's all just abstracted human sadness and hope. Nostalgia and grief and fear and joy. About the suffering in the world, about transience, about youth and beauty. All these things are part of our animal reality.
Maybe I'll write more later -- figure out what I'm trying to say -- I have to go help with dinner.
ETA: This Wallace Stevens poem says what I'm trying to say, regarding the Christmas mass:
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.
Nonetheless, my brother and I bombed down most of the trails, and got some pretty good air a few times. The second day, we waked and baked, which made the brief journey to the chairlift very exciting, almost suspenseful -- like we were on a mission. Not to mention the first lift ride itself -- I went on alone, because I got a little ahead of my brother. It's a very long lift, that first one we did, at Attitash, and very scenic. With my goggles on, everything was tinted gold, and the sun kept peaking through the trees; it was... majestic, really. And the quiet of the snow falling and the isolation of being suspended high in the air, and the symmetry, sitting in the middle of the chair, under the cable, going on forever in a straight line, up over the mountaintops, all these evenly spaced chairs in front of me moving forward at a steady pace... There was just something so calming and wonderful about it.
So wonderful that I started silently monologuing about it, composing a journal entry, and I ended up thinking things like, "And I thought everything you are reading right now -- these exact words -- this sentence -- then on the chairlift, and I'm saying 'then' even though right now it's 'now'." Because, I don't know, I was high. I was kind of disappointed and annoyed that my meditative state had slipped away and been replaced with that kind of ridiculous rambling. I also kept getting ridiculous songs in my head -- songs from "Baby Songs," and also "A Whole New World." Ohhh, my brain.
Both nights we went swimming in the hotel, and made great use of the outdoor hot tub. We'd been daring ourselves to stand outside of the hot tub for short period of time before getting back in. And this escalated to a pretty absurd point pretty quickly. At one point, my dad and I left the sauna and went outside to join Janet and Jonathan in the hot tub... and my Dad didn't even notice that there were four other people (siblings, I think, ranging in age from 8-ish to 20-ish). He was so intent on fulfilling the dare he and Jonathan had settled on that he just went outside growling like a crazy person, with this maniacal look in his eye, and his arms held out like a zombie or something, and he went straight for the snow and lay down on it for several seconds, before (still growling), getting into the tub.
The other family was stunned, I think. But we all laughed and tried to make it seem less crazy. I asked my brother if he had done that when he came out, as he'd said he would, but he said no, he'd decided not to because of the other people. But it turned out that was no reason to stop our craziness. They joined right in, led by the 8-year-old, who stood up and announced to my dad, "Just because you did that, I'm going to do it!" And did so. Eventually this resulted in me too running across the snow (in a bathing suit, in 14 degree weather (Fahrenheit) with WIND), lying down in it and rolling, and scooping the snow and throwing it in the air. And then getting back in the hot tub. Which is really only kind of relieving -- it feels better than freezing, but it burns too -- feels like a million hot needles poking you all over. But then the tingling subsides and you feel all nice and toasty.
So (between the sauna, the cold air and snow, the hot tub, the indoor jacuzzi, and the pool) we enjoyed messing with our senses.
And then Dad dropped us off here, at my Mom's house, where another of my sisters is staying for a few days (my brother-in-law too, but he had to leave this morning). We've spent the past few days shopping and wrapping, mostly, and also watching old home videos we hadn't seen in forever. It's weird to see those.
I think that, in a way, though, I feel less nostalgic than I have often tended to feel in the past. I think that... things weren't necessarily better then -- I wasn't, really. I mean, I was a very happy child, I think. But I also was very sensitive, too, and I did have a bit of middle-child syndrome going on. Some of the same things that get to me now got to me then too. And now I am in more control of my life and more aware of who and how I want to be. Being a grown-up isn't really so bad, is it? I like things the way they are right now.
I'm kind of bummed about not getting to wake up in Liz's house tomorrow morning though. I won't get to watch DJ and Molly go down the stairs and see what Santa's left. But I'll see them shortly after and they can tell us about it, and that's good enough.
Now we've gone to Christmas mass. There's something very melancholy about Catholic services, sometimes. The ones I like best, anyway. When it's nighttime and there are candles and wreaths and branches and Christmas songs -- not the stupid ones on the radio -- the real ones, the epic religious ones, in minor keys, sung by choirs, accompanied by strings or organ pipes. And Father Bailey gave mass tonight -- he usually did when I was little. He must be very old. He reminds me of my grandparents, in a way. It's such an old, weary, dying religion. I found the mass very moving, for some reason.
I remember when I was younger, deciding that tradition and ritual were empty -- that I'd be better off really praying in my own way. But now it's my own "real" prayer that's empty because... I don't believe much of anything. Nothing solid. It's through the ritual that feeling comes, and a sense of meaning, even if there's nothing behind it. It's in the doing it, in the saying it. It's a good thing to do sometimes, I think, even though it doesn't mean anything.
I mean, not "anything" like the kinds of things I expected. Not Metaphysics the way the old philosophers wanted it to be, not Truth. It's all just abstracted human sadness and hope. Nostalgia and grief and fear and joy. About the suffering in the world, about transience, about youth and beauty. All these things are part of our animal reality.
Maybe I'll write more later -- figure out what I'm trying to say -- I have to go help with dinner.
ETA: This Wallace Stevens poem says what I'm trying to say, regarding the Christmas mass:
Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
Light the first light of evening, as in a room
In which we rest and, for small reason, think
The world imagined is the ultimate good.
This is, therefore, the intensest rendezvous.
It is in that thought that we collect ourselves,
Out of all the indifferences, into one thing:
Within a single thing, a single shawl
Wrapped tightly round us, since we are poor, a warmth,
A light, a power, the miraculous influence.
Here, now, we forget each other and ourselves.
We feel the obscurity of an order, a whole,
A knowledge, that which arranged the rendezvous.
Within its vital boundary, in the mind.
We say God and the imagination are one...
How high that highest candle lights the dark.
Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.